Did anyone see the TV program yesterday on forced adoption?

JaneJudge

Lots of working class women brought shame on their families. I remember my Mother being obsessed with it

My mother wasn't perfect who is? I remember her saying to me when I was a out 15 to that she hoped I'd never "get into trouble" but if I did there would always be a home for me and the baby with her. Never happened but I was lucky that I had her and that she wouldn't turn her back on me.

An apology wont make any difference to me.
My baby girl came adopted when I was 16 from a Barnardo's home which was horrible and found me when I was 50 through social media. We are great friends now and I have 3 lovely grandchildren with partners and good jobs and a great granddaughter. I wouldn't have any of those if my Mother had her way.

BigBertha1

An apology wont make any difference to me.
My baby girl came adopted when I was 16 from a Barnardo's home which was horrible and found me when I was 50 through social media. We are great friends now and I have 3 lovely grandchildren with partners and good jobs and a great granddaughter. I wouldn't have any of those if my Mother had her way.

That is lovely that you found each other. Id love to think the girls I heard crying and begging to be allowed to bring their babies home have had happy endings.

My husband and his birth mother were the first mother and child reunited in the UK after a law change 2005/6 allowed birth parents to find their children.

She had no choice but to give him up, she eventually married his father, sadly he died before the reunion.

silverlining48

It all changed in the 80 s when I was a social worker young women were either careless or deliberately became pregnant in order to get financial support and their own home provided by the council.

Maybe even the 1970s actually.

I remember when the realisation struck me that home-owner me wasnt going to be able to get the money to buy my starter house - as I was single and low-paid. I knew exactly what the process was to buy a house - but had absolutely no idea how people got Council housing. So I asked a Labour councillor that was a work colleague of mine to explain it to me. In one sentence he said "Get pregnant maid". He was serious too!!!!

Cue for me saying "....and just what would I do with this child I don't want - once it's served its purpose and you've had to house me?". That was a genuine question - as I'd already decided never to have children. So I was left none the wiser - despite his perfectly serious response to my question.

He was lucky I didn't turn round and also say "....and what about if my health and/or looks are mucked up by the pregnancy and/or childbirth. What suggestion would you have to put right the impossible - so my body was back to normal?"

It was the best thing for the babies. As easybee says, if the girl has no income, the father won't support her, her own parents don't want to take on the baby, then what alternative was there?

Yes, times were really bad right back then.

For those on here talking about the mothers who were unable to properly care for their babies, those are not the women who are campaigning for an apology.
The campaigners are women who have successfully brought up children they had later after marriage. These women were coerced into adoption by their parents and the Moral Welfare Officers and nuns employed by churches. If parents would not help, there was no way for these mothers to keep their child.

Who are they campaigning for an apology from though. Surely any parents of theirs who coerced them would now be dead.

I had a college placement in a mother and baby ' home' I was 18 , some of the girls in there were younger than me. It has had profound effect on me and is something I will never forget - I hated it because of the way the girls were treated and I had to watch babies being taken away and their mothers distraught. It was truly and literally a shocking experience - but so very much worse for those young mums.
It was always the girls that were shamed - it takes two !!! The father's if these children were never mentioned. Double standards indeed ! Women have been persecuted throughout history.

I agree that any apology now is meaningless. I speak as a woman who experienced both sides of the coin being pregnant and unmarried also an adopted child.

Shelflife

I had a college placement in a mother and baby ' home' I was 18 , some of the girls in there were younger than me. It has had profound effect on me and is something I will never forget - I hated it because of the way the girls were treated and I had to watch babies being taken away and their mothers distraught. It was truly and literally a shocking experience - but so very much worse for those young mums.
It was always the girls that were shamed - it takes two !!! The father's if these children were never mentioned. Double standards indeed ! Women have been persecuted throughout history.

That must have been deeply upsetting for you.

My DSis and DBiL adopted 2 boys. As adults they both succeeded in tracing their birth mothers. One met his but didn't feel any connection though he is quite close to a half sister. The other spoke on the phone to his but she didn't want to meet him. She was married with other DC and had moved on. Sad but true.
Both felt a sense of closure and didn't crave a relationship.

I watched the film Philomena recently. It's very good and shows how with the culture of shame in Ireland at that time it was quite impossible for an unmarried girl to keep her baby.

My paternal grandfather was born to an unmarried mother in the 1890s. She was the oldest of a large family and her parents brought him up as one of their own. He was an adult before he discovered his oldest sister was his mother.She had worked away from home in various live in jobs as a nurse or housekeeper.Then she got married while in her forties and emigrated abroad with her husband.He was never told the identity of his biological father
I can remember my grandmother telling me that he must have been a very good looking man as my grandfather did not resemble any of his relatives whom she described as ''very plain looking''

I remember the 50’s , marriages called shotgun weddings, many were not happy, for the woman or the man

pinkprincess that's exactly the same as my DGF. His older sister was actually his biological mother. In a family of 12 siblings perhaps it wasn't much noticed. What was odd was that his sister/mother married the child's father and had another 9 DC.

