I’m rewatching call the midwife from the beginning and I have some questions

[Soubriquet]

When was it more acceptable for young women to give birth out of wedlock, or as single mothers?

When was it “acceptable” for teens to give birth without bringing shame to the family?

When was it accepted that those same teenage mothers got to choose if they wanted to keep their baby, rather than the parents making the decision for you?

@Ringmaster27 my grandma and grandad were the same. We weren't even allowed to know their wedding anniversary. So sad! My dad was born in June 1952 and one day I just happened to see in my grandma's diary that their anniversary was November. So 7 months earlier. She maintained until she died that my dad was a honeymoon baby but the dates just don't add up. They did stay together but I wouldn't say particularly happily. They tolerated each other I think.

In pre industrial society, no-one wanted a barren wife because children were needed to work the land, so it was regarded as a good thing to be pregnant when you got married. Changes in society plus religious revivals in the 19th century put paid to that in a lot of areas of society and we start to get the stories of servant girls 'in trouble' and so on. In my own family in rural Nottinghamshire in the 19th century, my great grandmother had a child before she was married. Her daughter, my Auntie Nelly, had a baby when she was 18 and unmarried. Her older sister, my grandma, took Nelly in. The baby was born in my grandparents' house and brought up by them until Nelly got married and respectable when the child went back to her. We have someone in my generation who insists that the child could not have been illegitimate and gets very upset at the very suggestion!

When I was growing up in the 60s, my mother forbade me to have any more to do with my friend Valerie who lived across the road, after I let slip in my innocence that they had had to let out her sister's wedding dress twice already.

My friends mother was teaching overseas in the mid 50s.

she was seeing a man, got pregnant and discovered he was married.

she came back to the U.K. and said she was a widow, had her baby and went back to teaching. Wouldn’t have been possible as an unmarried mother.

she kept the true circumstances a secret all her life.

@KrasiTime I don’t think that was an issue with the family dynamic for my grandparents. They went on to have 4 more children. I guess the only thing that was a little out of the ordinary was the bigger age gaps - by the time my mum was born, the eldest child had moved out and married, so the younger DCs didn’t have much of a sibling relationship with her because they didn’t grow up with her in the house

There is so much fascinating social history on this thread, and so many moving stories. Thank you so much to everyone for sharing.

Hi Mischance. I've sent you a private message - hope to hear from you.

My Aunty 'had to get married' when she was 16 in September 1965. My cousin was born in February 1966. My grandmother was very much a stickler for appearances. It's a shame really as my Uncle is an absolute narcissistic twat and despite still being married they have never been happy. My grandparents fell out with them both for a while (because of him) and couldnt stand him. But yanno - appearances are all that matters...

I also have a friend born in 1970 to two teenagers who were forced to give her up by their families. She was adopted into another family and the teenagers eventually married and had other children. She made contact with them about 20 years ago but it has been fraught with difficulties - she goes from falling out with her bio parents then making up and then falling out with her adoptive parents. It's massively fucked up tbh and I really feel for her.

I was 15 in 1988 and I remember a girl in my year at school who wore baggy jumpers and suddenly went off to stay with a family member because she gave birth without realising she was pregnant. It transpired that she did know but didnt tell her parents until she was in labour on the living room floor. I often wonder what happened to her.

I am loving the stories (a pp upthread) like the one of the sister who took in their teenage sister and baby and supported them until the young mother was ready to get on her feet. That's what I would have done for my sister if it had been necessary.

I don’t think it was so easy to take a mum and baby in to your home you probably didn’t have space and I think that getting employment if you were an unmarried mother could have been difficult/ poorly paid in a small town.

And as to have your own home you yourself would be married, you’d also need your husband’s buy-in to take in an “wayward” sister - and if he said no, no would be the answer. I think it’s easy to forget how little say many women had in their own lives and what happened in their homes until very recent decades, and how fortunate women who were able to rely on family support rather than being alienated due to the shame and stigma of their situation were.

I chatted with a woman who would be around 75 now. She had her child back in the late 1960’s and was an unmarried teenager. When the midwife called her in by name as for example Mrs Smith, she said I’m a Miss and the midwife replied we are all Mrs here my dear.

I’m English but of Chinese descent. Never thought about it especially but I have never ever met a child amongst other British born Chinese who is not from a marriage.

My grandmother was born in 1910, had my father late in life and fought tooth and nail to keep him as a single mother.

He was the love of her life. I was 2nd 😁