Unmarried motherhood: childhood experiences described by 22 adults whose mother was unmarried when they were born.

Content analysis was used to examine the childhood experiences of 22 autobiographers whose mother was unmarried when they were born. Their childhoods varied considerably. For significant periods of time, 12 lived with their mother alone or with her and their own father or a stepfather, 5 lived with their mother and her parents, 2 lived with unmarried aunts, and 7 lived in foster homes. Three mothers died, one was institutionalized and one abandoned her child without making alternative arrangements. Seven autobiographers were never told the identity of their father, and another 5 had to wait many years before they were told. This created an unhappiness in these individuals when they were teenagers that only increased with age. These findings cannot be assumed to apply to unmarried mothers and their children today; however, they raise some important issues for health care professionals and highlight the need for more research on contemporary unmarried motherhood.