Bastard Child

Every so often I use the word "bastard" (usually about someone who has committed a horrible crime) and it causes me to think about how that word used to be used.  Bastard and illigitimate were common words used to describe a child born out of wedlock...actually blaming the child for it's unconventional, at the time, beginnings!  These words have only in recent years disappeared when describing a child born to an unwed mother and I find that reassuring.  I still can't believe anyone would ever have branded an innocent child this way, though.

I was born to an unwed mother who never told me who my father was.  My grandmother told me but my mother refused to discuss it.  I've never had a moment of feeling shame for my beginnings...common sense tells us no shame is necessary.  I've had a bit of curiosity about my father but mainly felt he couldn't have been much of a man to abandon his own flesh and blood.  I'll also never understand how some men can do this because it does happen all the time.

I'd originally been told that my father died in the war...very convenient explanation of absent fathers in 1940!  When I was 12 years old and mouthed off to my grandmother, she called me a little bastard and explained why.  I remember going to school that morning and sitting in shock trying to make sense of what I'd just learned.  It didn't take me long to realize that how I came to be born had nothing to do with me and that's how I've felt ever since.

There was a time, even in 1940, when children of unwed mothers were taken away from them at birth.  My grandmother told me that she had to fight child services tooth and nail in order to keep me but I've often wondered if I would have been better off being adopted into a brand new family.  Maybe, but maybe not.  I'll never know.

I think the use of "bastard" and "illigitimate" became unnecessary because of the huge numbers of children born these days to unwed mothers.  Many live with the fathers of the children but just choose not to marry for their own reasons.  It was always a cruel and pious practice to label an innocent baby in this way but I'm glad it's ended now.

My own mother was born to her unwed mother in 1918 and there's no doubt they both must have gone through terrible discrimination in those days.  Times have changed for the better in many ways as we've become better educated and more tolerant than our forebears.

Interesting how we often become kinder to each other when we're not blindly following strict church doctrine!