Joy’s Reviews > Witchcraft for Wayward Girls > Status Update

“…PFs (putative fathers).”

Here, have some old-fashioned misogynist double standards.

“Work meant that instead of their parents paying $3.73 a day for room and board, they got it for free.”

If Hendrix is basing this on Georgia Tann, what he's not saying is that the babies were sold for thousands of dollars. Babies. People. Sold. Think about what that means. It was less about sexual taboos or unmarried girls and more about money.

“A mother was supposed to love her baby, but this paper would record forever that she was an unnatural mother. It felt too big; the consequences reached too far into the future. She couldn't wrap her head around it.”

“Right there on the blank line, in perfect cursive, she wrote, 'Jane Doe.'”

She is broken down until she is no one.

“You will sever your connection with Wellwood House the instant you walk out our front door. That is the gift we offer you. If you obey me in all matters, when your time here is over and your crisis has passed, it will be as if this never happened.”

Until your child is no longer a child, and they cannot forget that they are a question mark.

“But when this is over,” Miss Wellwood said, and her voice softened, “you will present the gift of your child to a deserving family and you will return home and forget this ever happened.”

My heart breaks.