Let’s hear it for orphanages
Orphanages have gotten a bad press for quite some time, but here’s a corrective that points out how often orhpanages have been either good experiences for their residents, or at least far better than many of the alternatives. Adoptive and foster homes are, after all, only as good as the parents involved in each placement.
I’ve long wondered about the kneejerk rejection of the entire idea of orphanages. Some have been quite literally life-savers and psyche-savers, although of course some have been abusive (just as foster families and adoptive families and birth families can be abusive). All else being equal, a family is better. But all else is not always equal (the following was written by a man who had a good experience growing up in an orphanage):
Beginning in the mid-1990s, I started surveying orphanage alumni from as many orphanages as I could find. I assumed initially that orphanage critics were likely right: “Orphanages were generally bad, but my orphanage was special”—or so I thought. After receiving more than 2,500 responses, I learned that my home was ordinary. An overwhelming majority (85 percent) of the surveyed alumni look back “favorably” or “very favorably” on their orphanage salad days. Only 2.3 percent of the alumni had hostile assessments.
Moreover, the alumni reported that they had done better than the general population on almost all measures, including education, income, attitude toward life, criminal records, psychological problems, unemployment, dependence on welfare, and happiness. For example, the alumni reported that they had an overall college graduation rate 39 percent higher than the general population in their age group (and the respondents, who lived an average of eight-plus years in their orphanages, were 56 to 97 years old, with a mean age of 68). They also reported 10 to 60 percent higher median incomes than those in their age cohort.
Other kinds of children’s institutions can work out well, too. One of the most famous alums of a group situation was the actor Steve McQueen. Possessed of not-exactly-symmetrical good looks, a coiled energy, and a sensitivity that was very magnetic, McQueen was not an orphan. But he had a troubled past that included these formative experiences:
At age 14 [McQueen] left [his great-uncle] Claude’s farm without saying goodbye and joined a circus for a short time, then drifted back to his mother and stepfather in Los Angeles – resuming his life as a gang member and petty criminal. McQueen was caught stealing hubcaps by the police and handed over to his stepfather, who beat him severely; ending the fight by throwing McQueen down a flight of stairs. McQueen looked up at his stepfather and said, “You lay your stinkin’ hands on me again and I swear, I’ll kill ya.”
After the incident McQueen’s stepfather persuaded his mother to sign a court order stating that McQueen was incorrigible, remanding him to the California Junior Boys Republic in Chino. Here, McQueen began to change and mature. He was not popular with the other boys at first: “Say the boys had a chance once a month to load into a bus and go into town to see a movie. And they lost out because one guy in the bungalow didn’t get his work done right. Well, you can pretty well guess they’re gonna have something to say about that. I paid my dues with the other fellows quite a few times. I got my lumps, no doubt about it. The other guys in the bungalow had ways of paying you back for interfering with their well-being.” Ultimately McQueen became a role model when he was elected to the Boys Council, a group who set the rules and regulations governing the boys’ lives. He eventually left the Boys Republic at age 16. When he later became famous he regularly returned to talk to the boys and retained a lifelong association.
McQueen wasn’t entirely out of the woods when he left the group home at the age of 16; as you can see if you read his Wiki entry, his tough-guy persona was no pose. Nor was Boys Republic a model institution, from the description given. But it offered McQueen an experience he never forgot, and one for which he remained grateful his entire life.
McQueen was caught stealing hubcaps by the police
I just reread a great book about Vietnam called, “When Thunder Rolled.” The author, who flew 100 missions into North Vietnam in an F 105, referred to the thrill of such dangerous flying as “stealing hubcaps.” Sometimes the thrill of getting away with something is more important than the actual object stolen.
Anyway, I was in a Master’s Degree program at Dartmouth after I retired from practice (back surgery) and a fellow student was a girl who had grown up in foster care. She was obviously very bright and was working on a project about “The Utility of Regret.” We were studying decision theory, among other things. She told me she would much rather have been in an orphanage. I didn’t ask why.
One of my college classmates spent several years in an orphanage – run by the Episcopal Church – and it was a remarkably positive experience for him. After college, military service and several years in the private sector, he returned to be the executive director, a post he has held for many years. Although we weren’t close in school, I’ve come to see him as one of the most admirable men in our class. A remarkable life so far, from the formation of his character and turning his life around at the home through now more than 30 years of giving back, shaping the lives of hundreds with understanding and gratitude, putting the home on a more sound fiscal footing, and never seeming to tire despite health issues.
Denzel Washington has advertised for the Boys and Girls Club that he participates in. Turns out his mother, in the midst of a divorce, sent him away to boarding school at age 14. He credits that move with saving him from a gang life on the streets.
