Divorce: If A Child Could Choose : Part 5

Women's Wild Oats: Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards
by C. Gasquoine Hartley

(Page 10 of 14)

X

Now, all this leads up very directly to the special aspect of the problem we are considering. We have to realize just what are the results likely to follow from the close relationship of mother and child in the case of the illegitimately born. Personally, I am certain that in most cases the situation is one of quite appalling dangers.

I cannot feel sure that even the most helpful supervision of the mother, if she and her child enter a hostel, or other institution, can, in the majority of cases, save some hurt, if her character is unsteady, being given by her to the child. We are only just now coming at all to understand how immensely fateful to the whole later development are the first few years of infant life, and further, how everything is colored - it would be truer to say "decided" - by the character and actions of the mother; how any hurt done, or mistake made then, can never be undone. Even an unwise expression of too fond and emotional affection may act to cause ruin in the after years. All who have even a slight acquaintance with the enlightening work of Freud, will know the folly of "trying to save the illegitimate mother through the agency of the child."

Let me state the case quite plainly: There are different types among these unmarried mothers, just as there are among married mothers, some would be wise mothers did we give them the necessary help and opportunity, but many would not be wise mothers under any circumstances or with any amount of help, because they are weak in character and are incapable of child-training. Now, the problem of saving the child is quite a different one in these opposite cases: in the one instance everything ought to be done to keep the child with its mother, in the other the one safeguard is to keep the child wholly out of the mother's power.

I state sadly, but without hesitation, and from my own experience, that in innumerable cases the salvation of the child depends more than anything else on its complete separation from the mother. I cannot countenance sentiment that blinds our intelligence. How can it be wise to recommend in cases where the character of the mother "seems to warrant a separation," that "periodic visiting by the mother needs to be fostered." Again, what must happen if the baby is in the care of the trained nurse by day, but at night is given up to the untrained and often untrainable mother, who goes out to work but returns to the hostel to sleep?

You will tell me the mother wants to have the child. That is right and good from one point of view - that of the mother; but from the other - the point of view of the child - it cannot work out well. The child switches hither and thither between various treatments and quite opposite influences. And with the child's terrible candor it shows the hurt it is suffering and says always, in effect, though not in words, "I wish you would all agree as to how you want me to grow up."

I may state the question in this way: Do we want the child to grow up like its mother or do we want to save it from being like her?

To answer this simple question will help us more than at first we may see. Frankly, our confusion here in fixing what we want is the cause which, in my opinion, more than anything else must bring failure to what is being done, and being proposed to be done, to help the illegitimately born child. Our sentiment causes us to confuse what is good for the mother with what is good for the child, and, because of this, we are failing to grapple with the most warring element in the whole difficult problem of saving the child; we shall have to face and deal successfully with this certain fact of the very common unfitness of the unmarried mother, before we can do the one simple and right thing and prevent the child from having to pay the penalty of its parents' illegitimate act. We are brought back always to this: the saving of the child as the one plain duty before us.

XI

In a previous section I dealt with the harmful way in which circumstances and the law, acting together, place the child born out of wedlock wholly and terribly in the mother's power. But there is a further aspect of the situation now to be considered. I wish to show how destructively that power may act, stimulated in some cases by an unwise affection as well as in others where no mother-love seems present, and act for years to hurt and even destroy the child. To establish this and make the facts plainer, I will now tell in detail a few cases of illegitimate motherhood from my own knowledge. You will see then exactly what I mean and how dangerous to the child is the power held by these unwatched mothers; the facts of the case will, I hope, speak to you more emotionally, and therefore more forcibly, than any further statement of my own opinion.

Case 1. - A baby girl was born to a young mother of unstable though not altogether bad character. The father was a gentleman: he did not seduce the girl. He paid the expenses of the confinement and afterwards, and with the mother's consent, placed the little one with good country people, paying for her support. For more than a year and a half the baby lived with its foster mother and grew up a very healthy and joyous little girl. The real mother visited the child and showed most emotional love for her. One day, without reason and without warning, she took the child away. The foster-mother appealed to the father; he did all in his power to have the child returned, and finally, when the mother refused, said he would make no further contribution for the support of the child. He knew the mother was unfit to bring up the child, but he could do nothing to prevent her action. The mother took the child to another town. What she did with the little one is not fully known, but when, after nine months, the foster-mother traced her, she was in a most pitiable condition of dirt and neglect, and, what was much worse, she was terribly frightened. Quite plainly she had been beaten and ill-used. The mother was not poor, so that cannot be made an excuse.

The foster-mother offered now to adopt the child and bring it up as her own. Her offer was accepted by the mother, but with the provision, which unfortunately was granted, that she should still come to see the child. Her visits always affected the child unfavorably.

Copyright, 1920 by Frederick A. Stokes Company.
All Rights Reserved.