Giver of Alms?

The past middle-age face was veneered with a hardness impossible to penetrate, and the eyes flashed venom in unison with her tongue. She learned over me, berating me about my decision to keep my baby. “The child will grow up in the gutter!”. “How can you expect to raise a child?”. “Don’t you realise that there’s decent married couples desperate to adopt a child from good stock like you? - couples who could give the child a decent life……” On and on it went, while I wept and cowered.

I was just twenty, single, and eight months pregnant. The woman was the hospital Almoner - a title meaning ‘giver of alms (or charity)’. Today she’d be called a Social Worker. But there wasn’t a lot of genuine charity in those days. There was no pension for unmarried mothers, and unless you had parents or aunts who could (and would) raise the child as their own - or provide a lot of assistance - unmarried mothers were treated like baby-factories for would be adoptive parents.

I didn’t have access to the help of a well to do family, and the Almoner knew it. I strongly suspect from things that were said that she’d virtually promised my child to some prospective adoptive parents - it certainly would be the only logical explanation for the outburst which I experienced in her office that day. Her initial disbelief when I told her I intended to keep and raise the child myself turned to cold vitriol - and finally to red faced apoplectic abuse.

To say I was stunned and distressed during the encounter would be putting it mildly, and for some time I was truly on a knife edge of indecision - wanting to cry out “all right, all right, let them have the baby” just to escape the hurtful words which were tearing me apart. Then that phrase came again “Your child will grow up in the gutter - you can’t give it a decent life” and it triggered in me the strength to scream through tears that I was going to keep my child no matter what, then stumbled crying from her office.

From then on I had no hesitation. No second thoughts, no regrets. Having been working already for five years with the fledgling technology which would become known as ‘the computer industry’ I knew that I could always get work, and although it would be tough I could pay for child care and somehow survive. With hindsight, the experience with the Almoner probably gave me the additional determination and incentive to make a go of it and prove her wrong.

Certainly it turned out that way. Even in the year when my daughter was born I was studying for a diploma in data processing at a technical college in the evening. I took several weeks off for the birth then resumed the course while my mother cared for my baby in the evenings. Mum shared a small cheap flat with bub and I, and worked as a waitress in a hotel to keep us going while I couldn’t work. Then I organised reliable day care, and went back to work - initially just serving counter lunches in a hotel so I only had to leave my daughter for several hours each day. Later to full time office work and within three years had a challenging position as a computer programmer at a university - back once again with the technology I loved.

One of the problems being an unmarried mother around that time (and earlier no doubt) was the terrible social stigma. Unmarried mothers were viewed by society as somehow being loose and immoral women who should be personally ashamed and publicly condemned. No allowance was made for the multitude of circumstances which could leave otherwise blameless young women in the invidious position of being unmarried and pregnant. At the best one could hope for a ‘blind eye’ to be turned while the child was discreetly born and adopted out.

For those few like myself who chose to keep their baby, there were several choices. Move to a new area, wear a wedding ring, and pretend that your ‘husband’ had died or suffered some other noble fate: or be open and honest about your circumstances and be branded as a brazen hussy.

Philosophically the first wasn’t an option for me - I couldn’t live a lie. I opted for being open and honest about my circumstances and hoped that by example I could help to change public perceptions. It started to work. I found my employers, while initially surprised, were willing to accept me as I was and respected me for my hard work and ability rather than judge me on my family/marital status.

When my daughter was about five or six, I heard of a newly formed group in Victoria which was lobbying for the rights of unmarried mothers. For the first time I didn’t feel so alone and applauded their efforts to change perceptions, initially by changing language. Such a simple thing, but they argued that people shouldn’t be tagged as ‘not’ something. The opposite of married is single. Why should people be called ‘un’ married? So I joined the Council of the Single Mother & Child to work with them on getting a better deal for single mums - much of it based on the principle of self-help networks for sharing clothing, equipment and so on rather than handouts.

A personal bugbear was the way in which single mothers were portrayed in the media. Photographs appeared with black panels covering the eyes, and captions invariably read ‘Unmarried mother Miss X…’ This media representation reinforced public perceptions that single mothers should be ashamed and hide from public view. Media attention began to focus on the Council and at that time I was the only member living quite openly as a single mother whose family friends and work mates were all aware of my circumstances. So for a short time I became the public face - for the first time with a name and no blacked out eyes - of single mums in Victoria.

I believe our work spearheaded a change throughout the country. Society became a little more open minded and less prejudiced against ‘unmarried mothers’ as an amorphous group. Lobbying resulted in an early form of pension for single mothers - up until the child was three I think? - and the abortion and adoption rates began to decline.

My work with a large computer company took me overseas in the early 70’s and I married before returning to Australia. For reasons which don’t matter here, there were no more children, which made my decision so many years ago an especially valued one.

Interestingly, I’ve heard many accounts from other women over the years who broke under similar pressure from people within the hospital system to have their children adopted - and from my own experience I can’t blame them. Only a hairsbreadth of time separated me from the same decision. And I grieve for all the children who don’t know what their mothers faced and who might think they were abandoned uncaringly.

When I hug my darling daughter and my three grandsons, would you blame me if a little voice in the back of my head says “I wish that Almoner could see me now”?

ã Lynda Cracknell 1999

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