In the book, the only parent who attempts to visit the Colony is Ruth’s mother. Why do you suppose most parents accepted what was happening to their daughters?
I was absolutely furious at Ruth’s mother. I think women were taught to trust authority and believe they knew better.
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I agree that women were taught to take the word of authority. I did wish, after reading the part where Ruth’s mother was sent away from the Colony, that she would quietly find another way to persist in getting her daughter home. I think options were limited and some parents may have not known how to go about helping their daughters. I also wished there was more of a back story of Frances. Her parents gave donations so they must have had resources. I wondered about them - what their life was like and why they chose the Colony.
Brief research on the internet showed that year by year the reach of the American Plan extended, so that eventually every state had laws promoting the pursuit of women who were suspected of carrying STIs. There were plays that underscored the problem, and a lot of propaganda against women who might or might not be promiscuous conflating their experience with prostitution. I think that many parents might have felt shame just being associated with an offspring who’d been accused. Women could be picked up just because a stranger reported them, so Ruth’s mother might have felt vulnerable. Looking back we know how unfair it was that women bore the brunt of the blame, but shame and fear are powerful tools for maintaining silence.
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Women had little voice in things and perhaps they just listened to what sounded like “authority”. The work was also pitched from a religious, develop god-fearing women who can contribute to society, raise a family, serve their husbands.
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I do think that shame was a big factor. One excellent memoir I read even had the word shame in the title. I believe it was a BookBrowse selection: You’ll Forget This Ever Happened: Secrets, Shame, and Adoption in the 1960’s. Pregnant girls were sent off and families often created cover-up stories. Of course, there also is the issue of lack of financial resources, possibly lack of education so parents may not even know where to begin. Sometimes people have a hard time imagining not being able to find answers or help after decades of internet access, search engines, and a mini computer (mobile phone) in every use or pocket. Another book - Radium Girls - showed how easily men with a little local power could get rid of of a female that might be a whistle blower for deadly practices within businesses; all they had to do was suggest that the female’s health issues were due to immorality and what was then called venereal disease.
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I would presume that not all parents knew where their daughters were. I would also presume that some parents kowtowed to authority. Even today, too many people blindly accept if not trust authority figures and professionals.
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I think they didn’t visit because of fear and shame. Also I think they may have felt guilty of being bad parents.
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I feel that parents did not visit because of the shame, they would not want to be “judged” by their neighbors, family, religious community, local law enforcement, or even their employer. It was also a time when after someone was “judged” they could suffer their own hardships. Would they be “shunned” by neighbors, cut off from family, get kicked out of their rental house, or loose a job? I equate this to when someone finds out that a person’s relative is in prison. People make a lot of assumptions.
I wonder if some parents believed their daughters were guilty and therefore deserved to be there.
Also, getting to the Colony could have been an additional financial expense or time away from work or family responsibilities that some families could not afford.
During different time periods the people in power often use one “group” of people to attempt to control larger groups of people. It’s a form of tyranny, and it’s used over and over again throughout history to try to control people, especially people who begin to inch their way towards having power over themselves.
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It’s interesting to me that we can draw parallels to how parents responded to their daughters being sent away to the Colony and parents who sent their children to behavior camps in the 90s (like Paris Hilton). There are societal ideals that parents are told their children need to fit into, and places like the Colony were sold as a solution to any “problems” that arise. The people who run these facilities are very convincing and the residents who attend them are often met with severe punishment if they tell their parents what’s actually happening (we saw this with the censorship of Ruth’s letter at the beginning of the book). Oftentimes, parents are told to stay away and let the course of treatment be completed. This doesn’t absolve the parents of blame completely, but the fact that these behavioral facilities continue to exist under different messaging and branding speaks to how willingly people will turn a blind eye if they’re promised a solution to something they perceive to be an unsolvable problem.
I’m not sure I know the answer to this. Honestly I was shocked that Ruth’s mother did not believe her. I suppose I would think that there would be an inclination to support the child over strangers but it seems that no one, even Ruth’s mother, was doing this. I suppose when continual lies are being told, people begin the not know what to believe and believed the so called authorities rather than their children.
I had really hoped Ruth’s mother would have pursued options to try to get Ruth released. She had been so supportive and proud of Ruth for being independent before the incarceration in the Colony. Her mom wanted to believe Ruth but Mrs. Baker was so persuasive and the truth of what really happened to Ruth seemed so unthinkable that Ruth’s mom didn’t really know what was the truth. In those times, not that long ago really, women had no power in society and Ruth’s mom likely thought there was nothing to be done and she had to accept the situation.