Nothing was said apart from rumours and it wasn't until I had my DNA tested a few years ago that I was able to confirm the rumours as I am so closely related to this other family.

Could you test your DNA to find the identity of your biological gt grandfather?

My DH was adopted at 6 weeks in the 1960s. His mother was unmarried and from a very catholic family. He was born in a catholic mother and baby home in the south east. I don’t believe his mother had any real choice in the matter. Late last year he did an ancestry DNA test and found a half brother. He has now made contact with his mother and has 4 half siblings who are all delighted and can’t wait to meet him. He has had a correspondence with his mother and they are hoping to meet in spring. He has always had problems with attachment which, according to the latest research, probably stem from him being separated from his mother in addition to him being adopted by a loving but undemonstrative family. I don’t think there were a lot of cuddles growing up!

Grammaretto

Shelflife

I had a college placement in a mother and baby ' home' I was 18 , some of the girls in there were younger than me. It has had profound effect on me and is something I will never forget - I hated it because of the way the girls were treated and I had to watch babies being taken away and their mothers distraught. It was truly and literally a shocking experience - but so very much worse for those young mums.
It was always the girls that were shamed - it takes two !!! The father's if these children were never mentioned. Double standards indeed ! Women have been persecuted throughout history.

That must have been deeply upsetting for you.

My DSis and DBiL adopted 2 boys. As adults they both succeeded in tracing their birth mothers. One met his but didn't feel any connection though he is quite close to a half sister. The other spoke on the phone to his but she didn't want to meet him. She was married with other DC and had moved on. Sad but true.
Both felt a sense of closure and didn't crave a relationship.

I watched the film Philomena recently. It's very good and shows how with the culture of shame in Ireland at that time it was quite impossible for an unmarried girl to keep her baby.

A film can't give you the picture for everyone in a country. My mother grew up close to her cousin who grew up with her mother and grandparents. No adoption was forced, mother and baby accepted by the whole family.

So definitely not impossible.

It’s important to try not to judge or make sweeping generalisations but that doesn’t mean we’d repeat some brutal things considered ‘right’ years ago.

We are more knowledgable now about the emotional and psychological impact of trauma. Giving birth and seeing your baby removed is traumatic. Girls were told to forget - similar approach to other trauma victims.

These were not state forced adoptions. They were considered the only real option as single mums were ostracised, children called bastards, no benefits or meaningful housing support.

Usually it was parents who insisted on adoption though many babies were absorbed into their birth families with everyone told grannie had a surprise late baby

My post was honest. Where I grew up girls were very much 'shamed' The girls in my own family were 'sent away' and then came back after a period of months so that things could be 'hidden'. Lots of chattering. It really was horrible. I love my Mother but she could be unkind too (she has thankfully managed to move on from this misogynistic attitude) There was a real lack of empathy

This would be in the 70s and 80s fwiw.

Your post was honest Jane. These were different times and your mum wasn’t alone in her beliefs. It was common to feel shame if an unmarried girl or woman became pregnant, as there are communities today who still feel that way.
It was only the bravest families who supported their daughters by letting them keep their babies and live at home. While the fathers got away scot free….
It happened for years.

One of my adopted nephews who tried to find his birth mother is mixed race. It transpired that she was white Scottish Roman Catholic from a family from a close knit community in the west of Scotland.
Her name is Irish. Her son was adopted in London where he was born and where she had been living t for some time. She tried to keep him but when he was about 3 months old she placed him with nuns in a children's home where he stayed for about 7months.
When my Dsis and DBiL went to the home they were told he'd had no visits for a long time and his DM wasn't traceable.
They took him home and fostered him for a year and then applied yo adopt.
His birth mother's permission was required so she was found but didn't want him to be adopted.
She was pregnant again but still had nowhere to live with a baby or two.
I don't know what happened next or whether she was pressured but she agreed to the adoption and at the age of 2½ he was adopted.
He's now over 50, has 3 DC of his own.
They were very different times back then.

JaneJudge - apologies if you felt I was being critical, I wasnt.
It’s such a sad chapter in our history. Young mums left feeling they messed up and often losing babies thst with social changes they’d have kept ten years later

@Grammaretto Thankyou. I have never considered DNA test but might do.
My father resembled his own father both in looks and temperament. I look like my father as well and my DS2 has the same dark eyes and smallish build.

There were several children in our village who most of our Mothers knew were not with their birth mothers.

One was a girl whose mother found herself pregnant but not by her husband. She had a couple of children already. She was given to a quite wealthy couple in the village who were unable to have kids. An unofficial adoption I guess.

A young school teacher gave birth to a mixed race boy. She was very quiet and lived with her elderly mother but had a fling with a US serviceman. To her credit and very unusually for the times she brought him up with her mother’s help and he has done very well for himself. This would have been 1950s.