Download or read book The Unmarried Mother written by Sheila Tofield and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sheila Tofield tells her moving true story about being a single mother in 1950s Britain, in The Unmarried Mother. 'A searing, honest testimony' Lesley Pearse Sheila grew up in Rotherham, the daughter of an uncaring mother who made her believe she was useless, stupid and - most painfully of all - unlovable. As a young woman, her worst childhood fears were confirmed when her fiancé broke off their engagement without an explanation. Heartbroken and vulnerable, Sheila was easy prey to the worst type of man - a man who turned his back on her when she told him she was carrying his child. In Fifties Britain, an unmarried, pregnant girl received,not sympathy but censure and contempt. Shunned by most of her family, Sheila ended up in a Church of England home for unmarried mothers, with no apparent alternative than to give up her child for adoption. But when she held her newborn daughter in her arms for the first time, Sheila knew she had to do the unthinkable: bring up her baby on her own in a society that would condemn her for it. Sheila Tofield is a proud grandmother living in Chichester and The Unmarried Mother is her first book. Her touching story was picked up by Penguin when she entered the hugely successful life story competition with Saga Magazine.
Download or read book Mother and Baby Homes written by Jill Nicholson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-07 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1960s there had been much discussion about the plight of the unmarried mother and her child; but very little of it had been based on fact. At the time Mother and Baby Homes catered for between 11,000 and 12,000 unmarried mothers each year, out of a total of 70,000; but there was hardly one generalisation that would be applicable to all the Homes. Some were run by voluntary organisations, some by local authorities and some by religious groups. While some still retained the punitive attitude, others set themselves with much kindness to help the women – some of them mere schoolgirls, to face the difficulties of their position and to plan constructively for their own future and that of their babies. Originally published in 1968, this book gives the facts but, even more, it gives the feelings and ideas of those most concerned – the mothers-to-be and those who care for them. This is a careful and sensitive study. It was unique in putting on record for the first time the views of unmarried mothers themselves about the care they received. Everybody who is interested in the history of the health and welfare of the unmarried mother in residential care should read this book.
Download or read book Sinners Scroungers Saints written by Pat Thane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-05 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the stories of unwed mothers and one of the voluntary organization that supported them throughout the century: The National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child (which renamed itself), The National Council for One Parent Families, (and is now, after a merger, called Gingerbread).
Download or read book The Unmarried Mother and Her Child written by Virginia Wimperis and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-11-15 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1960, when every twentieth child in this country was born illegitimate, every eighth was conceived outside marriage; every fourth mother conceived her first-born before her wedding day; and among the children below school-leaving age over half a million were illegitimate – figures that were paralleled in many countries of Europe and the Commonwealth at the time. Who are the parents of these children? Why do they not marry? How many of the fathers are known and how many of them know or help to maintain their children? What legal pressure can be brought upon the parents and how easily can payment be evaded? What assistance does the State or do the voluntary agencies give to these young families, here or in other countries? As the children grow up, what happens to them? How many are adopted, how many pass into public care – and why? How many appear before the courts? What special personal difficulties do they have? These and a host of other questions are fully explored for the first time in this book, which at the time would be greeted with equal interest by social workers here and abroad and be the general reader. The English problems are viewed in relation to the various solutions adopted by other countries, and some of these – the Russian, German, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish – are discussed at length. The book contains two full-length stories told by unmarried mothers – one a nurse and the other a teacher – in their own words. From a very different world today this reissue can be read and understood in its historical context. This book is a re-issue originally published in 1960. The language used and views portrayed are a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.
Download or read book Gone to an Aunt s written by Anne Petrie and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty or forty years ago, everybody knew what that phrase meant: a girl or a young, unmarried woman had gotten herself pregnant. She was “in trouble.” She had brought indescribable shame on herself and her family. In those days it was unthinkable that she would have her child and keep it. Instead she had to hide. Most likely she would be sent away to a home for unwed mothers, where she would stay in secrecy until her baby was born and given up for adoption. “Gone to an aunt’s” was the usual cover story, a fiction that everyone understood but no on talked about –until now. In Gone to an Aunt’s, journalist and long-time television host Anne Petrie takes us back into these homes for unwed mothers. Most cities in Canada had at least one home, several as many as five or six, most of them run by religious organizations. Here, in institutional settings, the girls were kept out of sight until their time was up and they could return to the world as if nothing had happened. Seven women –including the author – recount their experiences in Gone to an Aunt’s, talking openly, some for the first time, about how they got pregnant; the reaction of their parents, friends, boyfriends, and lovers; why they wound up in a home; and how they managed to cope with its rules and regulations –no last names, no talking about the past –and the promise of salvation that could come only through work and prayer. Gone to an Aunt’s is a profoundly moving and compassionate –even alarming – account. It comes as a reminder that we not get too wistful for the supposedly innocent times before the sexual revolution. That innocence, Petrie shows vividly, was a charade made believable only because the thousands of girls who had broken the rules were hidden away.
