The Unmarried Mother Brenda Leys Proscription by Prescription Alan Harrison
The Lucrative Mystery Eric Goldschrnidt Gagarin—Si! Laurens Otter
Malcolm Lowry John Davenport
The Dollar Princesses Lord Esher Hire Cars Philip Binham The Bootleggers Garin Lyall Which-Doctors H. A. F. Mackay Those Advertisements A. J. F. Gill Dickens Letters Madeline House and others Portrait of the Week J. A. St. H. Brock
THE UNMARRIED MOTHER SIR.---Much has been written in your columns about mothers and babies in the Welfare State. and I would like to add to these statements the true story of a twenty-five-year-old unmarried mother of my acquaintance.
Some time ago this girl found she was pregnant. Marriage to the father of the child was impossible, because, although she was 'engaged' to him, it turned out that he was already married with two children.
Aware of the dangers of trying to bring up a child without a proper home, she decided the wisest course would be to have the child adopted from birth, and brought up in a family where it would be loved and .given the attention she would be unable to provide.
The decision to have a baby adopted is never an easy one, and in this case it was reached only after a great deal of thought. The attitude of the adoption society I consider to be inexcusable. Bearing in mind that thousands of families all over the country wish to adopt children, they did everything they could to persuade her to keep the child. Their final blow was to tell her she could no longer consider herself a Christian because what she intended to do was un- Christian and wrong. The bewildered and unhappy girl still insisted that this was the course she was forced to take, and finally the adoption society agreed to arrange for the adoption of the child when it was born.
The facts concerning the birth of the child are so grossly laden with Victorian conceptions of immora- lity as to be unbelievable. The girl arranged to have her baby in a well-known and highly-thought-of North London maternity home. From the start, the staff of the Home knew the truth that she was unmarried, and until she was admitted she was known to them as Miss Blank. Upon entering the home for her confinement—a time when no woman in the world is feeling strong enough to protest— she found she was expected to pretend to be married, she was to be called Mrs. Blank, to make up stories for the other mothers concerning her supposed husband, and cruellest of all, although she had believed that the child was to be adopted from birth, she found she was forced to care for it herself for the length of her stay in the Home--to feed it, wash it, dress it, hold it and offer it motherly love. The reason for this ridiculous and horrifying behaviour? That if the other, married, mothers knew the true story--that her child was illegitimate—it Would upset them and they might treat her unkindly. This farce continued for eight days until the child was taken to its foster-parents. On the final day, the girl was again forced to prepare the baby herself, in the full knowledge that this would be the last time she would ever see it. When the baby was
eventually taken from her, she had the to stay in the same room as the other mothers, all nursing their babies, for four hours, until she had her final examination and was released from the Home. During this time, suffering a great post-natal depression added to by the loss of her baby, she was told to smile for the other women and continue the lies when asked by them where her baby was.
The girl is now desperately unhappy, having lived a tormented eight days, of lying, believing herself to be wicked and un-Christian, and missing the child she should never have seen, let alone looked after.
It is easy to say the girl had behaved recklessly in the beginning and must expect to pay the conse- quences—but I believe that in this age of advanced thought and medical methods, the State should accept the responsibility of seeing that girls in this unhappy position receive all the help it is possible to give them--and this should include sympathy and kindness and not recrimination and forced deception.
112 Clifton Hill. NW8
BRENDA LEYS
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