NOBODY’S CHILDREN
CHILD ADOPTION: A MUCH NEEDED REFORM
It was a short time after I had found “the perfect mother” thus wasted, that there came into my hands the “White Paper” which gives in full the wise and interesting Report of the Committee on Child Adoption. I knew that here was just the very thing that was wanted. Here was shewn the means by which the motherly childless woman and the motherless child could be brought together.
The desire for child adoption has never been stronger than it is at the present time. But I do not hesitate to say that, in the present absence of any law to regulate and safeguard adoption, the position is so set about with difficulties and so pressed with continuous dangers that the practice ought to be actively discouraged. It is dangerous for the adopter and, what matters even more, it is dangerous for the child.
The emphatic and unanimous decision of the Committee was that there is immediate necessity for a change in the law to make the adoption of children legal in this country. Every one who gave evidence was unanimously in favour of adoption in all cases where, for one reason or another, any child could not have the care of its own parents. It is much better for every child to be brought up in a home than in an institution. Not only is it cheaper, but the child benefits far more. But adoption needs to be regulated and legalised. The child is too precious a possession to leave to anyone to do with as they desire.
The report recommends:—
1. That after obtaining the consent of the real parents and the adopting parents, as well as the consent of the child, if he (or she) is over fourteen, all adoption shall be sanctioned by a judicial authority.
2. That confidential official inquiries shall be made from time to time, as to the child’s progress and happiness in the adopted home.
3. That the child shall take the adopter’s name, and shall have, as far as is possible, the position of a natural child.
This Report was presented in June, 1921. Yet nothing has been done. And what I wish to emphasize with all the power that I have, is the crime of this delay and the urgent need there is for immediate legislation. Children are waiting to be adopted; childless people are waiting to adopt. Surely it ought not to be difficult to frame a simple law that would safeguard the interests of both.
There is little wonder that hitherto adoption has not been popular in this country. One strong reason that has prevented the far-sighted from attempting it is that in England there is no legal method by which adoption can be carried out. And because of this there is, as I have said, too much danger connected with it, as well as not enough certainty of its continuance. For the law grants the foster-parent no recognised control over the child.
There is the ever present fear, increasing as the years pass and the child grows up, lest the natural parent shall come one day and claim the right to take the child away—an injustice specially likely to happen as the child becomes older and is able to earn money.
Then there is, on the other side, the possibility (often realised) of the adoption being a commercial transaction between the parent (most frequently an unmarried mother) and a foster-parent, by which the latter receives a sum of money and takes over an unwanted child, who most frequently dies. It is horrible to contemplate.
But indeed, always, there is the dangerous position of the adopted child, who has no settled position, no legal claim on the foster-parents, who may adopt a child in the most solemn manner and keep it all through the attractive years of childhood, then, when the less attractive years of adolescence begin, or when any change in circumstances makes the adopted child no longer wanted, they can calmly withdraw their protection and turn the child out of their home. Again, I say, it is horrible to contemplate. The destiny of the adopted child is controlled throughout the unprotected years of childhood and of youth by the whim and caprice, both of the natural parent and the adopted-parent.
And do not comfort yourself by believing that these are merely imaginary troubles. They occur every day as every one knows who has any knowledge of the practice and results of child adoption in this country. I personally know of many cases of injustice that have brought disaster and unhappiness to the child. Let me tell you one. A boy was adopted by a man, unmarried, a minister of God, who was a social worker and greatly attached to children. But later in his life the man married. Under pressure from his mother, accounted as a religious and good woman, the adoption was cancelled, the boy, wanted no longer, was sent to a home for homeless children. No one troubled about him. Or take another case where an illegitimately born child—a baby girl, was abandoned and afterwards reclaimed three times during the first five years of her life! Each time the mother took her away from a happy home with foster-parents who loved and cared well for her. Then after a few months of neglect the mother again abandoned her. They had no legal remedy against the caprice of the mother.
These unguarded children belong to nobody. Here is an amazing gap in our law. It is worse than that—it is an amazing gap in our consciousness and sense of social responsibility. “Nobody’s children!” the phrase has a pitiable and stinging significance. Yet it is just this state of things we are countenancing with our lazy and callous indifference. There are tens of thousands of little ones for whom to-day it is bitter truth that they belong to no one. Orphaned, or unwanted by their natural-parents, many of them are being adopted in the worst and most casual manner—handed out “on probation” like a cat or a dog.
