Foster care is a system in which children who have become orphaned or were removed from abusive homes are taken care of in a temporary capacity until they are adopted or their custody situation stabilizes. As the Orphanage of Fear has become a Dead Horse Trope, the foster care system has become the new bogeyman of Acceptable Targets. Very, very few characters (especially not main characters) are happily fostered. Their foster parents are always some variety of Abusive Parents, anywhere from "didn't care about the kid except for the money he brought in" to "treats the kid worse than the original abusive situation they escaped from in the first place". And don't expect the Department of Child Disservices to step in on their behalf, either; the kid just gets bounced to some new foster home.