Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Orphans as Practice Babies

Sociological Images has a short account of how college home economics departments used to train students on "practice babies" drawn from local orphanages. They note that this kind of training fell out of fashion after baby experts became convinced that infants suffered if they were not attached to one particular person. After 1969 the use of practice babies died out.

It occurs to me that another reason for the disappearance of a large number of institutionalized infants for use in schooling at about that time is that after Roe v. Wade in 1973, the bottom fell out of the "orphan" market.

1 comment:

Brendan said...

That's a gutting thought.