The African cultural complex of socially distributed childcare (Weisner Bradley & Kilbride 1997) is a unique example of a culturally specific practice with its own emic logic. The tradition of child fosterage in Africa, or care for a child other than one’s own biological child, is a normative practice. Western research on child fosterage has debated the cost/benefits to children with disparities found that they favor biological children (Bledsoe 1990; Goody 1973; Isugihue-Abanihe, 1991). My own previous work among Aaumbo speakers in Namibia revealed that in 2000 children in fostered arrangements were disadvantaged in height, weight, and education compared to biological children living in the same household (Brown 2009; 2011). Research has not addressed, however, the lived experience of these children as few studies have examined fosterage from the perspective of the child. The current study analyzes 11 life history interviews of Aaumbo women in Namibia who were fostered as children, remembering their childhoods with their biological parents and with their foster parents. Several themes emerged from the interviews that describe the complexity of the losses and gains of fostering relationships and the relative position of children within them. Reasons and motivations to foster were revealed as were protective factors like preserving sibling groups and cultural scripts regarding the arrangement.