The first thing they did was give her medication to dry up her milk. After all, the very last thing the nurses wanted was for Margaret to breastfeed her new baby. To bond with her. To form any type of emotional connection.
That, you see, couldn’t be allowed to happen.
At a time when every new mother needs nurturing and comfort and support, staff at Sydney’s now defunct King George Hospital were anything but. They ummed and ahhed when Margaret asked to see her beautiful, perfect new daughter Abbie, giving a range of excuses as to why they couldn’t bring the newborn into Margaret’s room.
In those hours, days, after giving birth — when new mothers are fragile and hormonal, when all you long to do is kiss and cuddle and simply breathe in the baby you have given birth to – Margaret found herself surrounded by a wall of resistance. Of silence. Disapproval.
You see Margaret was single. And in 1973 Australia that simple fact made her ‘unfit’ to be a parent.
So instead what the staff did when Abbie was born was fill out forms which said Margaret was agreeing to give up her baby for adoption. All they needed was for Margaret to sign her name.
“Just sign here, Margaret,” I imagine they said. “Your little girl can live with a nice family. You’re a single mother. You can’t give her what she needs. Just. Sign. Here.”
But she didn’t sign. Thank God. Margaret was thirty-years-old and somehow had the strength to stand her ground.
Today Abbie is one of my closest and dearest friends.
I’ve heard this story several times over the years – Abbie and I both horrified at the judgement her mother faced. The pressure put on her — even at THIRTY – to give Abbie up. But it’s only been in recent years that I’ve realised the true horror of what unfolded for decades across Australia.
Single mothers being bullied and coerced and lied to. Single mothers having their children taken from them – at times even STOLEN from them – in a way that can only be described as despicable. Like the Stolen Generation, it is a shameful part of Australia’s history.
On Wednesday, Australia took yet another step forward in acknowledging these horrific practices when – following the lead of South Australia and Western Australia – NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell delivered what is being called an historic apology during a joint sitting of Parliament.
NSW Premier Barry O’FarrellO’Farrell said: ‘The trauma induced by the forced adoption practices in the past has reverberated through the lives of ten of thousands of mothers, and their children who were removed. It’s affected fathers who were never given a say, as well as the families who never knew of the truth of what went on with brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews or grandchildren they lost.
It caused years of pain and grief for many instead of the joy and delight which parenthood might reasonably have been expected to bring. This single, barbaric act – fraying the sacred bond between mother and child – changed lives, and in many cases it destroyed them. We apologise to the mothers who were not asked or listened to. We apologise for making you feel ashamed and unfit to care for your babies. We say sorry for treating you cruelly and insensitively when what you needed and deserved most was care and support.
Minister for Families and Community Services, Pru Goward also spoke of the incalcuable pain the practice caused. Sky News reports:
Minister for Families and Community Services Pru Goward“It is true that there were thousands of young women in NSW who were persuaded or manipulated to accept that adoption was in the best interest of their child, but there are an unknown number for whom the persuasion became coercion – they are part of this apology,” Ms Goward said.
She said there were women who have told of signing adoption papers under heavy sedation when they didn’t understand what they were doing.
“Others have claimed they were browbeaten over days, or their signatures forged or not even collected. Some have said they were told their babies had died, only to find out years later it was all a lie.
“They are part of this apology,” Ms Goward said.
But the moment that strangled the hearts of everyone listening was when Lyn – a mother whose baby son was stolen from her – stood up to read a poem about the hell she has lived through.
“One thing I need you to know, pain ever-lasting does not show.
Something I will never forget, nor will others, you can bet.
To the outside world there is no sign
But the child you stole was mine.”
You can listen Lyn’s full poem here.
The Federal Government plans to issue a national apology next year.
Top Comments
My story is related, but a little different. I was born in 1970 and my biological mother was 21. She was unmarried and from a very religious (Catholic) family in QLD. They told her in no uncertain terms that she was not to keep the baby and they sent her away to give birth in Adelaide. I was born in a Salvation Army maternity hospital for single mothers. I was adopted at six weeks. For six weeks no one held me the way a mother should, no one soothed me, no one cared for me. Yes I was fed and bathed and housed but I was not loved the way a newborn baby should be loved. My adoptive mother recently told me (I am now 42) that I was medicated for several weeks because I was not behaving the way new babies should behave - I cried constantly and was very distressed. Now, with the Apology in the media and as the mother of a two year old, I am having trouble reconciling how babies in this situation were treated. I am also having a very hard time accepting that I was given away. I met my biological mother when I was 25 and she told me that the pressure came from her family to give me up for adoption. She also told me that no one in her family knew about me (her husband refuses to speak about me) and her two daughters (born shortly after I was) don't know I exist. This revelation made me feel abandoned and ashamed a second time and I decided not to keep in touch with her. My adoptive life was not so great - my adoptive mother was wonderful but her husband left us when I was one year old and she was forced to go out and work so I was placed in full time day care. Her second marriage was not a success and I didn't get on with her husband. As a wife and a mother now, my small family is the most important thing to me and when I look at my son (who is the only person I know who looks like me) I am overwhelmed with love for him and for my husband but also with a great sadness that as a baby and a child I always felt different, unwanted and not good enough. I feel so desperately sorry for the mothers who were forced to give up their babies but I also feel for the babies who were given up for adoption (whatever the circumstances) - as an adopted person my first memories were of not being wanted and of not really fitting in.
In an era when 21 was the age of majority, and often women need a parent to countersign legal documents, adoption papers signed under duress (and often drugs) by women much younger were classed as legally binding documents. What a joke - except for those involved!