Chocolate pudding. Well done you

chocolatepudding, what a horrible person she must be

Chocolatepudding, you kept your pride and can well do without anyone like that awful person in your life. I'm so sorry to hear about your little girl. Just when you needed a bit of warm support from those who should have known better.

The Mental Deficiency Act 1913 included this category.

"Moral Defectives ~ moral defectives were people who, from an early age, displayed “some permanent mental defect coupled with strong vicious or criminal propensities on which punishment had little or no effect”.

*Unmarried Mothers also became absorbed into this category."

A lot of unmarried mothers were probably incarcerated by this legislation and even if the legislation changed a bit the stigma still went on for many years. Horrific!

Until 1959 the mothers of illegitimate children could be categorised as moral imbeciles and locked away. It was down to what kind of community you live in as to how often this kind of thing happened, but unmarried women who had more than one child were prime candidates. Of course, nothing much happened to the men who got the women pregnant. We think we're so civilised, yet we don't need to look too far back to see what kind of behaviour was considered acceptable.

chocolatepudding

acanthus I suspect something like that happened in my husband's family on his mother's side. It either involved his grandfather or his great-grandfather, but I doubt we'll ever find out now.

I watched Philomena a couple of days ago and found it harrowing. The deliberate lies to prevent the adopted child and their mother being able to find each other decades later was just vicious. Now I want to read Martin Sixsmith's book.

I've got that to watch too.

Wilma I thought that situation might not have changed until the big 1959 MH act reforms but I wasn't sure. Thank you.

In the fifties and sixties the British givernment were shipping children in himes to Australia , many had miserable lives, the mothers were not told ,

Attitudes in the 60's depended very much on where you lived. The 'shame' and blame was still rife for many years and sadly even today it's not acceptable with some
.

Wilma - I spotted the book at a friend's house and she's passed it on to me. Hard to put down. It's even more heartbreaking than the film. Poor toddlers, poor mothers. I didn't realise just how inhumane and greedy the church was.

I have only recently picked up the continuation of this thread. Such narrow mindedness and lack of forgiveness. How cruel to treat such young girls like that for so called moral reasons. What a lot of hypocrisy. We then criticise other cultures for treating women badly.

I was born illegitimate my father was an Italian prisoner of war here
and at the end of war was sent back to Italy. I only saw him once
at the age of 10. It was difficult as I was at Catholic schools and in the
50 and 60's there was a stigma .
I found that I made up a false story especially as I had an English surname
not Italian.
Times have changed hopefully for the stigma of illegitimacy

Musty - that is so sad. I hope your meeting him was a positive experience. I do think things have changed now. As a child in the 1940s I remember overhearing adults whispering about illegitimacy (and indeed divorce) then. Ironic since so many children were fathered by men who were here for a short time and returned to their own countries.

I well remember this era.

I met a friend at a bus stop on the way home from work and she told me she was expecting a baby.(She wasn't married or engaged.)

I told her I was so happy for her and she burst into tears. I was the only person who had congratulated her on the pregnancy.

She did marry the bloke and kept the baby, but how sad that no-one really felt happy that a new life was coming into the world.

It's so great that things have changed and the stigma of the unmarried mother is fast becoming a thing of the past.

It was sheer luck that I didn't become pregnant before I got married

When i was in infant school i made friends with a boy in my class and was told by my mother that i shouldn't really be friends because (and this was said in a whisper) 'his mother wasn't married'. So it wasn't just the mothers who were classed as bad, but their children were as well. this was in the early forties.
I only discovered a couple of years ago when i was starting a family tree that my mother, and her two sisters in law were all pregnant when they got married, but that must have been considered acceptable.

