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A century of legal adoption
In readiness for the centenary of the first Adoption of Children Act (passed in 1926 and enacted in 1927), Coram has commissioned a special edition of their academic journal, created a timeline of adoption history on their website, and is calling for a hundred personal ‘stories of adoption’ by people ‘touched by adoption’ [insert barf…
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“They do not give the names of the real parents”
Many parents used shortened certificates as proof of name and birth date for their children, but to adopters there was an additional advantage: the fact of adoption—in theory, at least—was not disclosed. This helped hide the shame and embarrassment of adopted status and thus the stigma of illegitimacy for which many adoptees were bullied (as…
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Faulty goods
Initially offering permanence only for the adopters—most adoption societies offered a ‘return at any time’ policy while making mothers sign their child over for life—once the first Adoption Act had been passed in 1926 and parental rights and responsibilities could be legally transferred, permanence worked both ways. […] The reality of this permanency came as…
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Enid Blyton and “The Child Who Was Chosen”
It is clear that there was a great deal of anxiety about when and how to tell your child they were adopted. And perhaps a reluctance, for why else would adoption professionals and others need to talk about how important it was?
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Are adult adoptees invisible?
For a nation historically obsessed with granular statistics about births, marriages and deaths including infant mortality, prevalence of disease, causes of death and so on, we are extraordinarily blasé about the outcomes of adoptees.
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Adoption History 