In the Goun/Fongbe-speaking southern Benin, the word vidomègon (wich literally translates to “child sent by a third person”), is used to describe a “traditional” practice of fostering children. Indeed, it is not uncommon for a family with children between the ages of 5 and 18 to decide to send them for a temporary period to another family, often wealthier, that can provide them with childcare and education in exchange for free domestic work. In recent decades, this practice has been at the centre of public and humanitarian discourses, raising particular concerns about the risk of slavery drifts it can sometimes entail. During my fieldwork, which I have been conducting since 2019, I had the opportunity to meet some young girls who said they had spontaneously become vidomègon. In their narratives, this option allowed them to escape from their poor families. The literature on kinship and dependency in Africa has highlighted the character of hierarchical solidarity that prevails within kinship groups and collectivities, where even the domestic work of younger members and women is often experienced as a ‘due service' in exchange for the collective solidarity enjoyed. However, through the life stories of some of these young girls, we can see that free domestic work inside the kinship group is perceived by them as much less tolerable when the kinship network is in economic difficulties and therefore cannot guarantee this solidarity. In this sense, I find it interesting to see how subjects consciously move between the relations of power and dependency in which they are embedded, trying to use their subalternity to their advantage, to improve their living conditions, also by using and reinterpreting a "traditional" practice.