Long before the heyday of baby selling, there was concern
about damage from separating mother and infant:
"Other [maternity] homes still emphasize the learning
of household skills and child care; a generation or so
ago these lessons together with moral admonitions constituted
the entire program, because all unwed mothers kept their
babies. "Counseling the Unwed Mothers" by
Helen E. Terkelsen copyright 1964 p. 102
"With the growing concern of social agencies ...
Of increasing interest is the question as to whether in
being separated from the mother, the child is not deprived
of something that society can not replace even with the
best care it can provide, and whether this most important
consideration may not outweigh all others." Illegitimacy
As a Child-Welfare Problem (Part 1, p. 56), Emma Lundberg
and Katharine Lenroot, copyright, 1920.
[Question:] "'Would it be better for mother and
child if the baby were given away (adopted)?'
[Answer:] 'Not in most cases. Motherhood, and the love
and care of the baby, strengthens the character of every
girl who has the mentality to grasp it. As to the child:
psychologists and social workers have learned that no
material advantage can make up for the loss of its own
mother. Better a poor home, with mother love, they say,
than an adopted home in luxury. The public conscience
is gradually coming to demand an equal chance for the
child born out of wedlock'." from FLORENCE CRITTENTON
HOME BROCHURE (Washington, D.C.)(1942-1956?)
"The child who is placed with adoptive parents at
or soon after birth misses the mutual and deeply satisfying
mother and child relationship. The roots of which lie
deep in the area of personality where the psychological
and physiological are merged. Both for the child and the
natural mother, that period is part of the biological
sequence, and it is to be doubted whether the relationship
of the child to it's post partum mother, in its subtler
effects, can be replaced by even the best of substitute
mothers. But those subtle effects lie so deeply buried
in the personality that, in the light of our present knowledge,
we cannot evaluate them." PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ADOPTED
CHILD, Clothier. F. MD. 1943
"THE DEPRIVATION OF A MOTHER'S CARE - Separation
from the mother at a very early age is a common experience
among children born out of wedlock. . . Often separation
occurs when it might have been prevented, and when it
is contrary to the best interests of the child and the
mother." ILLEGITIMACY AS A CHILD-WELFARE PROBLEM,
PARTS 1 AND 2, U.S. Department of Labor, Children's Bureau
by Emma Lundberg & Katharine Lenroot, (reprinted 1974),
copyright 1920.
