Shit on my hands

Babies being inspected at the Kew wing of Royal Women’s Hospital, 1958

MH

For a significant whack of the twentieth century, the Sisters of St Joseph operated a home for unmarried mothers in Grattan Street, Carlton. Located opposite the old Royal Women’s Hospital, it admitted young pregnant girls (often sent from small country towns by their ashamed families), looked after them for the duration of the ‘lying in’ period, then hastily arranged the adoption of the girls’ babies by infertile Catholic married couples. Only since the 1990s has the calamitous impact this process had on the relinquishing mothers (and often the lives of their children) been recognized. Those involved in the separation of babies and mothers were also haunted by their role. One elderly nun I interviewed ten years ago was stricken by the trauma she had inflicted at the home between the 1940s and 1960s. Once the single mothers pension was introduced by the Whitlam government in 1973, the adoption rate plummeted and the function of such institutions as the St Joseph’s home became obsolete.

But societal attitudes towards young mothers are, if anything, hardening. Given the liberalisation of abortion laws, pregnant teens are accused of deliberately ruining their own lives, being emotionally and mentally unstable, and ripping off the public purse if they choose to continue their pregnancies. A friend had her first baby at the same time I had mine. She was 18 and I was 30. The comments and looks she reported receiving throughout her pregnancy were shocking. Her neighbour asked her if there was not an easier way she could earn $5000 than by becoming eligible for the baby bonus. I received no such ‘feedback’. My friend is about to complete a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in psychology, and has received high distinctions throughout. Contrary to the unfair stereotype of the incapable teen mother, she is kicking serious goals in all aspects of her life. Also, in contradiction to common perceptions, she is still with the father of her child.

Which leads me to the curious response by writer Kerri Sackville on Twitter to last Wednesday night’s episode of the fantastic contraception device SBS television series One Born Every Minute which follows the hospital birthing journey of two or three couples each episode. I greatly admire Kerri’s writing and am usually heartily amused by her Twitter stream, but I was a little shocked by the comments she made about one expecting couple: the woman was 18 years old and the man 33. Both were open about his past heroin addiction and daily methadone requirements. Sackville tweeted ‘she’s a child and he is a disaster. If she was older and wiser she’d run a mile’ and ‘that poor little 18 year old with her loser partner’. Hopefully the couple in question – or any others in similar circumstances – won’t ever read the tweets. When your confidence is already sapped by sneering sideways glances and pointed observations of your youthfulness, such proclamations would be very unhelpful, indeed.

I was conversely really impressed by the non-judgemental attitude of the midwives to this couple, which departed significantly from the treatment meted out to young unmarried residents of St Joseph’s at the Royal Women’s Hospital when they were giving birth. If you had no wedding ring, you were treated like trash. For many of these teenage girls, giving birth was the loneliest experience of their lives. And if they were single, they didn’t even have the shoulder of a partner to weep on when their babies were summarily removed from their care.

While he may not have been my personal cup of tea, the 33-year-old man in the OBEM episode exhibited a great level of attention and love to his young partner – and she to him. He was able to communicate with great sensitivity to the midwives the source of his partner’s anxiety when she became upset throughout labour, and he was attentive and encouraging during the subsequent caesarean section. To me he wasn’t a ‘LOSER’, but a bloke who had stuck with his girl, was doing the utmost to change his life, and sought to give his daughter a childhood different from his own underprivileged one. He may have had to have his bus fare doled out by his highly organised young ‘Mrs’, but he was present and supportive throughout her complicated four-day labour. Who’s to say that they would not both continue to be excellent parents to the scrumptious daughter they produced? And, if they in fact do separate, that they won’t handle the experience any worse than their older, educated, financially ‘secure’ counterparts? 

I also don’t think the age difference between the two automatically equates to exploitation and inequality. My best friend had a 34-year-old partner when she was 18 and theirs was a highly loving, committed and, until they grew apart (a common phenomenon – regardless of age difference) mutually rewarding relationship. They simply got along really well – which was similarly apparent of the OBEM couple.

I don’t want to preach from the PC soapbox, but young mothers – single or otherwise – should not be automatically judged according to stereotypes. Nor should the fathers. A more nuanced, sensitive approach to individual cases is required. Only then will we have truly moved on from the ‘bad old days’ when young mothers were habitually separated from their babies.