Ofra Koffman

This paper aims to contribute to the exploration of the shift from a problematisation of ‘unwed motherhood’ to ‘teenage motherhood’ in late twentieth century Britain. It does so by exploring the dominant social scientific understanding of ‘unwed mothers’ during the 1950s and 1960s which suggested that these women suffered from a psychological disorder. I then analyse the conceptualisation of ‘adolescent unwed mothers’ exploring why professionals deemed them to be less disturbed than older women in their predicament. This finding is discussed in light of contemporary social scientific concern with adolescent motherhood.

This article presents a genealogical examination of the emergence of governmental concern with ‘children having children’, focusing on the work of the London County Council and local voluntary organizations in the 1950s and 1960s. The article explores the moral-Christian discourse shaping governmental work with ‘unwed mothers’ and identifies the discursive shifts associated with the ascent of the problematization of ‘teenage motherhood’. It is argued that within the moral-Christian discourse, a woman’s subjectivity was delineated primarily according to her ‘character’ not her age or her ‘maturity’. Furthermore, the prospect that a young unwed mother will raise her child was viewed positively as it was seen to contribute to the desired transformation of her character. The shift to a concern with ‘children having children’ was linked with a rise in the influence of psychological discourse on government work. Two psychological notions were particularly important: the proposition that teenagers are emotionally immature and the assertion that inadequate mothering has a lasting effect on the health of a child. The article concludes that unless contemporary scientific claims regarding young people’s psychological and physiological maturity are challenged, the ‘problem’ of teenage parenthood will persist in the years to come.