THE SHAME IS OURS: 300,000 Unwed Mothers Forced to Give Up Their Babies
My novel Eden’s Daughter is entirely fictional, but recent news out of Ottawa brings home how closely it brushes up against the truth.
First, some background.
Nearly eight years ago, in July 2018, a Senate Committee tabled a report called, “The Shame is Ours.” In the report, the committee recommended that Parliament issue a formal apology to the estimated 300,000 unwed mothers in Canada who were forced to give up their babies in the four decades after the Second World War. Many of these women were sent to maternity homes where they were pressured to relinquish their children.
“Post-war Canada remained harshly judgmental of unmarried mothers, who faced enormous social and institutional pressure to give up their babies to ‘traditional’ couples looking to establish their own nuclear families,” the Senate Committee said in a news release.
The formal apology never happened, but on May 26, 2026, a petition with 600 signatures was tabled in the House of Commons, renewing calls for an apology. Liberal MP Karina Gould and Senator Chantal Petitclerc have taken up the cause on behalf of women and children affected by these adoptions.
Eden’s Daughter explores this period in Canadian history. Set in the 1970s, it is the story of a teenager who is sent by her parents to a maternity home, succumbs to pressure to give her child up, and then – haunted by visions that her daughter is in danger – searches for and finds her against all odds.
I am often asked what inspired Eden’s Daughter, and I don’t usually have a ready answer (other than a vivid imagination). No one in my immediate family had to go through what Eden did. However, my uncle was adopted by my grandparents in the 1940s from an unwed mother in a maternity home, so perhaps the story has been in my bones for a long time.
This circumstance has affected countless Canadian families over the years. I am staggered by the estimated numbers: 300,000 mothers, 300,000 children, 600,000 broken hearts.
Eden’s Daughter often strikes a nerve. A woman I was chatting with at a recent vendor market broke down into tears when I told her about Eden’s journey. She spent time in an Edmonton maternity home in 1969 but was able to keep her baby in the end. Her tears were for those who could not.
Another woman told me that her biological mother travelled from Calgary to Regina to have her in a maternity home. She was reunited with her mother decades later, a happy ending to a common story.
The account below, written by Alexa MacKie of CBC Radio, reminds me of Eden’s story:
Before giving birth in 1982, Christine Nayler was sent to live with relatives north of Toronto. She had gotten pregnant at 15; today, she describes being forced to give up her newborn daughter as her “death day.”
Nayler returned home after giving birth, where she suffered from depression and dropped out of high school. “You just can’t return to normal,” she said.
She eventually married the biological father of her daughter, and the couple went on to raise three children together. When her first daughter turned 21, Nayler reconnected with her and has been involved in her life ever since.
“She was what kept me going,” Nayler said, adding that she knew they would meet again. “I needed to hang on, so I could look in her face and say, ‘You were always wanted and you were always loved.’”
Giving a child up for adoption is a valid choice, but no one should be forced to do it. Fortunately, legal safeguards, including charter protections and international human rights commitments, help ensure that such practices cannot occur in Canada today.
And the statistics confirm that things have changed a lot. About 95 per cent of young women sent to maternity homes surrendered their babies. Mothers outside of these homes gave up their babies at a lower rate of 74 per cent, according to the Senate report. By comparison, the rate of unmarried mothers relinquishing their babies was two per cent when the report was released in 2018.
Eden’s story may be fictional, but I hope it captures the emotional consequences of a “death day” brought about by a forced adoption. May there never be another.
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Print copies of Eden’s Daughter may be ordered from Barnes and Noble, and e-book copies from Apple Books, Nook, Kobo, Everand, and many others. Ask your favourite bookstore or library to order it for you.