When I was growing up my mother used to tell me that "Life is like a lottery. We dont get to choose who we are born to". This sentiment has been true for as long as the concept of subjectively "good" and "bad" parents has existed. Phycologists have spent decades trying to figure out exactly what makes somebody a "good" parents and have went so far as to theorize that behaviours can be acquired either through nature or nurture.
When I reflect on my grandmother's life, I am taken aback by one thing that she told me when I was in my late teens - she didnt learn by example how to be a "good" mother, but rather by the absence of one. Her mother did not fit the mould of a stereotypical mother from the 1940's; instead she was more akin to someone trying to remain in the carefree 1920s.
Aside from her father, her face only lit up when she talked about one of her aunts. This particular aunt had no children but loved my grandmother as her own daughter. She would spoil her with traditional homemade British puddings among many other desserts. While in her aunts home, my grandmother decided that that was the type of mother she wanted to be. She wanted to live her life with an open home, open heart, and always have her children know how loved and special they are. For my grandmother, being a "good" mother was not something that necessarily nurtured into her, rather it was her nature. Like her favourite aunt, my grandmother was one of those women that was born to be a mother.
As I am researching my ancestors, I often find myself asking questions similar to that of the ones I asked about about my grandmother's childhood. I find myself wanting to know what it would have been like to grow up in a certain family. Would it have been a life wrought with poverty? Would it have been a small house filled with love and chaos? Were my ancestors good parents?
More recently, I have found myself asking myself these questions about a woman named Alice Daniels. I didnt know that she had children until a found a 1899 newspaper article. The article went on to describe how she was detained and sentenced for attempting suicide (from what I know, this was her second attempt in approximately a month). While she was being sentenced, the topic of her young child was raised to the judge. Previously the child had been left in the care of Alice's former live in boyfriend, however alternative long term provisions would need to be made. The judge factored the child into his sentence, ultimately allowing the two to remain together. This is the point where things get interesting for me. Despite the judge ruling that Alice should be sent to a benevolent home with her daughter, the two are not together in the 1901 census or any census after that.
This leaves two options:
- Her daughter has been taken away from her
- Likely sent to the workhouse, extended family, or adopted
- Her daughter is dead
- Approximately 50% of children in the Victorian era did not see their 5th birthday. This fact alone is staggering. In some regions (such as the slums), the mortality rate is even higher than that. Despite the grimness of this option, it is viable and needs to be considered.
I am yet to identify what happened, however I am leaning towards the theory that the Board of Guardians took Alice's daughter away from her. Based on the account in the newspaper, Alice was not what the Victorian's would have considered a "good" mother. She was a single woman who lived with men out of wedlock (one of which is described as being of "foreign appearance"), she was an alcoholic, and she lived in poverty. In 1899 Alice was working a performer, but by 1901 she had resorted to eking out an existence as a charwoman. She had been in and out of the workhouse several times during the 1890's so she would have been no stranger to the poor law system. This means that the Board of Guardians would have been aware of how she and her child were living, and in their own twisted way would have wanted to prevent Alice from "nurturing poverty" into the child.
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