It's April, now, and I have only just read the aforementioned. At 17, I became pregnant, ran away to London, entered a mother and baby home run by nuns, who, although ok for the main part, were clearly judgemental! My brother turned up unexpectedly to see me, not knowing that I had had my DD. He asked me if I would like him to tell my mother. She wrote to me immediately, asking me to go home with my baby. Despite the neighbours', my mum helped me to raise my DD who was - and is - adored by the whole family. I eventually married a man who adopted my daughter, and I had five more children. A widow now, I have a family that includes 12 grand children, I am truly fortunate. At no time did I ever consider giving up my first child, even though - until my mother's intervention - I had no idea how I would manage, but I was determined, and I know that I would have coped. My empathy with women who had to give up their babies knows no bounds. I truly believe that they were treated so cruelly.

jeanniemint, I know that feeling of determination. Taking each day at a time, and feeling that somehow, things would work out. What a fine, strong mum you had.
When we look at at all of our grandchildren - and sometimes great-grandchildren - it's quite an amazing feeling to realise that without us, just us having existed in the first place, they wouldn't be here.
Well worth fighting for.

In 1964 I found myself pregnant ,age 17' my boyfriend was19' he didn't want to know, there was no social security, and as my Mum had died when I was 11years old , there was no way I could have kept my baby ,
I kept my pregnancy a secret till I was6months gone , I collapsed in work and all was revealed, I was sent away to a home for unmarried Mothers, I gave birth to my son alone in hospital , no visitors , then went back to the home for 6weeks to nurse my son, While I was in it, my Dad died, so I was alone and bereft ,
An Aunt and Uncle came with me to the adoption office, a social worker just came into the room , took my little son off me and said , it's for the best Dear,, the adoptive parents where in the next room waiting, I heard my little son cry, and that was the last I heard from him,
I am 68years old , happily married with three wonderful children and two granddaughters, not a day goes by without me thinking of my first born , but I console myself with the thought that he will have had a better life than I could have given him ,
Just writing this down gets it all of my chest as I don't talk about it at home even though my husband and children know about it,
And we had to do chores at the home like scrubbing the floors and doing laundry, so Jinglefrocks , it wasn't easy knowing we wouldn't be taking our babies home , It was a heRbreaking time, and it never leaves you even after 50 years,

My heart breaks for everyone here who had to give up their baby, due to social stigma and lack of family support! How sad!

Kudos to those of you who managed to keep your babies - and to the baby dads, grandparents and others who helped make that a reality!

To think what a stigma there was around the physical expression of love (well, by a woman/girl, anyway) and the birth of an innocent baby - whoa! It just boggles the mind!

I still see/hear some prejudice towards unwed mothers, especially among older people. There seems to be less confidence in a young single mom's ability to parent than a young married mom. Also, it seems to me that many people expect young single moms to "do it all" and are critical if they reach out for help very often. But if a young guy is a single dad, then it's all about how "he can't be expected to take care of a child" and all the women around him are more than eager to help out!

But it's still way better, IMO, than it was years ago and I'm glad to see it!

How very sad for you Wendy.

A close relative of mine had a baby in 1967. I was the only person, other than the mum, allowed to see the baby before it was adopted.

My relative is in her final years and I wonder when she has gone if I maybe one day will have a knock on my door.

Whenever I watch the programmes about families being reunited I feel the tears.

I wonder if Jinglebellfrocks went through the same as we are talking about it, when unmarried mothers in the 60,s were sent away to have their babies then had to give them up for adoption after nursing them for six weeks, from her callous comments I would wonder, if she knows what she,s talking about,

I was adopted in 1946 and my adoptive parents families would have nothing to do with me because I was illegitimate. I was quite isolated as I grew up but my adoptive parents were very good to me.

Lilipops, what a terrible time you had. Very much alone with everything. I remember my own feeling of isolation, and just like you, I hid my pregnancy until around 6 months.
My heart goes out to you. You just had absolutely no choice whatsoever, and the fact that you don't talk about him at home makes the pain worse - although he'll always be there in your heart, Lilypop, and hopefully somewhere, he'll be thinking of you, too.