This article aims to discuss a form of bond in the practice of acting as a godfather/godmother in some host institutions in Brazil. This can be described as a way to give children alternative significant bonds through the relationship between children and the people who visit them in the host institutions. Nevertheless, it can be noticed that this practice has been used as a way to fulfill existential gaps. After a short verification of the sheltered children situation, we analyzed four interviews with godmothers of sheltered children and a clinical case of a godchild. The method used for the research was the psychoanalytic method. From the analyzers listed in the interviews, important reflections were constructed about the way of the relationship fostered by being a godfather: the exaltation of solidarity, correlated with feelings like goodness and love for the other one, an exacerbated narcissism as an attempt to recover the omnipotence felt in the beginning of life, the seduction that permeates the relationship between the godfather and the sheltered children, the ambivalence of feelings aroused in this relationship and the similarities of the act of being a godfather with the adoption process, according to the search for the ideal son, that is extended to the search for the ideal godfather/godmother and the ideal godchild.
Attachment behavior; Children institutional care; Codependency (Psychology); Psychoanalysis