- Author: Kwon, Hee Jung
- Title: Orphaning Babies of Unwed Mothers in Adoption Practice
- Language: Korean
- Journal: Issues in Feminism 15, 1: 51-98
- Publication Year: 2015
- Publisher: Korean Womens Studies Institute
■ Abstract In public discussion on motherhood, the experience of unwed mothers has been silenced. In a society where the norm is to have babies only within institutionalized marriage, an unwed mother’s giving birth is regarded as an unfortunate and shameful incident that cannot be discussed in public. This study examines public discourse on adoption and the normal family and their impact on unwed mothers’ motherhood from the 1950s to 1980s.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the majority of adoptees were war orphans and mixed race children. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the majority were children of unwed mothers. I will argue that the shift of adopted children from war orphans and mixed race children to those of unwed mothers were mainly due to the idealization/romanticizing of middle class family, which became stronger and popularized as its heading to 1980s. Moreover in 1980s, adoption agencies started to seek the possible adoptive babies more aggressively as adoptions generated large revenues for adoption agencies. In this social context, the stigmatization onunwed motherhood became more severe and motherhood of unwed mothers were slowly deprived from them. As a result, unwed mothers who used to be regarded as mothers, started to lose their social statues as mothers and categorized as unfortunate women. Along with the lost of motherhood of unwed mothers, their children were also categorized as orphans and sent to adoption.
Further microscopic research on unwed mothers’ experiences based on personal history is warranted to reconstruct the modern history of motherhood.
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