Protected children, regulated mothers : gender and the "Gypsy question" in state care in postwar Hungary, 1949-1956

__Protected Children, Regulated Mothers__ examines child protection in Stalinist Hungary as a part of twentieth-century East Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European history. Across the communist bloc, the prewar foster care system was increasingly replaced after 1945 by institutionalization in residential homes. This shift was often interpreted as a further attempt to establish totalitarian control. However, this study—based on hundreds of children's case files and interviews with institution leaders, teachers, and people formerly in state care—provides a new perspective. Rather than being merely a tool of political repression, state care in postwar Hungary was often shaped by the efforts of policy actors and educators to address the myriad of problems engendered by the social and economic transformations that emerged after World War II. This response built on, rather than broke with, earlier models of reform and reformatory education. Yet child protection went beyond safeguarding and educating children; it also focused on parents, particularly lone mothers, regulating not only their entrance to paid work but also their sexuality. In so doing, children's homes both reinforced and changed existing cultural and social patterns, whether about gendered division of work or the assimilation of minorities. Indeed, a major finding of the book is that state socialist child protection continued a centuries-long national project of seeking a “solution to the Gypsy question,” rooted in efforts to eliminate the perceived “workshyness” of Roma. "Protected Children, Regulated Mothers examines child protection in Stalinist Hungary as a part of twentieth-century (East Central, Eastern, and Southeastern) European history. Across the communist bloc, the increase of residential homes was preferred to the prewar system of foster care. The study challenges the transformation of state care into a tool of totalitarian power. Rather than political repression, educators mostly faced an arsenal of problems related to social and economic transformations following the end of World War II. They continued rather than cut with earlier models of reform and reformatory education. The author's original research based on hundreds of children's case files and interviews with institution leaders, teachers, and people formerly in state care demonstrates that child protection was not only to influence the behavior of children but also to regulate especially lone mothers' entrance to paid work and their sexuality. Children's homes both reinforced and changed existing patterns of the gendered division of work. A major finding of the book is that child protection had a centuries-long common history with the "solution to the Gypsy question" rooted in efforts towards the erasure of the perceived work-shyness of "Gypsies.""-- Provided by publisher TABLE OF CONTENTS 5 LIST OF FIGURES 7 LIST OF TABLES 9 ABBREVIATIONS 10 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 11 INTRODUCTION 13 Chapter 1 CHILD PROTECTION IN EARLY STATE SOCIALIST HUNGARY 31 Chapter 2 “THE MINOR WOULD HINDER THE MOTHER IN FINDING EMPLOYMENT”: CHILD PROTECTION REGULATING WOMEN’S LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION 91 Chapter 3 “SHE OCCUPIED HERSELF WITH MEN”: CHILD PROTECTION REGULATING THE SEXUAL MORALITY OF LONE MOTHERS AND SINGLE YOUNG WOMEN 119 Chapter 4 “MAKE THEM EXPERIENCE THE GOOD TASTE OF PRODUCTIVE WORK”: RESIDENTIAL CARE AS AN INSTITUTION OF EDUCATION 151 Chapter 5 “HE WAS THREE YEARS OLD BUT COULD NOT SPEAK AND HAD NO EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT TO ANYBODY”: STATE CARE AS DISCOURSE ON STALINIST POLITICAL TERROR IN SOCIALIST HUNGARY 189 CONCLUSION 215 APPENDIX 221 BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION 227 BIBLIOGRAPHY 233 INDEX 253