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When a child is removed from his/her family and placed in family foster care, he or she may feel they are being disloyal to their family of origin. Meanwhile, a fantasy of kidnapping may well arise in the carer’s mind, while the birth parents may live a subjective experience of intrusion and breaking-in. Such emotions may cause disturbances that hinder the placement’s objectives: aggressiveness of the birth parents, hostility and anger for the child, a sense of guilt for the foster parent, etc. Are such feelings and disturbances inevitable, considering the family placement model, as consequences of the very nature of the family? The author seeks to demonstrate that such detrimental consequences derive from our preconceptions of what we think a family should be and of our representations of what parents should be like. Based on a case analysis, it is argued that a change in our preconceptions regarding the family and parenthood, and thus a change in our understanding of family placement, can attenuate such detrimental consequences, in the child’s best interests.