I have read that in 17th century England it was common for parents to send their children, aged 7 to 12, off to live and work with other families. Sometimes it was to assist a relative’s family with their difficulties. Some were workplace apprenticeships. Girls often worked in upper class homes. Some were involuntary “parish apprenticeships” commanded by a reverend as a pre reform school option.
Very interesting. I had assumed (with little reason) that orphanages were terrible. Now, reflecting on why I believed that, I think it might have been that I was scared out of my mind by watching Oliver! in the theater as a child.
McQueen’s most memorable role, not necessarily his best, and his last, was in The Hunter where he plays Ralph ‘Papa’ Thorson. It’s the true story of a bounty hunter. A major side plot is his large home that he has turned into something of a half-way house for wayward souls.
I have read that in 17th century England it was common for parents to send their children, aged 7 to 12, off to live and work with other families.
William T Sherman was sent to live with another family after his father died and left his mother destitute. He was a boy about 9 at the time. He eventually married the daughter of his foster father.
A friend of mine was send from Cuba to relatives in Florida by his parents who then were unable to get out for a couple of years. He spent two years in an orphanage.
As Neo said, some are good and some are bad, and the same is true of every single organization & institution on the planet throughout history.
Plus some situations that are good for one person are bad for another, because of history and personality. Looks like each institution has to be judged individually instead of relying on stereotypes — gee, why does that sound familiar?
Surellin: Dickens immediately came to mind for me as well, with a side-bar of “Little Orphan Annie” and a couple of others.
“I have read that in 17th century England it was common for parents to send their children, aged 7 to 12, off to live and work with other families.”
Example from literature that turned out well – Fanny Price, Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen.
As someone who has been through infertility, I can tell you that even though adoption would have been a good option, the social worker bureaucracy does everything in its power to prevent it. They fight couples seeking adoptees like the Russians defending Stalingrad. I’d say that a good orphanage would be preferable to being bounced around in foster care or (which is the social worker’s preference) being returned to the birth parents (if they can be found!).
When I was a teen, I was on one of the sports teams in high school. We had a meet with another team that included a girl who lived in the local state orphanage. She want actually on the other school’s team; she was the orphanage’s team, but since they was only her on the team, she competed with a local high school. She had a huge (relatively speaking) contingent of people rooting for her. Probably about fifteen or twenty people, there to watch her.
The orphanage made sure its kids got to participate in a wide array of extracurricular activities. They also had normal kid things for them. For example, they had slumber parties for the girls at the orphanage. It’s almost impossible for a foster child to be allowed to attend another child’s slumber party. And I’m not sure if foster parents can let there kid host a slumber party.
They also were very supportive of trying to help the kids get into and go to college.
Too many people thing orphanages were out of Charles Dickens.
When I was a teen, I was on one of the sports teams in high school. We had a meet with another team that included a girl who lived in the local state orphanage. She wasnt actually on the other school’s team; she was the orphanage’s team, but since they was only her on the team, she competed with a local high school. She had a huge (relatively speaking) contingent of people rooting for her. Probably about fifteen or twenty people, there to watch her.
The orphanage made sure its kids got to participate in a wide array of extracurricular activities. They also had normal kid things for them. For example, they had slumber parties for the girls at the orphanage. It’s almost impossible for a foster child to be allowed to attend another child’s slumber party. And I’m not sure if foster parents can let there kid host a slumber party.
They also were very supportive of trying to help the kids get into and go to college.
Too many people thing orphanages were out of Charles Dickens.
Boarding schools were sometimes horrible places not so long ago, as many Englishmen, including George Orwell and CS Lewis, would be glad to let you read. Keep such things in mind when judging even the grim orphanages of the past. Corporal abuse of children and letting groups punish their own – as we now do with prisoners – was common even outside of orphanages. Food was bad, work was hard, and fuel was scarce, even for the middle class.
My third and fourth sons came from orphanages in Romania. They had been in two – a Casa de Copii, a state orphanage in Oradea which they described as the mouth of hell, and a small private Christian orphanage in Beius that they liked well enough and still keep in touch with other American adoptees about. Son #2 worked in the latter orphanage a few summers after and came back saying he wasn’t impressed with many of the staff, but his brothers just shrugged. If you had food and clothes and didn’t get beaten, the important thing was you got to be with friends. The private orphanage was such a relief that they were unbothered.
My hairdresser, a very successful entrepreneur and small business proprietor, a wife and mother and a pillar of the community, was wild in her youth and ended up spending a year or two in what we would have called, back then, reform school. She was actually from a strong family and regained close ties with her parents and siblings after her wild period — but she says it was the reform school that showed her how to live and made her want to be successful.
I see no edit function at the moment, by the way, though it’s been here other times that I’ve commented recently. As Neo said, it seems to come and go at its own choosing.