Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future

by Jean M. Twenge

From the vantage point of the 2020s, it is difficult to fathom just how unacceptable being unmarried and pregnant once was. Well into the 1960s, when a girl got “in trouble,” a shotgun marriage usually followed. When that wasn’t an option, some girls and young women were sent to brutal maternity homes away from their families. One woman referred to the place where she was sent as a “shame-filled prison.” Nearly all gave up their children for adoption, many under duress. Even the language was punitive: Babies born to unmarried mothers were called illegitimate. Or, as one unmarried mother was told, “our children would be called bastards on the playground.” By the late 1970s, maternity homes closed as abortion was legalized and single mothers were no longer shunned.