One of the largest early efforts
to compile basic information about adoption patterns took place
in Massachusetts, also the first state in the country to pass a
modern adoption law. The Massachusetts
Adoption of Children Act of 1851 required judges to ensure that
each and every adoption was “fit and proper,” although
it did not specify exactly how judges were supposed to do this.
Seven decades later, social researcher Ida Parker embarked on a
study to determine if the laudable goal of child
welfare was actually being achieved. She concluded that it was
not. There was far too much variability and error in procedure and
far too little regulation. The picture of adoption that emerged
confirmed reformers’ belief that adoption was a risky procedure
likely to result in tragedy, delinquency, and maladjustment. Adoptions
that were neither fit nor proper were a major social problem.
The study, conducted by the Boston Council of Social Agencies,
examined all adoption records in the probate courts of six counties
(including the state’s most populous counties, Suffolk and
Norfolk) between July 1, 1922 and December 31, 1925. It tallied
the number of adoptions taking place and asked who was being adopted,
by whom, and how. Parker’s statistical
findings were based on 872 cases. Of these, she examined 100
in detail to discover what happened to children after legal adoption
but she avoided contacting either children or parents personally,
as outcome studies did.
“Care has been taken to injure no one by carrying the inquiry
too far,” she noted, indicating how sensitive adoption was
at this time and also how unreliable adoptive parents were about
telling their children.
What did the study find? Parker estimated that approximately 1000
adoptions were granted in Massachusetts annually. A majority involved
illegitimate babies from
families who were reported to have very bad reputations and long
histories of mental deficiency and criminality. Adoptions typically
occurred when children were young: the majority were under five
and almost 19 percent were less than one. Most were arranged by
birth mothers with the help of doctors, midwives, or newspaper advertisements
rather than qualified social agencies. Birth fathers were generally
absent and consented to adoption in only a handful of cases. Many
more children were adopted by strangers than by natal relatives.
Without the safeguards of expert investigations and mental tests,
these adoptions were eugenic nightmares. “This
is not the human stock which people contemplating adoption desire
but many times, though by no means always, it is what they secure. . .
Normal families of good stock seldom give away their children even
in the face of poverty, death, or other adversity.” According
to Parker, the adults involved in adoption were often as unfit as
the children. This fact made it even more urgent for courts to have
new methods of “sifting the wheat from the chaff.”
Like other Progressive reformers, Ida Parker was convinced that
empirical field studies would support the case for minimum
standards such as mandatory investigations and post-placement
probationary periods. “The facts show that adoption may bring
tragedy or great happiness to child and to adoptive family. Properly
safe-guarded adoption may be a social asset as well as a social
expedient. How much longer must helpless children of Massachusetts
wait for their State to extend that measure of protection against
unsuitable adoption which they so sorely need?”
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