Where Were the Men behind the Mother and Baby Homes?
By Mary McCaughey
‘Have the men had enough?” In the Scottish Highlands, where my mother comes from, this was a well-known phrase used by the women at the end of meals before the menfolk went back to the fields. Indeed it remains current to this day and was used as the title of a novel reflecting that kind of society. It’s a phrase that comes as we wring our hands and lament the hundreds of bodies of babies uncovered in Tuam. So much talk of the mothers and their babies. So much said about the homes they found themselves in. So many so quick to crucify the nuns for their apparent ineptitude, cruelty or even illegal acts. Changing attitudes to the “fallen women”, the Philomenas, the Ann Lovetts, have seen them begin to occupy a different space in our cultural context. There is a growing, sometimes grudging respect for the women who have managed to struggle through and beyond what was done to them to become poignant examples of strength and character for our daughters. Painful inadequacies But the danger is that this diverts the focus. Still the yawning chasm exists. This was a society run by men and for men. A society that systematically and institutionally used women to deal with their painful inadequacies and crimes and now looks for somewhere else to place the blame. Have the men not had enough? For each one of these babies, there was a man. There was an abusive father, uncle, brother, friend. There was perhaps a drunken young man or an angry old one. There was a snatched moment of lust or force in a field or a toilet at a dance. In some cases, perhaps, there was a hidden love. But were the men watching as these women were sent away? Were they listening as these women wailed in fear and anguish as they gave birth in ignominy far from home? Did they hear them cry out as they had their soft and needy newborn children snatched from them as their breasts ached with unwanted milk? Did they think of these women then or when they married later or when they watched their wives or daughters tenderly embrace their own children or grandchildren? Did they wonder ever where these babies were? Do they know what it is to feel an aching unrelenting longing still 50 years on? Have they ever felt the shame? Shame and stigma Just this week I heard the story of a woman who has found her son 20 years after she was forced to give him up for adoption. Twenty years on, the boy is a well-adjusted and generous young man who had welcomed her back into his life. The ugly spiral of shame and stigma that society attached to this beautiful boy still prevents his grandparents from doing the same. We all bear a responsibility for the society we live in. We have daughters and sons we are trying to help create a better society – one which values women and men equally and gives both the confidence to respect one another in all circumstances – so that together they can answer “Yes indeed, we have had enough”. This is what we owe our daughters, and this is what we owe our sons.
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