[Series] The Evolution Continues - Sex, Love, Family | Episode 3
Adoption: A Problem Solver for Two ‘Problematic Women’ of Modern Times South Korea, we’ve got ‘problems.’ April 1, 2024
World War II stands as the deadliest war in human history. Following six years of conflict, Western nations focused on restoring societal 'health' and reestablishing ‘normalcy’ of families as a means to heal the scars of war. This normal family model centered around a breadwinning father engaged in paid work in the public sphere, a dependent mother responsible for unpaid domestic labor and childrearing in the private sphere, and their children. This model emerged as the archetype of the modern nuclear family, with mid-20th-century social sciences actively producing and disseminating knowledge supporting its normalization and legitimization. Since the establishment of the first Domestic Economics department at Iowa State University in 1872, American universities had been offering home economics education, primarily targeting female students. In the post-war period, as the myth of the ‘normal family’ gained greater social traction, home economics education assumed heightened significance in reinforcing these ideals.
▲An illustration of a typical American nuclear family of the 1950s © Pinterest
Problematic Woman #1 Since the inception of home economics as a field, universities have adopted various ‘scientific’ approaches to educate female students in ‘mothercraft,’ covering skills such as cooking, laundry, ironing, sewing, and childcare. Some universities even constructed practice apartments on their campuses to facilitate this training. At Cornell University, for example, eight female students resided in these practice apartments each semester, under the supervision of a faculty member, to ‘acquire’ comprehensive household management skills in a scientific and cost-efficient manner. In terms of childcare training, universities arranged for real infants from orphanages to be cared for within these practice apartments. These practice babies were assigned a variety of first names, yet all shared the same arbitrarily coined surname, “Domecon,” a shorthand for Domestic Economics. According to Cornell's contract with the orphanage, the babies “could be returned at any time if there was dissatisfaction on the part of the college.” ▲Bobby Domecon, a practice baby, arrived at Cornell in 1920 © Cornell University Although societal expectations dictated that all women should marry and assume responsibility for housekeeping and childcare, married women without children were regarded as ‘problematic.’ As Wilson-Buterbaugh (2017) notes: “American society [...] put a premium on the myth of the perfect family. Couples without children were viewed as incomplete, without meaning or value. [...] Childless couples were subject to many and diverse presuures to have as larger families became less socially acceptable" [...] [and] could be viewed as a mental illness and as a psychiatric problem.” (pp. 117-118).
Problematic Woman #2 Meanwhile, outside the institution of marriage, women who were unmarried but pregnant or gave birth outside of marriage were considered ‘problematic.’ “In the 1940s and early 1950s, the psychological and psychiatric behavioral theories emphasized emotional disturbances as a cause for ‘illegitimacy’” and suggested “that unmarried mothers are suffering from a neurosis [and] almost will themselves to become pregnant […]” (ibid., pp. 232-233). These so-called ‘neurotic’ unmarried mothers were believed to require “treatment” involving the separation of the baby from the mother, with the child often surrendered for adoption to a married woman without children, who was herself regarded as potentially neurotic due to her childlessness. Psychiatrist Helene Deutsch (1945) observed that, “[T]he least mature among unmarried mothers are the very ones who often fight to keep their children” and asserted that “the best solution for the majority of unwed mothers was to give the baby up” (ibid: p. 260).
Similarly, a 1962 Salvation Army handbook for unmarried mothers states that “the more immature or neurotic the personality of the unmarried mother was, the less likely she was to view her child as an individual and the greater her need to keep the baby” (ibid., p. 259). As a result, maternity homes, which had previously before World War II encouraged unwed mothers to raise their children, became places where pregnant women stayed only until they gave birth. Staff at these homes worked relentlessly to convince hesitant or resistant unwed mothers that adoption was the best and only option (Fessler 2006). “The popular explanation continued to be that the mothers who release children to give them a chance to have the “normal” family life that they cannot provide and to give them the opportunity to get back to the “normal” life they had before the pregnancy altered it” (Wilson-Buterbaugh 2017: 140). From 1945 to the early 1970s, this practice was widespread, with over 1.5 million unwed mothers losing their children to adoption. This era is historically referred to as the 'Baby Scoop Era.'
From Adoption-Focused to Family Preservation A shift eventually took place. In 1971, the United Nations Secretary General’s Commission on the Status of Women declared that protections for unmarried mothers “should not be considered as one likely to encourage births out of wedlock and therefore as a cause of a situation looked upon as a social evil.” The commission’s 1971 report further advocated that “the unmarried mother […] Maintenance rights and obligations as between the unmarried mother and her child should be the same as between a sole parent and a child born in wedlock […] The unmarried mother […] should enjoy all the measures of social assistance and social security devised for mothers in general and for single parents in particular.” Beginning in the mid-1970s, the rights of minor parents were significantly strengthened, granting legal protection that prioritizes the wishes of minor unwed mothers over those their parents. In 1978, the Child Welfare League of America recommended that “no child should be deprived of the care by his natural parents. […] No children should be deprived of care by their parents solely because of their economic need, or their need for other forms of community assistance to reinforce their effort to maintain a home for them.” Following the end of the “Baby Scoop Era” in the mid-1970s, fewer than 1% of unwed mothers in the United States chose to relinquish their babies.
South Korea in 2024 While the exact percentage of unwed mothers in South Korea who place their children for adoption remains unclear, over 90% of adoptees in 2020 were born to unwed mothers. Although South Korea signed the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption in 2013, it has not ratified the convention, as its domestic policies and practices do not fully align with the convention’s standards, which prioritize preserving a child’s family of origin. To address the needs of unwed mothers, the government introduced the ‘Protected Birth Bill’ last year, allowing women and girls going through unwanted pregnancies to give birth anonymously, with implementation set for July this year. While the government is tasked with providing support to aid these ‘crisis mothers’ and enabling children to be raised within their families of origin, this legislation may increase the number of newborn orphans separated from their parents at birth. Accounts from adoptees frequently reveal the profound personal struggles of individuals who were raised with limited information about their origins, fragmented narratives of their birth, and a lost sense of identity. Currently, most unwed mothers find that government support alone does not adequately cover the costs of pregnancy and childbirth; however, the new law guarantees full medical coverage for mothers opting for anonymous birth. Reflecting on the historical lessons of the American Baby Scoop Era, South Korea must critically reassess its current trajectory to prevent similar outcomes. It must ensure that children are not born without knowledge of their biological family, only to be sent to orphanages. Every child has the rights to grow up without the imposed societal burden of gratitude for “being saved” after the loss of their original family and struggles with identity. ----------------------------------------------------------------- This column, written by Hee Jung Kwon, director of UMI4AA, was adapted from an article published on OhmyNews on April 1, 2024. “Adoption: A Problem Solver for Two ‘Problematic Women’ of Modern Times” – OhmyNews (ohmynews.com)
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