No and kind of! Women were not abused in mother and baby homes, but the commission interpreted some of the living conditions as ‘dire’. The misinterpretations within the report — and there are many — are due to a lack of knowledge of past social conditions and invalid comparisons with the social conditions of today. The poor living conditions of yesteryear are unimaginable to the affluent generations of today. Consequently, they are shocked when they find records of people living in these conditions and write with emotion rather than reason. Properly educated historians are taught to interpret events in their correct context. In this case the appalling living conditions of the poor in other counties, including wealthy countries, would have provided a good historical context but that was avoided.
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