I had my DD when I was 16. When my parents found out that I was pregnant, my father took me to the doctor and asked for me to be placed in a mother and baby home. The doctor was horrified and told him that he couldn't put a 'girl like me' in a place like that (I was rather quiet and a bit studious). So I stayed at home, not being allowed out in case the neighbours saw me. The summer of '66 seemed to be really hot and I was only allowed to go so far down into the garden. Once she was born my parents tried to make me have her adopted, but I fought against this and married the father, so that I could keep my baby. Until then, DD was fostered while the fighting to keep her went on. When she was 7 months we married and I was able to get her out of the foster home. My parents wouldn't let me bring her to their house and moved home as soon as we married, allowing visits once they'd moved. I was an only child and obviously a big disappointment to them. The marriage was a disaster, and we divorced after 3 years, but it did mean that I was able to keep her. DD will be 50 this year.

I was at uni in the Sixties and my then boyfriend was a slightly older student. Two of his friends were in a relationship ,became pregnant and arranged to live together for the final year. They both failed their finals and had to redo that year with a baby. The general opinion was that they were failed not on their abilities but on their overt sex life. It was shocking to me but not to my parents' generation judging by the head nodding when I came home bursting with indignation.

I don't know about the 40s, but as late as the 80's my DD had piano lessons from a woman who took in pregnant, unmarried girls who had nowhere to go.
I read things like this and think it could so easily have been me.

I had a friend who became pregnant to a married man in 1967 when she was barely 17. Her family would have disowned her had they known, so she stayed with ex DH's (we were engaged) family on the other side of the city. A subterfuge was set up with a friend of mine in Brighton who forwarded mail between my friend and her parents. They had been told she was working down there. She duly gave birth to a son who was adopted. She was never quite the same afterwards despite eventually marrying and having more children. She remained very close to ex DH's mother-I suppose she was one of the few people she could be honest with. She died in her early 50's having never seen her son. Very sad.

We need also to remember many babies given up for adoption were welcomed into a home with two parents, didn't suffer the stigmatism of bastard and in the pre sixty years were spared a poverty stricken home and exhausted mother , hell for the birth mothers giving up their child but not for the child

My father was born in 1925 he also was illegitimate the father was married to another woman who couldn't have children after he was born he approached my grandmother and said he wanted my dad to live with him my grandmother was so angry she sent him away with a flea in his ear and she never heard from him again and refused to tell my dad who his father was.
She never gave him up like willow500 mother they were very strong woman

My MIL was 4 months pregnant when she and FIL married in 1951 at the age of 19. She was one of the lucky ones whose family supported her and her boyfriend was willing to marry her. However to this day she she has never told anyone and they always celebrated their anniversaries one year early. FIL died last year and they had been married for 64 years. DH and I would have liked to have arranged for a card from the queen for their 60 th anniversary but of course we could not as they would have needed to show their marriage certificate. DH and I discovered the date discrepancy whilst researching family trees. We have not mentioned to her that we know as it is obviously something that was covered up and not spoken about and really there is no point in upsetting her. It does rankle a bit though when she goes on about single mothers and the amount of babies born to unmarried mothers / couples. To be honest I do think that she has convinced herself that she was married a year earlier.

Oh for God's sake! It wasn't that bad in the sixties! Try the fucking forties.

My mum born in 1920 was illegitimate. Her mother with 4 other children was a war widow and met a man she thought would be able to take care of her. Sadly when she found out she was pregnant she found out he was married and she was so ashamed. I never met my grandmother who died when she was only 61 but I feel she must have been an amazingly strong woman. She chose to keep the baby when it must have been a terrible struggle and brought all five children up on her own. My mum did find it a stigma especially at school when other girls wore good clothes and shoes and Mum's mother couldn't afford them but she thought the world of her and was devastated when she passed away when Mum was only 21. When I got pregnant unmarried and very young in the early 70's I was deeply aware of the disappointment I was to her - thankfully by the time my son arrived I was married and she was able to enjoy him so the guilt went away.

This is interesting. My eldest cousin was born "illegitimately". My aunt was a teacher and I understand she went away to have her baby. The baby was brought up by my grandmother and my aunt went to work overseas for a time. Nobody in the family ever spoke about the situation and I remember , as I got older realising the impossibility of my cousin actually being my grandmother's child but I was an adult before I knew the truth.

It's tragic, just how cruelly unmarried and pregnant women were treated; my parents told me in no uncertain terms that I'd be kicked out if it happened to me.

Before Mother and Baby homes things were even more brutal. I worked in a Nursing Home where one resident was allegedly deaf and mute, she spent all her day sitting on a dining room chair in a corner of the hallway, refusing to integrate in any way.

Her story was that she'd had an illegitimate baby and was sent to the workhouse at the age of 16.

I remember watching episodes of Find my Family in tears because of the way the mums were treated. A school friend of mine in the 60's had an illegitimate baby, was sent to a Mother and Baby home and the baby taken from her. She never really got over it and killed herself 15 years later. Her family apparently constantly told her she was a sinner and would go to hell....and refused her a burial or church service. I only knew of her death ages later, so perhaps things haven't changed that much after all for some people.