Questions for BSE moms........?

I've just recently checked out "The Girls who Went Away" from the library and have just started reading it and I was wondering, how were you forced to relinquish? Were your parents the ones behind it? Do you feel anger towards your parents and do you believe they thought they were doing the right thing or did they not want to have the stigma placed on you and them?

What would have happened if a woman did keep her child? Did social services take the child away for some bogus reason?

I knew about girls "going away" but had no idea it was that bad. I'm a pretty strong willed person and I could say all day that I would defy that but I wonder what I really would have done back then. Did you ever feel like somehow running away somewhere to avoid this? Was that even possible?

To all BSE moms, I am so sorry this happened to you. I'm glad I live in a time where I could have kept my baby if I wanted to.
Additional Details
Gaia -- that story is unbelievable. The part where the judge asked her if she really wanted to do this -- and her mother forcing her to say yes when it was so obvious she didn't. I can't even imagine what that must have been like.

Robin

I'm a BSE adoptee, also. My 1st mom passed away 10 years ago. I can't answer for her completely, but I can share her story.

She was separated from her husband when I was conceived. She was 21 when she got pregnant with me, had no intentions of giving me up, hoped to have a daughter and was happy when I was born. She worked as a waitress, made $32 a week & paid $20 a week for my day care (court records). There was no welfare or child care subsidies back then.

She lost me to foster care when I was 18 months old because she owed my babysitter money & she was "living with a man to whom she was not married" (court records). A year later, she was told she'd never get me back but could relinquish me. Was that coercion?

I was also a teen mom. My a.mom pushed me to relinquish. I refused. I fought. I kept my daughter. By then, Roe v. Wade had already happened years earlier. Her father & I chose to have our daughter & got married. When our marriage failed, there was welfare. I was able to attend college. The social stigma was not as bad as it once had been. I could never have imagined giving her up!

"The Girls Who Went Away" is so sad to read. Can any of us imagine not being able to get a job, earn a decent wage, support ourselves or at least have the choice to do these things? Can we imagine being kicked out of school or college if we were "found out"? Can we imagine being TOTALLY dependent on our disapproving families or the the man we love only to be abandoned by him & having no where to go?

Most women today have no idea what it was like for women in the 50's & 60's.

Great question!

Annabelle

My birth mother told me she was forced to relinquish me by her mother, pregnant and single in the 60's was a disgrace to the family, no financial assistance was available from the Govt to help raise a child on your own, the Govt actually labelled unwed mothers as morally unfit! She was forced to leave te town she grew up in when she was 3 months pregnant.

Addit: Gaia...that story is so sad, and sadder to know she never met her son due to his untimely death, tragic!

Linny G

I am an adoptee from the BSE, Im 43 years old. It was hard for me to read that book, not only from an adoptees perspective, but from a woman's perspective. While I sympathize,its hard for me to really understand it, because I grew up in a different time, and the social stigma wasnt as bad.

I was told that my mother would have had to pay "restitution" if she changed her mind...meaning room & board for the 3 months she lived t the maternity home & hospital charges, which was several thousand dollars. They had her over the barrel. She did not have that kind of money. This happened to many women who had a change of heart after giving birth..another form of coercion.

sunny

My father bailed on my mother.

She was emotionally abandoned by her mother (her father didn't know)

There was NO Welfare, WIC, or work for single mothers.

She 'surrendered'.

She was an upper-middle class girl without help, so she gave in to the adoption industry.

grapesgum

For most it was a matter of economics - they had no way to feed themselves and their babies if their parents kicked them out of their home and the father of the baby would not marry them. Please keep in mind that economic discrimination against women was pernicious and LEGAL and was meant to keep women dependent on men for mere survival.

1 - No government assistance
2 - Women were fired if they were pregnant in the BSE. This was true for most women, but especially true for single women. Did you know that female teachers had to leave their jobs once they started "showing" because then the kids would know that she, oh gasp, had done the "nasty"?
3 - No maternity benefits in health insurance for EMPLOYED women.

In 1978 as a married employee holding a senior technical position in a major national company, I was not covered with medical maternity benefits by my company. Wives of my junior colleagues were covered, but I was not. When we decided to have children, I had to switch to my husband's dependent insurance. Yes, I did file a EEO complaint against the company, and, yes, I won. Not only did it mean a lot to me morally, but it also gave all women in my company (single and married) maternity care in case they got pregnant.

Later that year we won the right to keep our jobs while on maternity leave. In the past, we were fired. My company did try to fire me just before my first child was born in spite of the fact that I had just won a big contract for them. (Haha, 10 years later, I became a government employee and one of my duties was to monitor ALL of my former company's activities in my agency. Paybacks are hell, aren't they, boys?)

My company's policies of discrimination were common practice back then. Young women in my agency look at me as if I were smoking crack when I tell them what it was like in the "old days".

Changes in these 3 economic factors meant HUGE steps for single mothers. They no longer had to give their babies away to get medical care and to feed themselves. This is one big reason why adoption rated plummeted starting in the early 80s.

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