In postwar Canada, having a child out-of-wedlock invariably meant being subject to the adoption mandate. Andrews describes the mandate as a process of interrelated institutional power systems which, together with socio-cultural norms, ideals of gender heteronormativity, and emerging sociological and psychoanalytic theories, created historically unique conditions in the post WWII decades wherein the white unmarried mother was systematically separated from her baby by means of adoption. This volume uncovers and substantiates evidence of the mandate, ultimately finding that at least 350,000 unmarried mothers in Canada were impacted.

Valerie Andrews is a PhD student in Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies at York University in Toronto. Valerie is an adoption activist and executive director of Origins Canada: Supporting those Separated by Adoption. Her main interest of research is critical adoption studies with an emphasis on adoption culture and the surrendering mother. Some of Valerie’s works include The Language of Adoption, Crimes Against the Unmarried Mother, Sales and Marketing in Modern Domestic Adoption, #Flip the Script on Teen Mothers, Motherhood Denied: Canada’s Maternity Homes, and Scripting/Disrupting “Birthmother” Identities.

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