This situation highlights the rather complex division of responsibilities between the CAS and the Infants’ Home. The CAS was the protection agency, but it was also a child placement agency. The Infants’ Home was a child placement agency, but it also worked in the community with unmarried mothers. The amicable working relationship between Bob Mills and Vera Moberly seemed to allow both agencies to define their roles and work together cooperatively.
The CAS was the protection agency, but it was also a child placement agency. The Infants’ Home was a child placement agency, but it also worked in the community with unmarried mothers.
The Infants’ Home’s work with unmarried mothers was paid for out of the agency’s private funds as well as a grant from the Federation for Community Service. The salaries paid to the experienced caseworkers required for this specialized work, however, were considered high, and it was not long before Vera Moberly was complaining that “The work was increasing faster than our income and we find it very difficult to keep a proper balance between the needs of the mothers and the endurance of our workers.”
Moberly pushed on regardless. A progressive thinker and practitioner, she encouraged workers to consider the needs of the children of unmarried mothers a family matter. “Encourage the girls,” she urged them, “to tell their parents so there will be no need to banish them away.” As was cited earlier in this chapter, she opened specialized foster homes, known as nursing homes, where both the mother and baby could live together. She appointed a male social worker to work with the babies’ fathers and encouraged them to visit, while the mother was taught how to care effectively for her child. Thus, the parents would be better able to decide if it would be in the mother’s and the child’s interest for her to keep the baby.
“Encourage the girls to tell their parents so there will be no need to banish them away.”
— Vera Moberly, advising workers on
how to deal with unmarried mothers
These approaches, revolutionary at the time, made the Infants’ Home an undisputed leader in the provision of services to unmarried mothers and their children. By 1939, the agency was serving almost 900 such families annually. Of these, about half were supported in their own homes. The mothers of the remaining children placed their babies in agency foster homes. About 130 mothers lived with their children in nursing foster homes.
Most of the children whose mothers could not care for them went on to adoption homes. The Infants’ Home made arrangements for those not considered suitable for adoption to be made wards of the CAS of Toronto.
Alma’s story, reported in the 1933 annual report, is typical of the services the Infants’ Home provided to unmarried mothers. Alma was completely stunned when she gave birth to baby Bobby. The father was forty years her senior and the future looked bleak indeed:
Feeling like one lost in a maze, Alma was admitted with her baby to a well-ordered nursing foster home. Here, the welcome of the kindly, capable foster mother soon dissolved the terrors of the previous months. During this time, Alma made the first big decision of her life. “I am going to keep Bobby, if I have to walk the street with him,” she stated with almost defiant determination.
Moberly appointed a male social worker to work with the babies’ fathers and encouraged them to visit, while the mother was taught how to care effectively for her child. Thus, the parents would be better able to decide if it would be in the mother’s and the child’s interest for her to keep the baby.
After gradually gaining self-confidence, Alma found domestic service with an understanding family. An elderly aunt was located and she took considerable interest in her great nephew. Meanwhile, the Infants’ Home caseworker was working with Alma to bring close the day when Bobby would be returned to the loving care of his mother.
Under Ontario’s first Adoption Act of 1921, the courts were authorized — if all the parties agreed, and at the end of a two-year probationary period — to issue an order granting adoptive parents all the legal rights to which they would be entitled had they been the child’s birth parents.
Adoption Act, 1921
It was not until 1921 that Ontario introduced its first Adoption Act. Until that time, there had been no legal provision for adoption as a formal process, other than the nonbinding indentures described in earlier chapters. Under the new legislation, the courts were authorized — if all the parties agreed, and at the end of a two-year probationary period — to issue an order granting adoptive parents all the legal rights to which they would be entitled had they been the child’s birth parents. (This two-year probationary period remained the rule until 1965, when it was reduced to a maximum period of one year. In 1978, it was again reduced, in most instances, to six months.)
Like the Children of Unmarried Parents Act, passed in the same year, the Adoption Act was to be administered by J.J. Kelso’s office. The CAS of Toronto, and other children’s aid societies, helped by assessing the families who applied to adopt. The societies willingly entered into this joint arrangement with the province, even though they received no additional funds for doing so, because it relieved them of any long-term financial and supervisory responsibilities for children placed in such homes.
There was no shortage of adoption applicants. Initially, the majority were free-home foster parents wishing to adopt the children in their care. In time, the majority of candidates were couples that could not have children of their own. The children themselves were mainly those born to unmarried mothers, as well as some whose parents were considered permanently unfit to care for them.
By the onset of the Depression, however, adoption became a difficult financial proposition for many families. That is why, in 1935, at the nadir of the economic downturn, Premier Mitch Hepburn helped raise awareness of the continuing need for adoption homes by proclaiming an “Adopt a Child Week” and adopting a child himself.
In 1935, in the midst of the Depression, Premier Mitch Hepburn helped raise awareness of the continuing need for adoption homes by proclaiming an “Adopt a Child Week” and adopting a child himself.