Download or read book The Mother of All Questions written by Rebecca Solnit and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2017-02-12 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of feminist essays steeped in “Solnit’s unapologetically observant and truth-speaking voice on toxic, violent masculinity” (The Los Angeles Review). In a timely and incisive follow-up to her national bestseller Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit offers sharp commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more. In characteristic style, “Solnit draw[s] anecdotes of female indignity or male aggression from history, social media, literature, popular culture, and the news . . . The main essay in the book is about the various ways that women are silenced, and Solnit focuses upon the power of storytelling—the way that who gets to speak, and about what, shapes how a society understands itself and what it expects from its members. The Mother of All Questions poses the thesis that telling women’s stories to the world will change the way that the world treats women, and it sets out to tell as many of those stories as possible” (The New Yorker). “There’s a new feminist revolution—open to people of all genders—brewing right now and Rebecca Solnit is one of its most powerful, not to mention beguiling, voices.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times–bestselling author of Natural Causes “Short, incisive essays that pack a powerful punch.” —Publishers Weekly “A keen and timely commentary on gender and feminism. Solnit’s voice is calm, clear, and unapologetic; each essay balances a warm wit with confident, thoughtful analysis, resulting in a collection that is as enjoyable and accessible as it is incisive.” —Booklist
Download or read book Unmarried Motherhood in the Metropolis 1700 1850 written by Samantha Williams and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Samantha Williams examines illegitimacy, unmarried parenthood and the old and new poor laws in a period of rising illegitimacy and poor relief expenditure. In doing so, she explores the experience of being an unmarried mother from courtship and conception, through the discovery of pregnancy, and the birth of the child in lodgings or one of the new parish workhouses. Although fathers were generally held to be financially responsible for their illegitimate children, the recovery of these costs was particularly low in London, leaving the parish ratepayers to meet the cost. Unmarried parenthood was associated with shame and men and women could also be subject to punishment, although this was generally infrequent in the capital. Illegitimacy and the poor law were interdependent and this book charts the experience of unmarried motherhood and the making of metropolitan bastardy.
Download or read book Growing Up with a Single Parent written by Sara McLanahan and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nonwhite and white, rich and poor, born to an unwed mother or weathering divorce, over half of all children in the current generation will live in a single-parent family--and these children simply will not fare as well as their peers who live with both parents. This is the clear and urgent message of this powerful book. Based on four national surveys and drawing on more than a decade of research, Growing Up with a Single Parent sharply demonstrates the connection between family structure and a child's prospects for success. What are the chances that the child of a single parent will graduate from high school, go on to college, find and keep a job? Will she become a teenage mother? Will he be out of school and out of work? These are the questions the authors pursue across the spectrum of race, gender, and class. Children whose parents live apart, the authors find, are twice as likely to drop out of high school as those in two-parent families, one and a half times as likely to be idle in young adulthood, twice as likely to become single parents themselves. This study shows how divorce--particularly an attendant drop in income, parental involvement, and access to community resources--diminishes children's chances for well-being. The authors provide answers to other practical questions that many single parents may ask: Does the gender of the child or the custodial parent affect these outcomes? Does having a stepparent, a grandmother, or a nonmarital partner in the household help or hurt? Do children who stay in the same community after divorce fare better? Their data reveal that some of the advantages often associated with being white are really a function of family structure, and that some of the advantages associated with having educated parents evaporate when those parents separate. In a concluding chapter, McLanahan and Sandefur offer clear recommendations for rethinking our current policies. Single parents are here to stay, and their worsening situation is tearing at the fabric of our society. It is imperative, the authors show, that we shift more of the costs of raising children from mothers to fathers and from parents to society at large. Likewise, we must develop universal assistance programs that benefit low-income two-parent families as well as single mothers. Startling in its findings and trenchant in its analysis, Growing Up with a Single Parent will serve to inform both the personal decisions and governmental policies that affect our children's--and our nation's--future.
Download or read book The Triple Bind of Single Parent Families written by Nieuwenhuis, Rense and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2018-03-07 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Single parents face countless hardships, but they can be boiled down to a triple bind: inadequate resources, insufficient employment, and limited support policies. This book brings together research from a range of disciplines from more than forty countries--with particularly detailed case studies from the United Kingdom, Iceland, Sweden, and Scotland. It addresses numerous issues related to the struggles of single parents, including poverty, employment, health, children's development and education, and more.
Download or read book The Girls Who Went Away written by Ann Fessler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-06-26 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade. “It would take a heart of stone not to be moved by the oral histories of these women and by the courage and candor with which they express themselves.” —The Washington Post “A remarkably well-researched and accomplished book.” —The New York Times Book Review “A wrenching, riveting book.” —Chicago Tribune In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the hidden social history of adoption before Roe v. Wade - and its lasting legacy. An adoptee who was herself surrendered during those years and recently made contact with her mother, Ann Fessler brilliantly brings to life the voices of more than a hundred women, as well as the spirit of those times, allowing the women to tell their stories in gripping and intimate detail.
