ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how girls understood the orientations of the House, particularly what girls came to believe about themselves and their situation as a result of their encounter with Hawthorne House. The central feature of a girl's career through Hawthorne House, and the central feature of her moral career in becoming an unwed mother, was, however, her increasing involvement with her baby, with becoming a mother. The implications girls drew for their future behavior are, in fact, among the most interesting features of their conversion to a psychiatric version of the past. The girls' concerns, expectations, and emotions were closely geared to a timetable constructed around the predicted due date, and this timetable charted a course through pregnancy and through the House. The constant flow of information about pregnancy was soothing in the sense that girls knew what to expect, it also exposed girls to graphic accounts of delivery by those returning to the House.
