The wounded fathers of the hidden babies

THAT'S MEN: Many men were traumatised by society’s attitude to ‘illegitimate’ children, writes PADRAIG O'MORAIN

THAT'S MEN:Many men were traumatised by society's attitude to 'illegitimate' children, writes PADRAIG O'MORAIN

I WONDER how many men still think about the children they fathered and denied during the 50s, 60s and 70s? How many men were emotionally wounded by society’s hostile attitude to birth outside marriage?

The question is prompted by a letter to The Irish Times from Mary Higgins. In it she reminded us that Nuala Fennell, who died last week, was responsible for introducing the legislation which removed the legal status of illegitimacy and with it the stigma which burdened innocent children.

In this and in other campaigns for women’s rights, she helped to liberate not only women but also men and children.

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I don’t suppose today’s reader has much sympathy for men who denied their own “illegitimate” children, ie children born out of wedlock. But that’s an unfair attitude, actually, in the light of what happened.

First, though, the consequences for the mother were likely to include a secret trip to a mother and baby home, usually run by nuns, and the ordeal of seeing her baby, whom she may have looked after for months, taken away for adoption with the strict stipulation that they never meet again.

The baby would be adopted, very likely by Americans because the Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, didn’t want Catholic children adopted by Northern Protestants.

So the baby grew up in a more liberal society, not knowing what little choice the mother had in the whole matter.

Usually, mother and father were teenagers in a society which viewed the young with suspicion.

Society, in the shape of their families, tended to react in one of two ways to the news that a boy had got a girl pregnant.

One was a quick trip to the altar, an early marriage to “legitimise” the unborn child. But some families saw this too as a form of social let-down.

Moreover, one or the other of the young people might be seen as “unsuitable” by one or the other of the families. So the result, all too often, was that secret trip to the mother and baby home.

How much choice did the fathers have? Not a lot, in my opinion. There were, of course, some who were happy to walk away from their responsibilities – same story today.

But I have no doubt that many others were broken-hearted at the “disappearing” of the baby. They themselves were in disgrace with their own families because of what had happened.

Today’s concept of a single mother raising a child with support from the father just didn’t exist – such an arrangement would put the mother and her legally “illegitimate” children beyond the pale of normal society.

Communication ended once the mother had been whipped off to a mother and baby home. No mobile phones. No landline in most houses, even into the 1970s.

There would probably be one telephone in the mother and baby home. But there is no chance that the father would have been allowed to talk to the mother on the phone.

Letters in and out were opened and, again, there is no chance that a letter between the two would have reached one or the other.

Apart from close family, nobody ever knew the child had been born. The mere knowledge that a woman had had a child outside wedlock would have rendered her “unmarriageable” in the eyes of many.

Sometimes the adult children came back and found one or both parents.

But many parents – probably most fathers – will go to the grave without knowing what happened to the baby who had to be hidden from the world.

Gradually the feminist movement, brave and pioneering organisations like Cherish (now One Family) and people of a liberal bent, both male and female, fought for change.

A key part of that fight was the abolition of illegitimacy and Nuala Fennell was at the forefront of that and many other fights that created the more humane society in which we now live.

But the people wounded by the society from which we emerged have not disappeared into some historical fog. They live and breathe and sometimes they still hurt.

And they include mothers, children and, yes, fathers.

Padraig O'Morain is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His book, That's Men, the best of the That's Men column from The Irish Times, is published by Veritas