“What doesn't kill you makes you stronger”: Survivalist self-reliance as resilience and risk among young adults aging out of foster care

This interpretive study explores the experiences of 44 Midwestern young adults in the process of aging out of foster care. This paper highlights the degree to which they endorse self-reliance as they reflect on past experiences, offer advice to foster youth, and identify barriers to achieving their own life goals. Findings suggest that this identity must be understood in multiple contexts including societal expectations of independence and autonomy, foster-care and family of origin as developmental contexts, and current scholarship on youth aging out of care. We argue that vigilant self-reliance can be a source of resilience but also a potential risk in facilitating the very connections to supportive relationships that research suggests can produce positive outcomes in adulthood. This article advances a holistic life course perspective [Stein, M. & Wade, J. (2000). Helping care leavers: Problems and strategic responses. London: HMSO.] on the development of independence and self-reliance in adulthood to expand current conceptualizations of these and more recent ideals of interdependence promoted in child welfare policy and practice.