Download or read book Mothers on Trial written by Phyllis Chesler and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updated and revised with seven new chapters, a new introduction, and a new resources section, this landmark book is invaluable for women facing a custody battle. It was the first to break the myth that mothers receive preferential treatment over fathers in custody disputes. Although mothers generally retain custody when fathers choose not to fight for it, fathers who seek custody often win—not because the mother is unfit or the father has been the primary caregiver but because, as Phyllis Chesler argues, women are held to a much higher standard of parenting. Incorporating findings from years of research, hundreds of interviews, and international surveys about child-custody arrangements, Chesler argues for new guidelines to resolve custody disputes and to prevent the continued oppression of mothers in custody situations. This book provides a philosophical and psychological perspective as well as practical advice from one of the country’s leading matrimonial lawyers. Both an indictment of a discriminatory system and a call to action over motherhood under siege, Mothers on Trial is essential reading for anyone concerned either personally or professionally with custody rights and the well-being of the children involved.
Download or read book A Study of Unmarried Mothers who Kept Their Babies written by Social Welfare Research, Inc and published by . This book was released on 1963 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Half a Million Women written by David Howe and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Crossing the River written by Carol Smith and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful exploration of grief and resilience following the death of the author's son that combines memoir, reportage, and lessons in how to heal Everyone deals with grief in their own way. Helen Macdonald found solace in training a wild goshawk. Cheryl Strayed found strength in hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. For Carol Smith, a Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist struggling with the sudden death of her seven-year-old son, Christopher, the way to cross the river of sorrow was through work. In Crossing the River, Smith recounts how she faced down her crippling loss through reporting a series of profiles of people coping with their own intense challenges, whether a life-altering accident, injury, or diagnosis. These were stories of survival and transformation, of people facing devastating situations that changed them in unexpected ways. Smith deftly mixes the stories of these individuals and their families with her own account of how they helped her heal. General John Shalikashvili, once the most powerful member of the American military, taught Carol how to face fear with discipline and endurance. Seth, a young boy with a rare and incurable illness, shed light on the totality of her son's experiences, and in turn helps readers see that the value of a life is not measured in days. Crossing the River is a beautiful and profoundly moving book, an unforgettable journey through grief toward hope, and a valuable, illuminating read for anyone coping with loss.
Download or read book Single by Chance Mothers by Choice How Women are Choosing Parenthood without Marriage and Creating the New American Family written by Rosanna Hertz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-10-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A remarkable number of women today are taking the daunting step of having children outside of marriage. In Single By Chance, Mothers By Choice, Rosanna Hertz offers the first full-scale account of this fast-growing phenomenon, revealing why these middle class women took this unorthodox path and how they have managed to make single parenthood work for them. Hertz interviewed 65 women--ranging from physicians and financial analysts to social workers, teachers, and secretaries--women who speak candidly about how they manage their lives and families as single mothers. What Hertz discovers are not ideologues but reluctant revolutionaries, women who--whether straight or gay--struggle to conform to the conventional definitions of mother, child, and family. Having tossed out the rulebook in order to become mothers, they nonetheless adhere to time-honored rules about child-rearing. As they tell their stories, they shed light on their paths to motherhood, describing how they summoned up the courage to pursue their dream, how they broke the news to parents, siblings, friends, and co-workers, how they went about buying sperm from fertility banks or adopting children of different races. They recount how their personal and social histories intersected to enable them to pursue their dream of motherhood, and how they navigate daily life. What does it mean to be single in terms of romance and parenting? How do women juggle earning a paycheck with parenting? What creative ways have women devised to shore up these families? How do they incorporate men into their child-centered families? This book provides concrete, informative answers to all these questions. A unique window on the future of the family, this book offers a gold mine of insight and reassurance for any woman contemplating this rewarding if unconventional step.
Download or read book In the Family Way written by Jane Robinson and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Only a generation or two ago, illegitimacy was one of the most shameful things that could happen in a family. In the Family Way tells secrets kept for entire lifetimes: long-silent voices from the workhouse, the Magdalene Laundry or the distant mother-and-baby home. Anonymous childhoods are recalled, spent in the care of Dr Barnardo or a Child Migration scheme halfway across the world. There are sorrowful stories in this book, but it is also about hope: about supportive families who welcomed 'love-children' home, or those who were parted and are now reconciled. Most of all, In the Family Way is about finally telling the truth.
Download or read book Promises I Can Keep written by Kathryn Edin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2005-03-08 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors provide a wholly new framework for understanding why poor women have lower rates of marriage and have children outside of wedlock.
