dumbrenter, “welfare” (incl “food stamps”) as we know it was not in existence during the Great Depression and WWII. Neither were housing assistance programs as we know them today. “Social Security” did not even come into existence until 1935 and this was only the OASDI program (did not include SSD and SSI). Many families running ranches and farms back then looked upon kids as another hand to help with all the daily chores of existence (older than about 6 years old). Families couldn’t CHOOSE (except by abstinence) on whether to have more children as there was no birth control in existence. Unmarried pregnant women brought “shame” to their families and were sent away to have their child and give it up. Most married women had their children at home and were lucky to find a “qualified” midwife to assist them. Maternal and infant death in childbirth was MUCH higher it is than today.
There were COUNTLESS American orphans given up for adoption because their parents lost their land or one of them died and the remaining parent could not take care of all the kids and farm the land and/or leave to seek work, too. Some kids were lucky enough to land with relatives who had more stable (paid for) homes but MANY siblings were split up among whomever could afford to put them up or even adopt them, whether or not they lived in a different city or state. If they were sick and/or chronically unemployed, many desperate parents voluntarily left their children in “charity children’s homes” for what they thought was for the good of the child, only to return after obtaining some money and/or a place for their children to live and find they had been “adopted” by a distant familie(s). Too poor to hire legal counsel, they were forced to get on with their lives.
….There is no doubt that the black market flourished in the 1930s and 1940s in Tennessee, New York and elsewhere. A U.S. Senate subcommittee in 1955 heard testimony about rings in Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Wichita.
Those hearings were convened partly in response to the misdeeds of Georgia Tann, the director of a respected children’s home in Memphis, Tenn. Authorities discovered in 1950 that, for more than a decade, hundreds of the homes’ children had been part of adoption-for-profit schemes.
Some newborns were stolen from mothers who were told that their babies had died. Older children were taken from poor families after a corrupt judge terminated parental rights.
Tann died of cancer days before the investigation was completed, but the state later won a civil lawsuit against her estate…
Today, people have CHOICES on whether to have kids or not. Many, it seems, have children whether or not they can “afford” them because they know there will be a government program to assist them if they are unable to support their children. This wasn’t always the case.
The responsible thing to do in this day and age is to have only the children you can afford, IMHO.