And if you doubt the truth of this statement, listen to the judgment of the Committee on Child Adoption as to the disgraceful carelessness with which adoption is being carried on in this country;
“We believe that the absence of proper control over the ‘adoption’ of children over seven years of age and under that age unless payment is made, results in an undesirable traffic in child life with which no one can interfere, unless proceedings are taken against the adopting parent for cruelty or neglect; children may be handed from one person to another, with or without payment, advertised for disposal, and even sent out of the country without any record being kept. Intermediaries may accept children for ‘adoption’ and dispose of them as and when they choose. Homes and institutions for the reception of the children exist which are not subject to any inspection.” (Paragraph 61, page 10 of the Report.)
The italics in this passage are mine; will you try to think what these conditions, which you are permitting, mean? Think of them with your hearts, not with your heads! And if you have a child of your own, passionately dear to your life, try to realise the abominable position—the cruelty that can hardly be escaped, as if it were your child, who was thus being handed callously from one person to another, without protection, without any form of legal guardianship.
We talk much of the nation’s care for children. Would it not then seem a necessary step to have some just provision of our law to protect the helpless unwanted child, who at present belongs to nobody? Humanity, and even good sense answers, “Yes.” The Common Law of England has hitherto always said most emphatically, “No.” Except for a reference to adoptions which has managed to slip into a marginal note of a Finance Act, there is no recognition of adoption in our laws.
The right thing to do is the simple thing. We have on the one hand, these homeless children, whose numbers have become much larger in these last years and with the change and slackening in responsible conduct, while on the other hand, we have, an increased number of women who are childless and will never be able to marry. The problem, at its simplest, is this: What can be done to bring together the childless woman with a mother’s nature and the motherless child?
I am not forgetting the Institutions that are already in existence. There are two agencies for arranging adoption, as well as other religious and social societies, and many homes, from which children can be adopted. These agencies are doing admirable work, but they cannot do a tenth part of what ought to be done. And the very worst cases, in which the child most urgently needs protection, often cannot be reached at all. This problem is too big to be muddled through privately. It is the concern of the whole nation.
The first necessary step is to legalise adoption. Until that is done, nothing can be done.
At present as I have told you, the position is one of very great danger. The law grants the foster-parents no recognised legal control over the child. The mother, or her relatives, unless obviously immoral and unfit persons, may at any time claim back the child.
Even in the most favourable circumstances there is danger, and a never-ending uncertainty that cuts at the very root of the adopted relationships. I repeat: neither the foster-parent or the child has any security. And at any time, and for any reason, the child may be taken from his home. Directly he (or she) grows up and is able to earn money, the needy relatives, with an eye on those small earnings or on the much larger sums squeezable from the foster-parents, may prove an ever-threatening nuisance. If the foster-parent acts boldly and resists such claim, the relative may apply for a writ of Habeas Corpus in the High Court, when (under the Custody of the Children’s Act, 1891) the case is decided at the discretion of the Court. As a rule, the interests of the child are considered, and, in this respect, matters have much improved of late years. But even if the decision is given in favour of the foster-parents so that the child remains in the home in which it has been reared and is loved, there is a period of ceaseless anxiety; and, that the decision will be favourable is certain only when the character of the claiming relative can be proved to be bad.
So curious is the law that it is safer to adopt the child of bad or doubtful parentage (where this can be proved) than the child of good and respectable people.
The other side of the position has also to be considered. As is evident, the foster-parents may be bad. This we have seen. And what I want to emphasise further is that here too the danger threatens the unprotected child. Just as the law gives no recognised protection to the good foster-parents, so it affords no protection to the child against a bad foster-parent.
All the time I am trying to drive into your consciousness the terrible position of the child that has no legal claims; no kind of safeguard. He (or, of course, she, and the girl babies are adopted much oftener than boys) may be adopted simply as playthings, or to satisfy deeply unconscious instincts of cruelty, or as an investment for the time when they can earn money. Also they can be cast off at the caprice of their adopters.
A further and permanent injustice, operative even under happy conditions and in a good home, arises from the fact that the adopted child is without rights of inheritance. If his foster parents, however rich, die intestate, he has no share in the family property. At any time in his life he may be left penniless and friendless, without recognition that he belongs to anyone.
