How crass can you be ?

Moral bvalues were different then. Being an unmarried mother was a huge stigma and the girl’ families were the ones who forced their daughters to give their baby up. Girls and boys were also forced to marry if she was pregnant. I think a government apology now is a pointless exercise. What would help would be a speedier system for tracing birth families and supporting those going through the process.

Shades of Catherine Cookson -
My great grandmother sat quietly having a miscarriage whilst she had tea with the vicar .
It didn't show as she was wearing a huge dark dress and had sewing on her lap .

Her elder daughters got the tea and cake .

As she hadn't been to church and was unwell - the vicar didn't expect her to get up to see him out .

Upstairs , whilst this polite tea party went on - another daughter stuffed a hankie into the mouth of her younger sister as she writhed in labour giving birth to an illegitimate son -delivered by another sister ( seven of them in all ) .

This little boy was passed off as yet another of great grandmother's many offspring .

No one even spoke of it .

If people guessed or knew they said nothing .

He had no idea until years later when it was casually mentioned prior to his going off to the trenches , where he died horribly .

A sad story and I think very typical of the time .

I was surprised to discover when I did some family tree research that my granny and papa had married the month after my dad was born in 1933 ( it was a surprise to my dad too!) Also revealed his paternal grandmother had been an unmarried mother (late nineteenth century), had raised the baby and married several years later (not to the baby's father). The two generations before that had also had at least one baby out of wedlock and the records of my great great grandparents and great great great grandparents show their babies were baptized on the same day they married. My dad knew nothing about this until I told him - we did have a wee laugh to be honest. Perhaps rural Scotland was more accepting of children born out of wedlock and it seems many of these babies were brought up by their birth families. The records I looked through listed many babies birth certificates where the father was not named. My mum and dad told me of many children of their generation (born in the 1930s) who were brought up by aunties, cousins, grandparents. This all seems at odds with the idea of unmarried mother's being ostracized or forced to have their babies adopted although I know it did happen. When I was at uni in the early 1980s one of my flatmates just disappeared. We were told, by her brother, she had decided to take the rest of the year out and go and stay with her big sister in London. We thought no more of it until another friend said the girl had got pregnant on a one night stand, both sets of grandparents tried to get the couple to marry but that she was sent to a Catholic mother and baby home in London to have her baby which was then adopted. I remember how horrified I was that could happen in the 1980s. She came from a Roman Catholic family and her father had some standing in their local west coast of Scotland community.

V3ra

I looked after a baby from three months old.
Teenage mum too young to claim any benefits, so social services agreed to pay the childcare fees so she could go back to school.
Good family support but both grandparents needed to work.

Social worker told me they often needed foster placements for mums and babies together as the girls sadly get thrown out.

Further to my post earlier, @V3ra, about my training as a social worker, in part because my mum - unmarried in 1949 - made the decision to keep me, my first job was covering a maternity unit where I helped many, usually single mothers, to keep their babies through finding/providing accommodation and support both financially and emotionally. In one memorable situation I persuaded my management that both mother, aged 17,( and a care leaver at 16) and her baby be 'taken into care' after she was found to be living with a Schedule 1 Offender. She received excellent support in parenting was provided by the foster family which continued for some time after she moved on.
In 2 years I dealt with only 2 adoptions, one at birth where previous children had all come to harm in the past - even then both parents were given support by a foster family and myself during contact with their baby for an extended period before the decision was taken by the High Court that s/he was adopted - and another where the young person was supported by an aunt.

Minerva

Oreo you are right. Apologies are due now not from a 21st century politician but from the doctor who refused to accept me as a patient until I could prove, at age 20, that I had told my parents I was pregnant. He didn’t relent even when I told him they wouldn’t have let me near the house in case I was seen by someone they knew. Apologies too from the midwife who told me I should have thought about the consequences of my sin when I struggled in labour with no-one to hold my hand. And most of all an apology from the social worker at the Adoption society who took from my arms the baby I had cared for and loved day and night for 7 weeks at the mother and baby home and showed me the door and said “you can go now” with never a smile or word of kindness. I am into my 80s now and my ‘baby’ will be 60 this year but I am typing through tears.

That’s awful Minerva and I hope that the doctor and the midwife and the social worker and your parents later on changed the way they thought and acted and regretted it.
Even if there was no choice at the time for you and your baby had to be adopted, kindness and understanding should still have been shown to you.
Am sure the pain and memory never goes away.

Horrible for you Shinaemae .
It's something that you can never forget .

There was no risk of my becoming pregnant .
Every time I went out I got the shame of getting pregnant lecture from my over bearing mother .
She made me nervous about sex .
Finally I was hurtling towards 21 and still a virgin .
I had sex with the guy , who asked me to marry him and it was awful .

Sparklefizz

My mother made it clear to me when I was about 15 that if I ever became pregnant I would be thrown out. This was 1963.

Mine made it abundantly clear to me that the worst thing I could possibly do in her eyes would be to become pregnant before I was married and therefore "bring shame on the family". This was 1979!

I looked after a baby from three months old.
Teenage mum too young to claim any benefits, so social services agreed to pay the childcare fees so she could go back to school.
Good family support but both grandparents needed to work.

Social worker told me they often needed foster placements for mums and babies together as the girls sadly get thrown out.

