Giving a Baby Up for Adoption in the 1960s

If Penny Johnson had not got an abortion, then she probably would have given her baby up for adoption. Since she became pregnant during June 1963, she would have gone to live in a home for unwed mothers in at about the beginning of February 1964. There she would have given birth and immediately given the baby up in March 1964.

After doing so, Penny would be free to resume her dance career. Her pregnancy would have cost her about a half year of her dance career.

As a comparison, if Johnny Castle were drafted into military service, he would lose about two years of his dance career.

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The year 1964 is considered to be the last year of the USA's Baby Boom.

The Baby Boom ended in 1964

The Baby Boom included booms in unwanted pregnancies and adoptions. In 1964, therefore, the system for dealing with such pregnancies and adoptions was well established. The year 1964 was well inside the so-called Baby Scoop Era, which is described by Wikipedia in the following passages:

The Baby Scoop Era was a period in history starting after the end of World War II and ending in the early 1970s, characterized by an increased rate of pre-marital pregnancies over the preceding period, along with a higher rate of newborn adoption.

From 1945 to 1973, it is estimated that up to 4 million mothers in the United States had children placed for adoption, with 2 million during the 1960s alone. Annual numbers for non-relative adoptions increased from an estimated 33,800 in 1951 to a peak of 89,200 in 1970, then quickly declined to an estimated 47,700 in 1975. (This does not include the number of infants adopted and raised by relatives.)

In contrast, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that only 14,000 infants were placed for adoption in 2003.

This period of history has been documented in ... social histories such as the book The Girls Who Went Away and the documentary, A Girl Like Her, based on the book by Ann Fessler. Fessler is a professor of photography at the Rhode Island School of Design who exhibited an art installation titled The Girls Who Went Away. It is also the theme of the documentary Gone To A Good Home by Film Australia. ...

The dominant psychological and social work view was that the large majority of unmarried mothers were better off being separated by adoption from their newborn babies. According to Mandell (2007), "In most cases, adoption was presented to the mothers as the only option and little or no effort was made to help the mothers keep and raise the children". ...

As such, for unmarried pregnant white girls and women in the pre-Roe era, the main chance for attaining home and marriage rested on their acknowledging their alleged shame and guilt, and this required relinquishing their children, with more than 80% of white unwed mothers in maternity homes acting in essence as "breeders" for white, adoptive parents. ...

Infant adoptions began declining in the early 1970s, a decline often attributed to the decreasing birth rate, but which also partially resulted from social and legal changes that enabled white middle-class mothers to have an alternative single motherhood. ....  In 1970, approximately 80% of the infants born to single mothers were  taken for adoption purposes, whereas by 1983 that figure had dropped to only 4%. .... From 1989 to 1995 fewer than 1% of children born to never-married women were surrendered for adoption.

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In the following video, Ann Fessler talks about her book The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade.

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The following video is a trailer for a movie, A Girl Like Her, based on Fessler's book.

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In the following video, Jane Hayward, the author of a book titled No Decent Girl, tells about how she gave her baby up for adoption in 1964.

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In the following video, the now famous singer Joni Mitchell tells how she gave up her baby for adoption in 1965.

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In the following video, a woman tells how she stayed in a home for unwed mothers and gave birth there. The time period is not defined, but it looks like about the early 1960s.

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The website Mother and Baby Homes describes daily life in homes for unwed mothers in England. The website's home page includes the following passages.

Mother and Baby Homes were designed to provide residential support to unmarried pregnant women.

The majority focused on the time during confinement, generally six-weeks before the due date through six-weeks after the baby was born. There were some homes which allowed residents to stay for longer periods, and some with special focuses such as for schoolgirls which integrated their time in the home with the needs of their education as they could no longer return to school.

A 1968 study showed that roughly 20% of Mother and Baby Homes which focus on the confinement period had their own maternity unit within the home, while the remaining 80% of homes sent the pregnant women to the local hospital to give birth.

There were also a small percentage of homes which were run more like hostels, allowing women accommodation up until their confinement at which point they would generally transfer to a home which catered to the confinement period. While the homes were fairly large relative to a single family unit, in relation to other institutions they were actually quite small in comparison, with an average of thirteen residents per home. The homes with dedicated maternity wings tended to be larger however.

The majority of homes were run by religious organizations. According to a 1968 study on Mother and Baby Homes, the greater part of the homes were run by the Church of England (58%), followed by Roman Catholic (11.6%), the Salvation Army (5.3%), the Methodist Church (3.5%), as well as other church and religious organizations (7.6%). The remaining homes were run by local authorities including health and welfare departments (14%). ...

Women most commonly entered a Mother and Baby Home for lack of alternative services and a fear of social ostracism which required their pregnancy to occur in secret, some were reportedly sent to Mother and Baby Homes by their parents either out of fear of social disgrace or as a means to break up the relationship with the putative father. Going to a Mother and Baby Home was seen as anywhere from the best, to the quickest, to the only way to give birth and have the baby adopted without people knowing about it. ... Many ended up in the homes because they felt they had no choice, and no other options. ...

The website includes pages describing the following aspects of life in homes for unwed mothers:

On Arrival and A Typical Day

Chores

Recreation and Roommates

Church

Visitors

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A book titled Gone to an Aunt's: Remembering Canada's Homes for Unwed Mothers is based on the experience of author Anne Petrie, who gave birth in a home for unwed mothers in 1966. The book is summarized in detail by essayist N. J. Lindquist, whose review webpage comprises the following sections:

* The primary thing that stands out is the way most of these young women—some of them very young—were judged by their families, other members of their community, support people, and even by each other.

* Avoiding pregnancy wasn’t as easy as some people made it out to be.

* The girls who got pregnant and “went to visit an aunt” were, for the most part, normal teenagers or young woman.

* Brief bios of the seven women whose stories are told in detail

* Large, old, sparsely furnished, institutional homes

* Encouragement of feelings of shame and guilt mixed with a lack of compassion

* Most of them were given jobs to “pay their way”

* Going to the Hospital

* Giving Birth

* Seeing the Baby

* Life After the Baby