The children who no one came to pick up from the Paula Foundation

After their unmarried mothers left, children sometimes spent years in the Paula Foundation transition home. There, toddlers literally became ill from the lack of attention.

This article was written byPetra VissersPublished on June 8, 2020, 7:13 AM

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"I would like to draw your attention to the minor Emmy," writes Frans Josso, psychologist at the Paula Foundation, in chicken-wristed handwriting on blue lined paper. It is the winter of 1968 in Oosterbeek, three days after Sinterklaas. Outside, it is freezing, and a bitter wind blows across the green estate where the home for unmarried mothers stands.

The Paula Foundation in Oosterbeek is run by the nuns of the congregation of the Little Sisters of Saint Joseph. Thirty simple rooms have been furnished for unmarried mothers. They are sent to Oosterbeek by their families, their general practitioners, or social workers. Their pregnancy is a disgrace.

Behind the building, separate from the maternity ward, are the children's pavilions. In 1968, there was room for 78 babies aged 0 to 1, divided into six rooms. Toddler Emmy lives in one of the two groups for older children. She has been waiting there for almost three years for someone to come and pick her up.

Surrogate mothers and foster children

The adoption law seems to have created its own dynamic in the Netherlands, according to research by  Trouw  and Omroep Gelderland. One in which unmarried women were pressured to give up their babies or even, decades later, claim to have been forced to give them up. Estimates of the number of women who gave up their children between 1956—when the adoption law came into effect—and 1984—when abortion was legalized—range from 13,000 to 20,000. This is despite the fact that Fiom (Federation of Institutions for Unmarried Mother Care) mediated for 328 children who had been relinquished in the preceding twenty years. 

In a series of articles, available at  trouw.nl/adoptie , we investigate what went wrong, how it could have gone so wrong, and the impact it has had on people's lives.  The interviews and videos from Omroep Gelderland can be viewed here. 

Psychologist Josso is deeply concerned. Emmy's situation seems hopeless. He writes an urgent letter to the Child Protection Council in 's-Hertogenbosch, the municipality where Emmy's mother lives. "The current development is clearly starting to reveal questionable aspects. [Emmy] is latching onto every man who happens to be in the pavilion, asking if she can come along."

Emmy is looking for a father figure, someone who will care for her. Her fiery personality draws too much attention from the nursing staff. "She needs a normal, pedagogical, home-like lifestyle and satisfaction of her need for tenderness," writes the psychologist. He fears Emmy's "hospitalization" and "pathological imbalance," he writes. Life in a boarding school without attention, love, and play is not doing her any good.

Motherhood and homesickness

"My childhood was a mess," says Emmy van Schalkwijk, now 54. For years, she's been trying to piece together her own story. She's one of the children who lived in the Paula Foundation for years. Due to a lack of genuine attention, children suffered from "mother-missing" and "homesickness." Several children ended up in the hospital, including two-year-old Emmy.

Emmy's biological mother gave birth in 1965 at Moederheil in Breda, another home for unmarried mothers run by the same congregation that ran the Paula Foundation. She didn't want to give up her child, but she still lived at home and the pregnancy was kept secret. Only Emmy's grandmother knew about the baby.

So she brings her child to the Paula Foundation, promising to pay for her stay and to pick her up later. She visits Emmy three more times but decides not to give her up.

This leaves the girl in limbo: she can't go with her mother, but child protection services can't place her with a family either. In 1961, an association of foster parents already wrote about the consequences: the homes are full of "forgotten children," they wrote, whose mothers are unable to make a choice.

A Flourish data visualization

Although unmarried mothers were urged to give up their children, the potential consequences of a prolonged stay in an institution were already well known. As early as the 1950s, British psychiatrist John Bowlby described the potential harm of "hospitalization." He concluded that children who spend extended periods in institutions withdraw, become passive, and appear to be in deep mourning.

This was also known in the Netherlands. At a conference on the "severely disturbed unmarried mother and her child" in 1957, FIOM board member ter Linden stated that "for children under the age of six, nursing in institutions is downright disastrous." In 1963, FIOM (Federation of Institutions for Unmarried Mother Care) wrote that "research has shown that the lack of maternal care during the first years of life is extremely detrimental to the child's further development."

Therefore, children who were "relinquished" were, in principle, supposed to be placed with a family as quickly as possible. In practice, they often stayed in a home for extended periods or were moved from foster home to foster home, as previous exploratory research by Radboud University also showed. This is striking because, at the same time, the lists of potential foster parents are also growing longer. 

