Did anyone see the TV program yesterday on forced adoption?

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.

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.

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

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.

Yes, times were really bad right back then.

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?

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?"

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.

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.

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.

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.

I've always thought it was the parents who responsible. I was a teenager and pregnant in 1971 but I was married. I lived near a home for unmarried mothers and I can't count how many times I stood waiting to use the pay phone and heard girls crying and begging their parents to let them bring their baby home. Why should the govt apologise on our behalf when it was their parents who should apologise.

I remember walking past a car opposite the home. It was a Volvo estate, two little boys in the back, stoney faced mother in the front and dad getting suitcase and walking crying girl into the home. She looked about 14 or 15 and somehow I focused on her Clarks brown school sandals. It was such a sad scene. She'd be late sixties now and Ive often thought of her.

Kandinsky

Patsy70

I’m very happy things worked out well for you. Lovely to hear.

Thank you Kadinsky. 💐

I didn’t see the programme but it was also on itv news last night. It was sad. I don’t think apologies will make much difference nor achieve anything. A different era.

Patsy70

I’m very happy things worked out well for you. Lovely to hear.

At the risk of sounding unfeeling, I cannot see that apologies make much difference. (The affected women want that to happen).

Keir Starmer, the Archbishop Of Canterbury (if we had one!) the Pope, they could all stand up and apologise for what happened, but it was all so long ago, post WW11 and the next three or four decades.

Nothing can alter what happened back then. Different times, different attitudes, different beliefs.

Doesn’t make it right, but you can’t turn the clock back.

JaneJudge

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

I take it that was tongue in cheek JaneJudge

I really don't remember this scenario, I was pregnant and unmarried in the 60s but don't recall any pressure being brought to bear.

Thank you Kadinsky. I was in this position in the ‘60s, as Clawdy describes about her friend - not forced, but under pressure from my parents, as nobody should know! I am lucky to have been reunited with my daughter when she was 18, and we meet up regularly with my other daughter. Her adoptive parents were lovely, but sadly have now died - they were twenty years older than me.

I did say fathers got away without criticism taking little responsibility Cossy. It was the young women who got a ‘reputation’. Double standards .

Patsy70
ITV

They did have plenty of support, believe me. Some of them to the extent of having live- in support. All focused on teaching them how to parent with the aim of achieving happy independence.

And they did care emotionally for their children. But when it was a choice between their own needs or wants and that of the child they would usually attend to their own need/want first and then their child.

And yes children might be damaged in any environment sadly. But that’s not a good reason for leaving them where you know for certain they are being mistreated or abused.

The difficult decision is when.

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

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.

Again, “blame” assigned to women!

Men should also take responsibility for contraception and financially and emotionally for raising the babies they sire.

Lathyrus3

I think this is such a difficult area. I spent a number of years in my working life involved with young children who had remained with their birth mother and were damaged both physically and emotionally as a result, because their mothers didn’t have the maturity to meet the needs of a child.

Their mothers did love them in terms of emotional attachment and wept and were devastated when the children were eventually removed from them. But, in spite of support, were very often unable to put the child’s needs before their own.

I wasn’t involved in the initial decisions at birth or the later ones. I was involved with the consequences.

In these cases support should have been given to any young mothers who wanted to keep their babies and were willing to accept help and learn.

Many children are emotionally damaged and physically and sexually assaulted both in the care system and in their homes with two parents.

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.