Advertisements
It's kind of weird thinking about this but after I'd had my baby and gave it away I went home and as you know was supposed to "never tell anyone" but I did anyway like I've mentioned before.
One of the things that was weird to me was meeting up with one of the girls I had hung out with before I'd gotten pregnant. She had been hanging out with this guy and well, she got pregnant too about the same time I did.
I didn't know this at the time because I was stuffed away in a home to hide me from the world but when I went back to school to finish the 12th grade (I was in the home in the 11th grade) I found out my friend had her baby.
The thing that was weird is remembering my thoughts and asking her in honesty, "HOW did you get to keep your baby?" She looked at me like I was crazy and she just said, "Becuase I wanted him."
The shock that girls actually got to keep their babies and got to stay in school (I wasn't allowed to go to public school being pregnant) was huge shock. I was told I couldn't stay in school and I had to stay away from people my age and "every girl who loved their baby and wasn't married gave the baby up for adoption."
My friend LOVED her son and she was a good mom. Her boyfriend ran out on her and they never got married so she was a single mom.
I just remember the shock of someone actually getting to keep their baby when they weren't married AND getting to go to regular school.
Did anyone else that gave up a baby in the 60's or 70's when single mother's were a "no no" ever have any simular experience in seeing someone who kept their baby and was single etc? Just wondering if I was the only one who ever felt that way or experienced that kind of thing.
Rylee
Like
Share
Rylee, when I was pregnant it was the early 80s and already things were so much more open. I was also already out of high school. I never had to hide my pregnancy, but people did talk and gossip at work and in my neighborhood. But I knew plenty of people who had babies and kept them. And even some who had babies in the late 70s but the ones who kept them I think had to drop out of school, or else they had their babies over the summer break and could go back the next fall. I don't ever remember obviously pregnant girls in school, even the friends I had who went to public school, but certainly not in Catholic school.
I think there were some families who either accepted the baby or those who strangely see a baby as punishment (I knew several moms who had parents tell them "you made your bed, and now you have to lie in it," and it's not that they were being supportive in allowing the baby to come home, but rather making their daughter "pay the price." I've known some moms from my support group who actually had to hide from their FAMILIES because they wanted to choose adoption and the families wouldn't allow it).
I wonder, was your classmate AA or Latina? The reason I ask is, in those families, adoption is not as prevalent as in Caucasian ones. Even in the closed era, it was mostly Caucasian girls being sent away. I don't think it was just a matter of your classmate "wanting to keep her" that made it so. She had to have a family that was willing to allow her to bring the baby home and had to have support. Unless I am mistaken and she was doing this all on her own??
Advertisements
I don't know why she got to go to regular high school and I didn't because she told me she had been able to go to school.
I on the other hand being put in a foster home/unwed mother's home, had to go to one of those schools where you did all your work at home and went to the school once a week to drop your work off and once a week to get help for a few hours from the tutor. You just couldn't go to public high school because pregnancy was contageous you know. lol
But as for my friend, she was caucasion. She wanted her baby and kept it. She was a very strong willed person. I think she did have her own apartment and she had a job and was going to school. At least that's what I remember going on by the time I met up with her again when I was in the 12th grade.
Rylee
My nmom's pregnancy was such a scandal in 1964 that when she went to the maternity home in the summer between junior & senior year, her parents sold their house and moved to a different town. She went home to a different high school for her senior year. It's so sad what happened to teenage mothers back then.
Wow Elaine, that's definitely sad. I don't know what kind of stuff my mom actually had to go through but she married my dad when she was 5 months pregnant with me. That was in 1959. I don't know if she ever thought of adoption as an option to someone outside her family but I know her mother said she'd raise me if my mom didn't marry my dad. I'd have been my mom's sister. But I don't know what kind of thinking my mom thought concerning adoption.
I know I would have had a worse life than I had if I'd been raised by my grandmother. She was a very horrible person who slept with every single man she ever met. She allowed her children to be beaten and molested by her boyfriends. She was married 6 different times and and had 8 children between 5 of them, she was a horrible mother. I could tell you stories of what I've heard but I won't. I'm just glad that my mom married my dad at least to keep me away from being raised by my grandmother. My grandmother didn't ever have anything to do with me while I grew up. She hated me. I never understood why though. I never did anything to her but she still wanted nothing to do with me. She's dead and has been for many years but I never shed a tear and still won't.
Rylee
Your are not the only one that feels like that.
It breaks my heart to see young single girls get to keep their babies and how i feel it was so unfair that we didnt get to keep ours.
I had given my son up for adoption 21 years ago and i still have not gotten over it. I actually met him this summer, and i was so happy..we could finally have a relationship.
But since he has come into my life all of a sudden i am that frighten little girl again,who didnt know how to raise a child on her own, i was scared and all alone.
but i have to go on and live my life, theres nothing more than i can do.
Advertisements