Kelso wrote articles for newspapers, church bulletins and women’s magazines, offering advice to prospective adoptive parents on how to choose and parent a child. He counselled them to “See the child for yourself and instinct will tell you whether or not you can love it as your own.”
He cautioned adoptive parents against letting the child, or others, know about the adoption:
When you take the baby home, don’t call in the neighbours to show them your treasure. Publicity of that kind is hurtful to the child’s future . . . It is not necessary to tell the child he has been adopted until he asks the question himself. A child will always yield a quicker obedience and respect when he considers himself an integral part of the family.
These views influenced for many years the way adoption was perceived. Parents were encouraged to select children as much like themselves as possible, in the belief that only a child who looked as though he or she had been born to a couple could counteract the pain of childlessness. This, in turn, led to the rights and needs of children being treated as less of a priority than the demands of childless adoption applicants for very young infants. Public acceptance of these values hindered a more open attitude toward adoption until well into the 1980s.
Parents were encouraged to select children as much like themselves as possible, in the belief that only a child who looked as though he or she had been born to a couple could counteract the pain of childlessness. This, in turn, led to the rights and needs of children being treated as less of a priority than the demands of childless adoption applicants for very young infants. Public acceptance of these values hindered a more open attitude toward adoption until well into the 1980s.
Then as now, the adoption process was not an easy one for prospective adoptive parents. The “for better or worse” implications of legal adoption, fears that the placement might fail during the probationary period, and concerns about the effect of heredity put a heavy burden on CAS
adoption workers, of whom there were five by 1935.
That year, the society placed 211 children in adoption homes, of whom 47 were wards of the society and 164 non-wards. The society also arranged the adoption of 21 children where the husband or a relative of the birth mother was adopting the child. The number of children under supervision in adoption probation homes, pending legal adoption, was almost 500.
In 1935, the number of children under supervision in adoption probation homes, pending legal adoption, was almost 500.
Most of the children were adopted into families where the adoptive father was a professional, a manager, a skilled tradesman, a salesman or a clerk. Relatively few were adopted by factory workers or unskilled labourers.
The CAS of Toronto developed a cooperative arrangement with the Jewish Federation of Philanthropies whereby that organization would be responsible for arranging foster care and adoption of Jewish children who had been made wards of the society by the juvenile court. The arrangement also earmarked a seat on the society’s board of management for a member of the federation.
The Infants’ Home, on the other hand, never became involved in adoption work, despite its responsibility for working with unmarried mothers. It referred all its children that were considered available for adoption to the Children’s Aid Society.
The end of the Kelso era
In 1930, the government of Premier Howard Ferguson created a Department of Public Welfare to gather under one administrative umbrella the province’s responsibilities for mothers’ allowances, old age pensions, child welfare, mental health, physically and developmentally handicapped children and young offenders.
J.J. Kelso’s office, responsible for supervising children’s aid societies and other children’s institutions, adoptions and work with unmarried parents, was integrated into this new department as its children’s aid branch. Kelso managed the new branch until his retirement, at age seventy, in 1934. He was replaced by B.W. Heise, the managing director of the Hamilton CAS. Heise sought increased funding for children’s aid societies, and in return demanded greater accountability and increased professional training for child welfare workers.
The end of Kelso’s almost-fifty-year career brought a flood of commendations, including a silver jubilee medal from King George V for his work on behalf of neglected and abused children. Letters of congratulation flowed in from friends and colleagues, including one from Mackenzie King, then the leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, and another from Charlotte Whitton, by then director of the Canadian Welfare Council.
Sadly, Kelso did not live to enjoy a long retirement. At his death in September 1935, newspapers across the country praised his contributions to the well-being of children. His old employer, The Globe, described him as one of Canada’s greatest social reformers. His unique achievement was the creation of Ontario’s child welfare system.
Kelso’s dogmatic views on moral issues defined for many years how child welfare matters would be handled.
Against that success, however, must be weighed his shortcomings as the ongoing administrator of that system. Kelso’s dogmatic views on moral issues defined for many years how child welfare matters would be handled. An example is his belief in volunteerism and his consequent failure to support children’s aid societies financially during the crucial early years of their development. He also made little effort to adapt to emerging trends, particularly the development of social casework and child psychology.
His enthusiasm and self-confidence sometimes made it hard for J.J. to listen to the concerns of others, or to accept criticism of his work. These qualities hindered his ability to maintain effective provincial supervision over the work of children’s aid societies. As a result, the government increasingly looked to others, principally Bob Mills, the managing director of the CAS of Toronto, for advice on child welfare policy. (Queen’s Park asked Mills, for example, to devise a formula for municipal funding of CAS work, and to ensure that the societies received the dollars to which they were entitled.)
