Part 4

All this is quite wrong. It breaks the power of the young; turns them into dutiful automatons, instead of rebellious adventurers. Constantly thwarted, too much protected, they become necessarily less capable of effort, with a weakened power for action. The model boy or girl of parents and schoolmasters is almost always a failure in life.

Such parents love their children too selfishly and too possessively. Seeking emotional relief, they drain for themselves the storehouse of energy which their children ought to preserve for their own lives.

The danger is deep and far reaching, a too great and unhealthy attachment to either parent may, and often does, cause an inability to transfer an adequate share of loyalty and affection from the parent to the wife or husband. It may check the desire to marry. The man’s choice of a life partner is guided by an infantile vision of his idealised mother; and then, after marriage, he will seek from his wife the feelings of a mother. That is, he will want to be helped and mothered instead of wishing to guide and protect.

This is a very frequent cause of unhappiness in marriage.

Strange as this may seem, the true Don Juan owes his incapacity to find satisfaction in love to the fact that he searches unconsciously for what he can never find, the lost features of his childhood’s mother. He is unfaithful to all women because he is faithful to one woman.

Again the girl may feel towards her husband as she did towards her father; she may be too obedient, too uncritical to be a true helpmate; or, and this is much more serious, a too excessive identification with the mother may render difficult and even impossible the right response to love.

It is not too much to say that, wherever there is this over-attachment and persistence of the childhood attitude, or where the conflict to break from the too heavy tyranny is very severe, the whole career and the whole love-history of the adult life is settled and decided—damned and fated to disaster from the start. Indeed the seed of failure, of unhappiness, even of crime and vice, often is set in helpless children by the selfishness and ignorance of over-affectionately helpful parents, whose too much interference, too emotional solicitude, blocks the narrow passes that lead on to open and independent life.

THE SUPERFLUOUS FATHER

In many homes, where there are children, the father seems a stranger—almost an intruder.

The central figure in the family is the mother. All the details of her life are familiar to the children; she is seen shopping, cooking, looking after the home. The father is a little mysterious; he goes adventuring in the unknown world. He is picturesque and wonderful; an exciting figure that arouses nursery admiration—but he is unnecessary.

At first the mother occupies all the child’s attention. She supplies food, comfort, shelter, teaching and brings happiness to the nursery. She is the first love-object and of supreme importance; the starting point of all those interests of the children which lie outside of themselves.

But the other parent—the superfluous father, comes both as interrupter and friend into this mother-child circle. He plays with the children, opens up new delightful ways of interest, brings the movement that children love. But also he is a disturber. He absorbs the mother, draws her attention and care from the children. He upsets the order and balance of the nursery. He almost dethrones the baby.

Thus at a very early age jealousy of the father begins to stir and unsettle the nursery peace. Usually we either treat this childish jealousy as a joke or refuse to admit its presence, but it is deadly earnest to the child itself. If the mother is capricious, varying in her attentions to her husband and to her children, or if she is over-tender and too demonstratively affectionate, this jealousy may, and indeed, must work great and permanent evil.

You see, it imposes a conflict in the exquisitely responsive child, between the emotions of hate and anger and envy born of jealousy, and the emotions of love and admiration and obedience dependent on a sense of the benefits conferred by the father.

It is the duty of the mother so to balance her favours and her love that the rights of the husband and the children are both maintained, and neither side is tempted to be a monopolist.

For it is not only the children who are jealous of the father. Often the father is jealous of the children. And often he has cause. Some women, when once the child is born, regard their husbands solely as the person for providing money necessary for the maintenance of the home. In any other capacity she has ceased to desire him, frankly he is in the way.

The mother type often ceases, after motherhood, to be the loving mate—the wife. There is so little time for love making in a nursery home. The man becomes a superfluity, his demands tend to be delegated to holidays that are planned, but do not often occur.

