In the interests of the child: psychiatry, adoption, and the emancipation of the single mother and her child - the case of the Netherlands (1945-1970)

This paper discusses illegitimacy and single motherhood in the postwar period in the Netherlands from the perspective of what was considered to be in the interests of the child: being adopted by a married couple or being raised by the birthmother. It focuses particularly on the impact of psychiatry and the legalization of adoption in 1956 on the emancipation of the single mother and her child. The paper argues that the release of single motherhood and illegitimacy from the moral-religious stigmata of a “sinful fallen woman” and a “damned” or “degenerated” child has, in the Dutch case, not proc... Mehr ...