A Tragedy All Round,

[emmie]

this is an appalling story, and one that should be out in the open, upwards of 250 thousand women over three decades forced to give up their babies, because they were born out of wedlock. I watched the news on BBC, where i couldn't find a link but the Guardian has run it.


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/26/hundreds-uk-women-demand-formal-apology-forced-adoptions?via=webuproar

[bhg481]

I personally don't know any adopted children who were mistreated but the papers are full of natural parents who abuse their offspring.

[emmie]

some must have been out of say half a million, - but that was then, and now the mothers many of whom may have passed away won't ever know what happened to their child.

[10ClarionSt]

I agree, Emmie. I don't think it's a money thing. But it's easy for us, who weren't affected, to sit here moralising all these years after.

[emmie]

i am more ashamed of those who did this, be it the family or the churches.

[AuntPollyGrey]

Sqad, I'm so sorry, I hope I did not offend you,I had no idea of your personal circumstances. I chose my words incorrectly and were probably lost in translation. I meant the 'poor' children in the fact it was a shame they were brought up not knowing that their mother was actually their grandmother and their mother a sister. The fact the child was kept within the family speaks volumes on how much the child was wanted and cared for despite the stigma attached to a child born out of wedlock. xxx

[10ClarionSt]

bhg, did you read my answer @ 0843? Many children were treated appallingly for over 75 years. That is part of the on-going Independent Inquiry into Child Abuse and was the first item to be dealt with by that inquiry. One of the people who gave evidence was Margaret Humphries, who is still the head of The Child Migrants' Trust. You really need to watch the film called Oranges and Sunshine to get an idea of what successive governments and so-called child care institutions got up to in the name of child well-being.

[Sqad]

APG....no offence taken and it has never been a big deal, as I said in many ways I considered myself to have had a "privileged " upbringing.

[emmie]

glad that it worked out for you sqad.

[Sqad]

emma...strict upbringing, I was a bit of a handful, corrected at home and at school by corporal punishment, grandad was a union man,N.U.R, Labour through and through and was described as "working class"........seemed a normal life.
It changed when I arrived at Medical School and realised I had a lot to learn about life lol.

[emmie]

i don't believe in corporal punishment, seems a craven way to chastise a child. But i guess that was then, thank heavens times have changed.

[andres]

Yes emmie^^^ times have changed. All those children who were adopted back then were at least able to live out their lives. Nowadays they would have been killed off before they were born -aborted and thrown away.
Child abuse does still carry on today. One instance that sticks in my mind is that little boy whose birth parents bet him so badly when he was a baby that he had to have both legs amputated! He has a lifelong condition to suffer but they will be out of prison soon .
Every era has its faults and no society is perfect.

[gness]

Folk should also be aware that many, very many of these babies and children were not adopted into loving homes to live a better life.

Many were sold by the religious orders and they weren't fussy who they sold the baby to and gave no thought to the future of that baby once the money was given to them.
Toddlers and older children suffered greatly both in the homes and with the "parents" they were sold to. You won't need me to expand on that.

[emmie]

gness, i can only imagine the suffering that went on.

[emmie]

andres, no one is perfect, and that tale of the poor wee boy is heartbreaking, yet these matters occurred over a long period of time, and seemingly wasn't ever discussed.

[Ellipsis]

Why did this outrage stop happening?

[emmie]

perhaps it didn't, there is still stigma in many communities over the fact of an unwed mother. But this is supposed to be about being made to give your child up, whether you wanted to or not.

[emmie]

more women went on the pill presumably, so for some not too much fear of unwanted babies. those who's church didn't permit family planning, like the Catholic church should be ashamed of themselves for their wanton disregard for the health of girls/women.

[Ellipsis]

It has pretty much stopped in society generally. There may be small sections of society where it still happens. My question is why it stopped.

I think, in whatever the answer is to my question, you'll find why it's felt by some that the Government should apologise.

Contraception certainly helped, but there are still plenty of "accidents out of wedlock" these days, where the mother is not required to give up the baby.

[emmie]

in those days it was the church, parents, grandparents who said that babies should be given away for adoption, and no not all went to decent homes. I would think that in the current Asian communities it would be largely frowned upon for a young woman to have a child out of wedlock - perhaps others too.

[emmie]

i just found this ellipsis

" Infant adoptions began declining in the early 1970s, a decline often attributed to the decreasing birth rate, but which also partially resulted from social and legal changes that enabled middle-class mothers to have an alternative single motherhood"