Compensating for Stigma: Representations of Hard to Adopt Children in the "Today’s Child"

Abstract

We examine 4,300 advertisements of children who were featured in Today’s Child, a daily newspaper column written by Helen Allen in the Toronto Telegram and Toronto Star (1964–1982) and syndicated across North America. We highlight how stigma and values were attributed to adoptive children featured in these advertisements. Our findings reveal how the advertisements perpetuated and attached stigma to these children and how this stigma had to be compensated for the children to appeal to prospective parents. Compensatory strategies were ultimately required to manage stigma and increase the value of the featured children.