I was adopted at 2 months old and never knew much about the circumstances until I had access to my adoption file. My birth mother decided herself that she would put me up for adoption so not everyone was forced. She kept the two letters about it all her life. Her children only found them after her death - I met my half brother this year as a result of being able to trace the family from the file

Minerva, how utterly dreadful for you (and so many others) to have lost and suffered so much. My first husband was adopted - by teachers (seemingly living a good life in a nice house) and had the scars from beatings - for not doing well at school. He survived the cruelty, starvation - and complete lack of love - surprisingly well, although his adopted sister was badly damaged.

Three girls at school were 'unlucky', aged 15. One had her baby aborted, another had her daughter brought up as a sister - and the third had her son adopted. I will forever regret our harsh attitude towards them, typical of the time - and never questioned.

Still, two neighbours, in their teens, kept their babies and we all knew they were unmarried. They were supported by their parents - who had money, of course.

Oreo you are right. Apologies are due now not from a 21st century politician but from the doctor who refused to accept me as a patient until I could prove, at age 20, that I had told my parents I was pregnant. He didn’t relent even when I told him they wouldn’t have let me near the house in case I was seen by someone they knew. Apologies too from the midwife who told me I should have thought about the consequences of my sin when I struggled in labour with no-one to hold my hand. And most of all an apology from the social worker at the Adoption society who took from my arms the baby I had cared for and loved day and night for 7 weeks at the mother and baby home and showed me the door and said “you can go now” with never a smile or word of kindness. I am into my 80s now and my ‘baby’ will be 60 this year but I am typing through tears.

My mother made it clear to me when I was about 15 that if I ever became pregnant I would be thrown out. This was 1963.

Lots of love to you Shinamae and to anyone else in that situation.

4allweknow

Yammy I think like you. The eras concerned did have an attitude of disgrace towards unmarried mothers but there were a lot of families who did accept and care for their offspring. I know of several whose actual mother not only being unmarried but below marrying age was regarded as a sister to the child until later in life. Apparently the official apology has been campaigned for. If it gives consolation to those affected, good. It seemed rather false to me.

It does indeed feel like there has been a campaign to target the government to give an apology which, to me, does not make sense. I know a few babies born at this time who the extended family cared for and in time it worked out well. I am very aware that was not always possible but that has nothing to do with the government. As stated, it was another era and sometimes there were no easy answers. I hope the apology can help some people move on but it all seems rather false. Shinamae, what a very hard thing to go through after 10 weeks of caring for your baby. My heart goes out to you

Definitely!😊

I think so!

It’s as well she refused!

Germanshepherdsmum

I’m surprised your mother was offered a termination in 1949. It was illegal except in very narrow circumstances.

My mum nearly died of peritonitis during the war and was told she c/would never have children as a result. She was treated in Invergordon Naval Hospital. I'm guessing that there were strong medical grounds for the offer of termination.... She certainly suffered a great deal of pain from abdominal adhesions throughout the remainder of her life but nevertheless went on to have another baby when I was 11. She was a very loving mother.

Yammy I think like you. The eras concerned did have an attitude of disgrace towards unmarried mothers but there were a lot of families who did accept and care for their offspring. I know of several whose actual mother not only being unmarried but below marrying age was regarded as a sister to the child until later in life. Apparently the official apology has been campaigned for. If it gives consolation to those affected, good. It seemed rather false to me.

I’m surprised your mother was offered a termination in 1949. It was illegal except in very narrow circumstances.

My mother was unmarried when I was conceived in 1949. Both my parents were serving in the Royal Navy at the time. I was amazed when she told me that she was offered several options by the RN. Namely, termination/fostering /adoption --there was an RN & RM Children's Home in Portsmouth - and remain in the RN OR leave the service. She opted to leave the RN and returned to her parents where she and my dad married a month after I was born. It was my requirement for my birth certificate in order to obtain a passport at age 18, in 1968, that led me to enquire about the dates.... The RN has had it's own Social Work Department since the 1968 Seebohm report. Partly as a result of my parents' story I trained as a Social Worker in 1986 and for 10 years - 1995- 2005 - of my career worked for the Naval Personal and Family Service in Faslane. It blows my mind that my mum could have chosen any of the other options or worse still, been forced to.....

Whether or not the questions and answers had been agreed on in advance, it is still a ridiculous question, and extremely hurtful, to have asked.

No woman forgets the day she gave up her baby for adoption, in exactly the same way as no parent of either sex forgets the day they buried a child who lived only seven hours, like my brother, or any child at all.

That said, I too am sick and tired of hearing politicians apologise for the slave trade, the capture of Sind, or for the climate of thought that until the 1970s made it impossible for many women to keep a child born to them while they were unmarried.

Oh, and thank you, dear lady, whoever you are or were, for giving up my younger sister, whom I would never have known and loved, if you had found it possible to keep her.

We fosteered a little girl - her 5th move in the 18 months since her birth. She is lovely and has always worked hard and made the best of her life. She contacted her mother, unbeknown to us, but it was a disaster though she remains in touch with her original family. and it is a comfort that she can have normal relationships with most of them. We were not allowed to adopt her as we are a different colour.

We have always been proud of her as she has become a valued member of her community. The only problem is that I feel a bit piqued when I am labelled as racist - and I am white. I wonder who is the racist?

Shinamae

I had my baby adopted from an unmarried mothers home in March 1972 and I absolutely remember everything about that day…. Including being told to dress her nicely, and put her in her crib in the nursery, and not to go in for the next hour…

Oh Shinamae

Not sure what you mean about adopted children needing 'healing' omegal