I'm always appalled to read about the treatment of unmarried mothers in the 60s, and in the 70s it was not much better. They needed above all support from their families and I had two friends who got pregnant, had their baby, lived at home with their parents and later - within 4 years married and had other children.
The best kept secret in those days was that they could get Social Security money for themselves and their baby and as there were no nursery places then they had that money until they went out to work.
Somehow these homes for unmarried motheres must have been making a tidy profit because these young women could have got benefit just like they do to day. It is a scandal that there was this trade in good healthy illegitimate babies to be adopted. The whole thing stinks.

I was the Godmother of one of those babies, and the young mother was well looked after by the state. That was in 1965.

bralee and a hug.

And to others who had to hide their pregnancies too or give their babies up .

Margaret, for those who were turned away from their homes the mother and baby homes were needed, would a pregnant single girl have managed in a B&B?

There was a lot of stigma in the sixties not only of illigillegitimacy.

I experienced a lot of it, but then, when older, I realized what my parents, especially my late father must have experienced.
Not only was their education still rather Victorian, they also had to go through World War 11 with most of the men having to fight. I can remember what my late father mentioned about his experience and he got badly wounded, which again would not have helped his temper etc.
To cut it short; they had enough of misery during the war years, so must have found it difficult to accept what they did not agree too.

It's difficult trying to understand the parents of that time but it must have been heartbreaking for them, they were of their time just as we are now, in the seventies mental illness was not accepted as it is now and some still don't accept it.

I'm sure some of the mothers of pregnant women must have been thinking of the harsh life facing their daughters. When we hear about mothers telling their daughters that they have ruined their lives, I think they believed it, just as many do today. The stigma and shame were just part of what was going on. Most mothers wanted their daughters to have a better life than them and getting pregnant must have brought disappointment.

Wilma, I really think that this was the case in my own situation. My own mother hadn't known she was illegitimate until she was about to get married, and was allowed to see her own birth certificate. By this time, the person who she'd thought of as her mother had been dead for 3 years, and her actual mother (who she'd only ever thought of as her sister) never ever did acknowledge her as being her daughter. This affected my mother deeply.

I remember hearing at school other girls saying they would be thrown out if they got pregnant and I kept quiet because I knew my mother would never do that. What was going on in these mothers' heads to throw your own child out of the home ? My grandmother was illigitimate and was brought up by her aunt.
Adding to my post. the people who interviewed pregnant girls never gave them an alternative to these dreadful homes. I accompanied my friend and when I suggested another alternative they just put on a blank face.
One friend with a little boy was later a district nurse and she said a lot of lonely old people she visited, were the ones who had thrown their daughters out of the house- Admittedly she was bitter at her treatment but she kept her little boy.

bralee, I've just seen your post. It must have been a terrifying time for a girl as young as yourself. You must have felt so alone.

But what alternatives were there ?

Exactly, Anniebach The mother-and-baby homes with adoption to decent families had been set up as an alternative to the workhouse followed by dreadful disgrace and poverty, which was what faced "ruined" girls previously - no husband to support them, and no-one would employ them as live-in servants, the most common work for girls without special skills. "Benefits" were skimpy to say the least and boiled down to charity, if you were very lucky.

One older half-brother of an ancestor of mine had been born in the workhouse to an unmarried girl. What kind of start is that?

Having to give up their babies broke their hearts - but they had food and shelter while they were pregnant, and the babies didn't starve in their arms. Half a loaf is better than none - but thank God they get more of the loaf now, and are not ostracised.

Exactly Elegran, before the mother and baby homes there was as you say - the workhouse and we cannot forget mental hospitals , these were the places before the mother and baby homes .

We have been critical of the parents of unmarried mothers but perhaps we need to think how many may have spent their lives thinking of their adopted grandchild , how many insisted on their daughters going away to have their baby to protect their daughter from being judged and the child from being branded a bastard

I only found out my grandmother was illegitimate MargaretX when I researched the family history. She was brought up by her GPs and then by her aunt. It was not talked about but DM hinted a couple of times that there was something about her MIL that they couldn't speak about. Nonetheless, I think she had a happy childhood with her aunt and aunt's husband and her one surviving cousin because they remained close.

There were also informal adoptions, not legal but arranged between neighbours and friends. My great-grandparents on the other side of the family informally adopted a little boy from friends after his mother died when he was about 2. That would have been in the late 1800s. His actual grandparents took his sister but not him. He seemed to have had a happy life with my GGPs and went on to have a good career.

