More like a football than a human being’: the plight of children between neglect and welfare in early 20th Century Scotland
Lynn Abrams, University of Glasgow
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Summary
– Policy towards the family
- Up to WWII organisations pursued a policy of removing the child from the family
– Children in foster care should be treated with respect rather than victimized
– Oral history interviews of adults who had as children been boarded out by the parish
– One interview as an example of how this treatment of children impacts them as an adult and their life changes and perceptions of what constitutes a family
– Peter, born 1934 in Glasgow, in a family of 6 with a single mother who died in 1938
- Sent the 3 youngest to the Black Isle
- Then moved to stay with a widow in a tiny town on the east coast
- Her death made them the custody of her domestic help as the boys guardians
- Peter described this time as purgatory
- At 15 removed again to live with two spinster sisters
- From there he ran away to Glasgow with the help of his older brother
– 3 things needed for children to have a normal childhood
- 1) parental affection
- 2) intimate personal interest
- 3) preparations and graduate introduction into an independent life
– Peter described his experience as a lost childhood
- families
– Freudian notion of a fantasy family
- For Peter the fantasy family was his blood family
- Found out at 40 that he was illegitimate
- Meant he was separated emotionally from the rest of his brothers and sisters
- Found out at 40 that he was illegitimate
– Peters case what not unusual
- Many people turned a blind eye to children in foster care
- Until 1945 Scottish childcare system rocked by the case of Walton, a couple viciously abusing two foster children
– WWII, big shift in policy
- Agency workers have to walk a tight rope between the family good and the protection of the children
- Peter was aware of this, but said he and his brother were directly affected by their poor treatment in foster care