Forced adoptions

The forced adoptions are an horrific stain on any nations history, the Child migration scheme even worse, what were they thinking of, the damage to mental health of those poor women and children must have been horrendous. I was one of the lucky ones, pregnant at 17, in the 60s, even my strict father was supportive, and I was able to keep my child and raise him with their help. My heart goes out to those that weren’t so lucky.

So so sorry ?
As women it’s always us left to deal with the pain & grief when things go wrong in situations like this. Pain that lasts a lifetime.
There’s nothing anyone can say to ease that pain, I just hope you went on to have children, but if you didn’t, that you managed to find some kind of peace.
Can I just add, forced adoption happened to my sister in the 70’s. Her beautiful son was taken from her at one week old. She never saw him again despite trying to get in touch many years later. He wasn’t interested, which just added to her pain.
So adoption doesn’t always have the ‘happy ending’ you see on long lost family.
Also, even now, many women are forced into having an abortion they don’t want.
Just take a look at mumsnet.

Take care, none of this was your fault x

It was a cruel time then. I contrast that with my granddaughter who had a baby in her final year of school aged 17. She is now 27, has a beautiful son and has just bought a house with her partner, the same young man she was with all those years ago. She works as a nurse in one of our major city hospitals and is a beautiful, happy young woman. What were we thinking all those years ago? I say ‘we’ because all of us were complicit, we let it happen when we should have taken to the streets like the suffragettes did !

Smurf

Smurf 52 , my heart goes out to you and you were in a desperate situation. As were so many young women in the 60s and 70s. You were only 17 and in impossible situation. The pressure from everyone around you must have been very great. It was indeed a forced abortion and your emotions and needs were ignored. You had no amunition to fight your corner. Watching Long Lost Family will have stirred your feelings , I really hope you are ok as I recognize this experience is always with you. There was nothing you could do , and pressing for adoption was not an option - the expectations from others were too strong for you at 17 to fight. Be happy and kind to yourself. ??

So sad - girls were put under such pressure; it sounds like emotional blackmail to me; and the effect on the man's future taking precedence. What a burden for you to have to bear. I am so sorry that you went through this trauma and have had to live with it for your whole life.

I worked as a hospital social worker in a maternity hospital in the early 70s and I often look back and hope that I was able to try and find choices for these young women and girls - some as young as 11. All in the context of a different moral culture. For all the swinging 60s that we hear so much about, there was still a sense of premarital sex and pregnancy being frowned upon. We faced having to hide girls from some cultures from their fathers for their own safety. And finding accommodation and financial support for girls who wished to keep their babies and go it alone was very hard indeed.

I watch these programmes like Long Lost Family and hope that nothing I ever did felt like a forced adoption. But who knows? - I too was young and part of the general culture around me. I just have to hope that I got it right.

that's really sad I am sorry for your loss.