Nature herself seems to condemn the man in his capacity as father. So delicate is the bond which attaches him to the child as compared with the unbreakable bindings which hold the child to the mother; so readily can he be pushed outside the circle of the family, where, as a member apart, he will inevitably seek his own interests and pleasures.

Now, whether this complete severance happens or not, some conflict between the father and his children, especially between father and sons is almost bound to occur. This is a war which is normal and, indeed, inevitable—far more so than any class-war, any opposition and struggle between the nations.

Have we not read of the solitary polygamous father of the past, the Old Man of the Tribe, who drove his sons out of the horde as they grew up, because in his greed he wanted all the women to be his wives? Much time has passed since then, but these emotions are very old and very strong. Pity and the gentler feelings of civilisation enable the father to accept the son as a member of the family and as a companion instead of a rival. But echoes remain of the old instincts of jealous rivalry.

No science is so difficult or so important as psychology. It is because parents do not understand their own minds or the minds of their children that they make such mistakes. They do not see that some jealousy and opposition in family relationships are inevitable and, in fact, useful. Else the child would never grow up, would always be overwhelmed by its parents.

So do not let us be too alarmed if sons oppose fathers, or if fathers are wanting in sympathy with their sons.

Yet it must be remembered finally, on the other side, that the authority of the father has to be maintained. Superfluous in the family, from one point of thought, his influence is nevertheless of the most urgent importance. Without it a too great dependence on self is fostered at too early an age, which sets up an intolerant and unreasoning hatred of all authority and an inability to suffer any kind of restraint.

The father thus needs to preserve his rights and duties within the home. If women have had to fight for the Vote and the open door to the profession, the father may have to fight for the love of his children and the key to the nursery.

He must refuse to be regarded as superfluous.

THE PERFECT MOTHER

A few weeks ago a shower of sudden rain brought me for shelter into the house of a kindly stranger, who beckoned me in from the position I had taken under the thickly foliaged trees, bordering her garden. She was a woman who exuded kindness. You know the type—opulent in figure, wholesome and ripe, her face beaming in wide wrinkles of pink flesh.

The sudden generous smile of the big mouth showed her the possessor of a real charm. Her eyes had a blue twinkle that attracted laughter. Quite plainly she would be delightful as a mother. For about her was something that conjured visions of nursery fires, of warm, sweet bread-and-milk, of sugar plums after nasty powders, and of kisses and forgiveness given for childish wrong doing, without any unfair bargaining for repentence.

But this woman had no child. Nature does not always, in this matter, act as intelligently as she might. We all know of many Betsy Trotwoods. On the other hand, we find children lavished wastefully—yes, children, swarming in the cold homes of mothers who do not want them—women without understanding of children or any trace of parental passionateness. Do you not recall many modern prototypes of Mrs. Jellaby?

I felt my bowels ache for this woman with her rich and wasted motherhood. Her opulent affections were lavished not, as they should have been, on the tender warm bodies of little children, but on dogs.

Never have I seen so many dogs: they were placed all over the rather small room. Both easy chairs were occupied by a canine seater. There was a mother with new baby-pups in a lined basket before the great fire. Another dog who was sick was in another basket, wrapped in a shawl, on the other side of the fire. The room was stifling, and had a sick, close, doggy smell. And though I am a lover of dogs, I felt disgusted. I really hated those pampered toys, that snarled and snapped and grumbled at me in the most horrible way. Believe me, I am not exaggerating. You could not speak. The whole room was dogs. Enough! Let us leave them and get on to something of greater value.

It was that thought which caught and gripped my attention. This woman’s unfilled life. I could not forget it: it stayed with me long after I had left the house—a memory not to be obliterated.

She was forlorn among her dogs. It was a tragedy of waste. I have had so many dreams of the perfect mother that I was stung to anger and impatience to find her, at last here, squandering her affections on a canine brood.

The situation was so plain. This woman needed children, if not of her flesh, then adopted and made her own by the rich fullness of her motherhood.

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.