My great aunt also born in the later 1800s. My grandfather went away to an orphanage (where he had a good education) after his father died. One holiday he came home to find his widowed mother nursing her newborn daughter. He and at least one sibling never acknowledged her. She spent her working life from about 14 as a maid in a theatrical boarding house and contacted my mother about 1960 when she got to pensionable age and retired. This tiny bent lady was so grateful for her pension and thrilled with the almshouse my mother helped her to apply for. Her own home with a tiny garden after decades of backbreaking domestic work. She was unfailingly cheerful and used to bring chocolate finger biscuits and other treats when she came to tea. She enthralled my mother with stories of the singers and actors she had met. The census returns for the boarding house record jugglers, musicians and magicians from all over Europe.
I don't understand how her siblings could have rejected her for so long, I'd always found my grandfather a kind man.

When I came to the north east in the Very late Seventies I was appalled to read in the local papers about babies being found in telephone boxes or generally wrapped in Tesco carrier bags. There would be a plea for the mother to come forward and the baby was given a name. It then seemed to die down as people became more accepting. I think coming from Liverpool there was a much more tolerant view or possibly an amoral view I don't know.

Stansgran It is very sad that it happens occasionally these days, too.

And baby hatches are still around in some countries I believe:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_hatch

In the early 1960s the NCUMC discussed possibilities with pregnant unmarried women; the mother and babies homes were available for those with no alternative, no family support, the desperate. They varied according to who they were run by but were indeed a last resort.
Nowadays we rarely know, or need to know, a woman's marital status and hopefully 'What will the neighbours say?' Is far less important.

I was born in 1960 illegitimate. My grandparents adopted me and my mother became my sister. I have no idea who my father is and have never been tempted to ask. It has never bothered me and I am quite open about it when I need to be. I am not ashamed about it because at the end of the day it was not my fault. I had a fabulous upbringing and still call her my sister to this day.

Nannabo glad to hear a positive outcome in the Sixties. And Jalima it's good to know that baby hatches are being revived. I remember seeing one in Antwerp in the medieval or phage and the mothers there could leave a token with which they could claim the child.

Or phage= orphanage ipad in control.

My FiL and his brother married two sisters, only to find out that they were aunt and niece. It turns out that their father had two families on the go at the same time and he was not a man to be trifled with, so both mothers accepted the situation. From what little has been said, he did provide for both families and both women called themselves Mrs X. He was married to my DH's grandmother, but both women called themselves his wife. He had other children too with other women, but from what I can glean, nobody talked about what was happening outside of their own family. DH doesn't actually know who Mum's parents are though, just who she called Mother and Father (DH never knew them).

DH's aunt makes passing reference to 'Father' now and again, but it's clearly not a subject for discussion. DH knows very little about his family and doesn't have a curious nature, which I find frustrating as Mrs Curious. Since my FiL's 2nd wife died a few years ago, we've become closer because I take him to all his medical appointments and he's delighted in telling me about his life. I suspect I know more about DH's family than he does now, but it's clear that his mother's side of the family has a fair bit of illegitimacy that was accepted, yet covered up and not discussed.

Attitudes MAY have changed in the late sixties, but they were certainly "alive and well" at the start of the decade, as evidenced by my comments earlier.

I knew several girls in the 60s who got pregnant while unmarried, One was sent away to have baby in secret and it was presumably adopted, two married the father in haste but neither marriage lasted, and one insisted on keeping the baby much to her parents' anguish. But she later married a windower with young children and they went on the have one between them. This was all in the 60s. Who knows how many I didn't get to hear about? It was generally hushed up and the Call the midwife story line this week was spot on . (The one where the young lad was hoping to go to university but his girlfriend was pregnant.)
My MiL was illegitimate and deeply ashamed. She had all sorts of abuse when she was young due to the stigma. He mother had two illegitimate children and neither knew who their father was. He mother later married so they were legitimised but it was not their father. My DH didn't even know about this until she told us both, in tears, after our wedding. This would have been in the 1920s though.

Thank you for the comments to my earlier posting. I keep trying to write "the book" as I was just placed a ward of court and therefore in a children's home, into the Borough of Barnet when I fell pregnant on my first holiday camp break with the home! I was also extremely fortunate that my son found me when he was 20 and that's why I have always wanted him and I to write "the book" as there were so many spooky coincidences and our paths crossed! More upsetting was the fact because I was in care of the council had I kept him he would automatically been a ward of court until he was 18 and placed in the home with me. There are so many terribly sad parts to this story, the night I had him just with gas and air and 9lb 9oz! and put in the ward with all the married mothers with their husbands visiting and looking down at me, the day I had him taken from my arms at 6 weeks old in some cold room in Barnet but the worse his adopted mum died when he was 13 and he was then put in a children's home the very main reason I gave him up. Much more to this story which I promise myself I will write that book! This is why this site is so brilliant, it's nice to belong!

It's good to be able to talk about things, Bralee, and feel completely anonymous while doing so.
It sounds like things were really difficult for you when you were young, but the fact that your son managed to find you is wonderful.