…and devastating.
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And pretty accurate, except for the part where the child lives.
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One of the things I like about the Yellowstone prequel 1923 is that it draws in a lot of conservative (and worse) viewers and then forces them to confront the abuses in the Catholic-run American Indian Residential Schools. Mercilessly.
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This documentary from last year is utterly heartbreaking
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If you did chose to have a child while single
How much choice is exercised in a nation where everyone was actively deprived of both sex education and access to contraception? And do you really think unmarried women who were impregnated through rape had a choice in whether to bear the child?
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Thank you, I appreciate it though I think you will understand that my desire to continue any discussion in this forum has soured. I thought it might be useful to provide viewpoint of somebody who needed and had experience with DRA. Clearly it is not.
You seemed to have put words into the mouth of @anon87143080 that he did not say or even remotely imply.
Plenty of women DO choose to raise children while single. As the letter from Sinead O’Connor noted that @bakaneko posted, that was the case of her friend - who had her child ripped out of her hands. A child that she wanted very much to raise, and was not allowed to.
And in Ireland, for much of the 20th century, women were not allowed to make that choice, however they came to be pregnant, because of the power the Church had over the state.
Not to speak for Nuke, but it seems to me that he was pointing out that the policies of the Magdalen laundries were not just a case of brainwashed people or did not come fully from the church and/or the state, but had some wide popular support from society as well. This is because, like any other places, it was a rather patriarchal culture that tended to blame women for “moral failings” and punished them pretty harshly for “transgressions”… In this way, it brings us back around to the topic at hands - these often brutal camps to claim to “keep children in line” by using harsh physical punishment, shaming, among other tactics…Many people (such as the @OldVagrant poster) seem to support such harsh measures to ensure that children are obedient, rather than well-adjusted, happy adults.
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Well I’m from that nation, so I’m pretty aware of how it went down.
There was no choice on whether the child was going to be born since abortion was illegal. I suppose “studying to be a nurse in England” was a choice - code for “going to get an abortion in England” but that wasn’t an option for the rural poor either. It also required upending your whole life for over a year to keep up the ruse.
The point I thought I had made was that if the mother absolutely wanted to raise the child as a single mother then Irish society had enormous obstacles that would have to be overcome.
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Yup, pretty much exactly that.
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Or you have situations like Phil Lynott and his family, where he was raised by his grandparents in Ireland while his mother worked in the UK - after she escaped from the British equivalent of a Mother and Baby Home.
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Thank you for this.
I was in the dark about Elan, and this comic. This comic is one of the most gripping things I’ve read in a while. The author is brutally frank and forthcoming, and his ability to translate these experiences into a comic like this are incredible and stunning.
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A very good point, but also worth noting that the private residential schools and various other poorly-designed “treatment” programs are very good at inserting themselves into the state and justice system apparatuses. In many cases, they are part of a “diversion” plea deal and are completely state sanctioned and legitimized in the eyes of parents by the state, even if private.
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I can also recommend the book that is mentioned in the comic “Duck in a Raincoat”. Is not the most enthusing read but hints at the long history of these kind of boarding schools in US.
to @HMSGoose and others who pointed that it is not so different. Yeah, I was under the impression that the Canadian Schools were mandatory and they forcibly took away those children, hence me raising the point. If they were voluntary, then… won’t say is moot, is just the same thing with a different name.
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Reveal had a good series about this last year (rehab programs) and how little oversight there is from government agencies:
Not sure if this one is part of this series, but it seems connected:
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“The majority of participants indicated they now struggle with mental health issues as a direct result of being enrolled in a TTI program. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was most commonly cited, and was frequently attributed to the abuse they experienced.
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To echo what others have already posted, thank you for sharing this comic. It was a heart-wrenching read I’d recommend to anyone wanting to know more about the reality of those institutions.
And how easily they existed in plain sight. I’m a bit older than the author, but it turns out I grew up not 40 miles from Elan and ran against kids from there in HS x-country and track meets in the early ‘90s.
And as far as I know, none of us had any idea what those kids were living through. It’s pretty humbling, and very, very sad.
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