This article, based on research in the field of Medical Anthropology, intends to analyze certain cultural factors that play a role in the development of children and adolescents with HIV in support homes. There are similarities and differences in the child rearing patterns of each institution and, consequently, in the individual and social development of the children and adolescents. One notable similarity is, nonetheless, that the improvement in the quality of life and life expectancy (with many children becoming adolescents) seems to have become a problem for their adult caretakers. I try to explain how this problem is largely due to the ideas and the image of what a child with Aids in Brazil represents. These ideas are culturally constructed and follow modern categories and discussions concerning childhood, development and morally acceptable social responses. The development of children and adolescents with HIV/Aids argues against these categories and threatens the child rearing patterns established by the adults on the one hand and by the structure of the institutions on the other.
Children; adolescence; HIV; recovery homes; culture