Family secrets

Abstract

Florence was in the workhouse and about to deliver her second child when she gave up her first-born, Arthur, to state care. Arthur's brother and later a sister would follow him into various workhouses across London. Their birth certificates list father as “unknown”. Florence and her children do not feature in Jane Robinson's In the Family Way: Illegitimacy Between the Great War and the Swinging Sixties but nevertheless their experiences mirror countless tales shared by Robinson of families separated by circumstance, family politics, faith, and poverty. We are increasingly familiar with stories of illegitimacy. Television shows like Find My Family are globally popular, while chat shows often focus on tracing long lost relatives and screening emotional reunions. Meanwhile books like journalist Martin Sixsmith's The Lost Child of Philomena Lee have brought forced adoption into the mainstream. Robinson's book to some degree follows these narratives that are, understandably, distressing. Mothers describe the pain of giving up their children and the shame of illegitimacy that stigmatised them for years to come. Children detail feelings of rejection and fear of abandonment that permeated their lives and often affected future relationships and their own experiences as parents. The role of charities and churches also feature. Accounts of abuse, exploitation, and punishment are rife. For many women adequate maternity care and post-birth support was withheld as a consequence for getting pregnant out of wedlock. Illegitimate children's lives were blighted from the outset with the assumption they would be stupid or immoral. Disabled and mixed race children were particularly dishonoured. The widespread transportation of children to other Commonwealth countries (UK practice until the mid-20th century) is chillingly described. Yet within these grim and unsettling stories are ones that are less familiar and more reassuring. The actions of Lettice Fisher and the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child who worked tirelessly to treat mothers and their offspring with respect. The Child Migrants Trust exposed the forced migration of children and attempted to reunite families. Robinson notes how not all mother and baby homes were heartless places. And she explores the experiences of men who wanted to be fathers but were actively excluded from having any role in bringing up their children. Or mothers who managed, against all odds, to keep their babies with them. Robinson's style is warm and engaging. While dealing with an enormous amount of historical information and personal testimony she creates a balanced and compassionately told account. In the Family Way will be of particular interest to those working in health or social care around the area of adoption or family mediation. It could especially help those with older clients to unpick stories that may emerge around giving up children or being adopted. Family secrets can tumble out at times of ill health or distress so an awareness of these issues is helpful for practitioners. Much of health care is based on history taking. For individuals who have been adopted, particularly in difficult or stigmatising circumstances, they may have no answers to simple questions about allergies, blood groups, ethnic background, or family history of diseases. The effect of forced adoption, transportation, and family secrets can shatter lives for generations leading to relationship breakdown, abuse, neglect, and self-destructive behaviours. Nearly a century after Florence gave up three of her children, her great granddaughter—also an unmarried mother—delivered her son. By now cultural and social changes meant there would be no suggestion of this child being removed or viewed as inferior due to illegitimacy. For which I am truly grateful. When she had her babies Florence was shunned for having not one but three children out of wedlock. Now, when I tell people of her life, the prejudice is all about her abandonment. We no longer have state sanctioned condemnation of unmarried mothers, but individuals who have their children forcibly removed, fostered, or adopted are still judged by society. In Robinson's book everyone asks questions. Mothers who gave up their children fret over what happened to them. Adopted children are plagued with doubts about why they were not wanted or couldn't be kept, or what their parents were like. I've been asking myself the same thing about Florence. Was she relieved to give up Arthur and his siblings? Or did she, like others in Robinson's book, grieve for her children and miss them every day. Who was Arthur's dad? And was he the father of all of Florence's children? We will probably never know. Ironically thanks to contemporary opportunities to search family histories I have a better understanding of my grandfather's background than he ever had. But, just as the contributors to Robinson's book have discovered, family secrets and shame ensure complete answers are rarely found no matter how much you long for them.