Such uncertainty is awful. Try to realise the suffering which it must bring to the child, ever dogging his footsteps like a menacing shadow.
Our sluggard imaginations must surely be stirred now our attention has been directed to this gap in our law. I wish that my pen had greater power to bring home to everyone concerned—and everyone who cares or professes to care for the welfare of children is concerned—the iniquity of allowing the continuance of conditions that must bring nothing less than tragedy into the lives of these unfortunate and unprotected little ones.
This is almost the only country which does not recognise and legalise adoption: all that needs to be done is to bring our law up to the standard which prevails in other lands. We alone are neglectful. It is one of the many social matters concerning children on which Great Britain has seriously fallen behind the example of its own daughter States. The United States, Australia and New Zealand have all gone far ahead of the Mother Country in their legislation in regard to child adoption. All the forty-eight States of the Union have now Acts regulating adoption. But perhaps the Model Act is that of Western Australia, passed in 1891. It provides for the complete and careful guardianship of all adopted children. The Act has worked admirably, and with a very few alterations could be adopted to the needs of this country.
And it must not be thought that all this recognition and protection of adoption is a new thing, and, as such, possible to dismiss as unnecessary, belonging to an over-protective and grandmotherly system of law. Such a belief would be far from the truth. Students of history know how almost universal was the practice of adoption in older civilisations. Roman law recognised the custom and adoption was extremely common. I could give many other examples. Especially interesting is the custom in India, where among the Hindoos, when a child is adopted into a new family, it goes through the religious ceremonies belonging to death before quitting the home in which it was born, and afterwards goes through the religious ceremonies belonging to birth on reaching the new home. The old bond is completely severed and a new social, religious and legal bond created.
I would ask your attention to this wise provision made by one of the oldest civilisations, which often understood so much more practically and simply the needs of a social situation.
If the full necessary security is to be given to the practice of adoption there must clearly be a complete passing over of the duties and rights of the natural-parents to the adopting parents. Adoption ought to be undertaken only solemnly and with due understanding of all the difficulties, and the necessary precautions. The closest enquiries, in every case, need to be made as to the bona fide intentions and complete suitability of the adopting parents: guarantees must be given of their intentions and ability to bring up and care for the child. It would also be equally necessary, except in exceptional cases of proved cruelty and unfit parentage, to ascertain the reasons why the parents—or parent in the case of an illegitimately born child—desired to give up their rights of guardianship. But when once this has been done, and any order of adoption made, the parental relationship ought to be transferred completely from the natural to the adopting parents.
And in the interests of the child, I would have this transference carried out with the severest restrictions. I would not allow a parent, or parents, who once gave up the guardianship of the child any rights of visitation. Such visits, even under the happiest circumstances cause disturbance, remind the child unceasingly of its difficult position as an adopted child. They tend to create confusion, with feelings of dissatisfaction and jealousy; comparison between the old home and the new home; conflicts between the affection for the adopted-parents and the very possible drawing back of natural affection for the real parents.
All ways adoption must be difficult.
Science has shewn us how terribly the future of the child depends on its early relationships in the home; its relation to its mother, on whom it depends for the first childish satisfactions, its relations to its father, to its brothers and sisters. The adopted relationships can never be quite the same as the natural relationships. We now know how easily jealousy and unhappiness can arise in the heart of even the youngest child, and what havoc to the after life these feelings may bring. If we remember this, we shall realise better the disturbing emotions likely to be aroused when one parent is lost and replaced by another. That is why everything possible needs to be done to give to adopted parenthood the strongest stability. The adoption of a child ought never to be undertaken lightly. It is, perhaps, the most binding and the most solemn, and the most fatefully responsible of any human relationship.
A righteous law of adoption needs to guard the adopted child so that the voluntary relationship is as binding in every way and as permanent as the natural relationship. For this reason the adopted child should, in my opinion, have the same rights of inheritance as all other children. Nothing short of this can do justice to the adopted child.
We talk a great deal to-day about children and their rights, but very few of us realise at all practically and fully the change of attitude, in particular in connection with property and the rights of inheritances, that are likely to be necessary, if, in all circumstances, our theories are to be expressed in our daily conduct.
The whole question is complicated and very difficult, there is, indeed, no easy way out.