By the mid-1920s, most people involved in child welfare thought that Kelso’s day had passed, as is illustrated by a confidential 1924 letter Mills wrote to Lincoln Goldie, the cabinet member responsible for child welfare, in which he expressed the opinion that “[J.J. Kelso’s] standards of social work have not always been up to the level recognized by social workers and his general laissez-faire attitude has lost him the confidence of progressive people in social work.”
Despite these criticisms, Kelso was, in many ways, ahead of his time. He was a child welfare visionary who worked to make his visions a reality by founding the CAS of Toronto. He single-handedly established the role of government in child welfare. He understood the crucial importance of placing children in family settings rather than institutions, and, to achieve this, he developed an extensive network of foster homes across the province. His greatest legacy, however, is undisputedly the work that still lives on in Canada’s present-day child welfare systems.
Kelso was, in many ways, ahead of his time. He was a child welfare visionary who worked to make his visions a reality by founding the CAS of Toronto and he single-handedly established the role of government in child welfare.
Kelso’s departure marked the beginning of more extensive provincial involvement in child welfare matters. Perhaps no single event illustrates this more clearly than the Department of Public Welfare’s assumption of control over the lives of the Dionne quintuplets, who were born near North Bay in May 1934. The survival of these five identical girls, considered a medical miracle, brought worldwide attention. The children were separated from their family and put on public display, providing an opportunity for the government of Premier Mitch Hepburn to profit from what became Ontario’s biggest tourist attraction. (In the late 1990s, the surviving Dionne sisters sued the Ontario government for their treatment as children and received a public apology and compensation from Premier Mike Harris.)
The well-known story of the Dionne quintuplets is now regarded as a human tragedy, but it illustrates the increasingly dominant role the province would play in child protection matters. Events in the 1940s would lead led to even greater pressure for the province to increase its responsibilities in this area.
CHAPTER 4
War and its Aftermath,
1940–1949
Canada at war
Beginning in September 1939, Canada was at war for the second time in a generation. Men from Toronto enlisted in large numbers, as did some women. Economic activity was focused on the war effort and expanded rapidly, not only reducing unemployment but creating a shortage of labour. The province responded by phasing out relief to people who could work, instead offering social assistance only to those who were considered unemployable. Many jobs in factories and offices were filled by women — including mothers with children — as well as people with disabilities and those drawing old age pensions.
With business and industry concentrating on the provision of munitions and other materiel, food and consumer goods were in short supply. Taxation and rationing brought about further austerity, which was mitigated by rent and price controls.
Women were being called upon to balance the dual roles of parenting and working in ways that were previously unheard of. In response, day nurseries — regulated under the provincial Day Nurseries Act of 1942 — began to appear, although the demand for day care spaces far exceeded the supply. The federal government raised mothers’ allowances by 20 percent, although unmarried mothers remained ineligible for the program.
During the war, child welfare agencies noted increasing numbers of abused and neglected children as many mothers, their husbands away on active service, struggled with the stress of lone parenthood.
Child welfare agencies noted increasing numbers of abused and neglected children as many mothers, their husbands away on active service, struggled with the stress of lone parenthood.
After the war ended in 1945, the economy continued to grow, ushering in an era of increased
employment and prosperity. Many couples who had postponed marriage during the Great Depression and the war years, and who were now united after long absences, began having children. Meanwhile, prosperous times allowed others to start families at a younger age than they might have done in the 1930s. Both trends sparked an increase in post-war marriage and fertility rates and triggered the phenomenon known as the “baby boom.” This demographic shift was, in turn, to drive many of the social and political trends of subsequent decades.
The post-war years also saw a change in the structure of nuclear families, which to an increasing degree consisted only of parents and their children, with fewer grandparents and other relatives living in the same household. The divorce rate also grew rapidly, if temporarily, as many impulse-driven wartime marriages were dissolved.
The prosperity of the late 1940s led to a growing interest in social welfare planning. One result was the creation of Regent Park in downtown Toronto, the city’s first large-scale public housing project. The increasing affluence of the era, however, was not shared by all families, including many of those served by child welfare agencies, for whom the rapid increase in the cost of living and the lack of affordable housing represented a serious predicament. The era was therefore marked by an increase in admissions of children to agency care.
The increasing affluence of the post-war years was not shared by all families, including many of those served by child welfare agencies, for whom the rapid increase in the cost of living and the lack of affordable housing represented a serious predicament. The era was marked by an increase in admissions of children to agency care.
The child welfare field benefited, however, from a provincial policy of supporting the work with substantial new funding. In 1949, the Department of Public Welfare assumed responsibility for 25 percent of the costs that municipalities paid to children’s aid societies to maintain children in agency care. The province also began paying the agencies that delivered the service a direct grant equal to 25 percent of the funds they raised from private sources. The effect was to transfer $1,160,000 in annual child welfare expenditures from the municipalities to the province. The prosperity of the post-war years clearly created a mood of generosity toward social services, in steep contrast to the attitudes prevalent during the Depression era of the 1930s.
A Legacy of Caring Page 11