Paid per child cared for

This is partly due to the children whose mothers didn't definitively relinquish their homes, preventing child protection services from placing them with a family. But other forces were also at work. For example, the University of Amsterdam concluded in 1971 that there was a perverse incentive in the system. Homes were permanently short of money and were paid per child they cared for. Some homes therefore held children longer than necessary, it was suspected, simply to keep things running. Trouw and Omroep Gelderland found no evidence that this was also the case with the Paula Foundation.

Backlogs at the various organizations responsible for placing children and the lack of oversight of lists of foster parents also appear to have played a role in the long period children spent in orphanages. After the introduction of the Adoption Act, waiting lists of couples seeking to adopt emerged throughout the country. There was no central waiting list, and the Federation of Institutions for Unmarried Mother Care (Fiom) concluded in 1963 that a "chaotic situation" had developed. Moreover, Child Protection Councils operate regionally and independently of each other. Because of all these parties, it became increasingly unclear who was responsible for the children who had been relinquished. 

Emmy van Schalkwijk: "There was no time for love and attention for all the babies. It was peace, cleanliness, and regularity."Source Koen Verheijden

Toddlers in the hospital

When Emmy is two years old, the Gelderland Red Cross's child health clinic jotted down some notes on her chart: "Keep your ear running, she's been to our doctor." Almost three weeks later, she is admitted to the Elisabeth Gasthuis Hospital in Arnhem.

In her file, written in curly letters in the margin: "March 19, 1968, admitted to the EG in Arnhem, May 2, 1968, returned from hospital." Why Emmy was hospitalized for six weeks, she will likely never know. Omroep Gelderland and Trouw searched in vain for clues.

From her medical records, Van Schalkwijk only knows the cost of her hospital stay: 1,680 guilders and 11 cents. What she received, or how she was doing, isn't mentioned. "I suspect I was there alone for six weeks as a two-year-old," she says.

Van Schalkwijk isn't the only one who became ill at the Paula Foundation. Other children, who were reassigned to care, whom Omroep Gelderland and Trouw interviewed, read in their files that they weren't doing well.

Psychologist Josso, for example, writes about another baby: "He seems languishing and sad. Due to severe nervous feeding disorders, he has fallen behind physically." The baby suffers from "the distinct image" of "homesickness" and "motherly absence." The baby doesn't play, is passive, and not alert. The psychologist concludes that this is due to a "severe degree of institutionalization." The same boy later spent three weeks in the hospital with pneumonia. The Child Protection Council in Arnhem questions "whether the hospitalization was the cause."  The son of birth mother Trudy Scheele-Gertsen, who was interviewed by Trouw last year, also suffered from this homesickness . 

Another child, Gabriël van den Brink, reads in his file that as a child at the Paula Foundation, he struggled with feeding, spit up a lot, and didn't grow well. He was a sensitive and nervous child with "vegetative problems." He developed anemia and was "not very quick" in his motor skills.

No time for love

The problem wasn't physical care, say childcare workers, nurses, and other involved individuals interviewed by 'Omroep Gelderland' and Trouw . According to psychologist Harlinde van Osselaer, who studied child development at Moederheil in the 1970s, the problems were caused by a lack of genuine attention. "The caregivers were taught that babies needed sufficient food and a clean diaper," she says. "But there was no time for love and attention for all the babies. It was all about peace, cleanliness, and regularity." According to Van Osselaer, there was a strong belief that children weren't allowed to bond with the staff. That bonding was reserved for the foster parents.

Moreover, there were too many babies to give bottles to everyone on a lap. Therefore, childcare workers at the Paula Foundation rolled up flannel sheets against the side of each crib. The bottle was then placed upside down against this so the baby could drink. A 1971 survey by the University of Amsterdam further revealed that group leaders were often overworked and poorly trained, making them unable to recognize and encourage children's needs.

Omroep Gelderland  made the item below about hospitalizing children who were relinquished.

Eventually, three-year-old Emmy goes to a family in Oosterbeek on weekends, and after an urgent letter from psychologist Josso, her biological mother is removed from custody. She stays with the family and is adopted at eight.

What she's left with is a feeling of "intense loneliness." "I felt like I belonged nowhere. No one knew exactly who I was," says Van Schalkwijk. She felt she should be grateful. "My fragmented childhood is very painful." She's "walking the path of forgiveness." "Life has brought me so much beauty, besides sadness." 

Accountability

For these stories, Trouw and Omroep Gelderland conducted archival research at Fiom, the national inspectorate of population registers, and the Gelderland Archives. They spoke with mothers, children, other stakeholders, experts, and researchers. Previous research and explorations into relinquishment and adoption were also consulted. Sylvana van den Braak searched the Fiom archives. 

This week, Trouw is publishing more stories about adoption in the Netherlands.  All these stories are collected at trouw.nl/adoptie , where you can also find articles from Omroep Gelderland and a podcast.