A Requiem for Orphanages

I came out on Nov. 29, 1994, in the most visible of news outlets, the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal. I had long resisted going public with my past life, although I had mentioned a few details to friends. Pre-1994, my efforts at openness, however, were always met with concern, even pity, as in, “But you seem so normal!”

That fall, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich busted open my private closet with an offhand comment to the effect that many welfare children would live better lives in private orphanages. Prominent childcare critics blasted Gingrich’s proposal. Past orphanages had universally damaged the children in care in all regards, they claimed, “behaviorally, socially, and intellectually.”

Was I “damaged” from my orphanage years? Were my cohorts? We all have done well in life — indeed, from my academic surveys of over 3,500 aging alumni from 15 orphanages, far better than the general population in practically all regards, and largely with fond memories.

I would sometimes explain how my orphanage childhood was not the deprived life others imagined. Nor was it as depraved as orphanage images Charles Dickens concocted for Oliver Twist (1838), made ever-more hellish in movie adaptations focused on a defining scene: pitiful little Oliver pleading for “some more” (watery gruel).

I’ve spent the last three decades seeking ways — studies, books, conferences, films, columns, and interviews — to modulate the dreadful images of orphanage life that many presume I and tens of thousands of other disadvantaged children endured.

I failed miserably. My orphanage (The Home, in my memoir) resuscitated the lives of many young Olivers who faced their families’ dysfunctional fates. Now, as I write, squads of bulldozers are resculpting The Home’s pastures and farmland into residential and industrial parks north of Charlotte.

In my 1994 column, I led with the memorable words of Miss Hannigan (the evil overbearing housemother of little girls in the movie Annie) who asked exasperated, “Why any kid would want to be an orphan is beyond me!”

I went on to observe that “I’ve spent a lifetime quietly listening to others disparage orphanages as cold and loveless institutions where every child longs to be adopted. I knew then that Dickins’ description … should have had no bearing in the debate over how to help some of the least fortunate children among us. I was there. I grew up in a home with 150 or so other girls and boys in North Carolina in the 1950s—and I’m damn proud of it, and thankful!”

I added, “If any of us had had a choice between growing up with Ozzie and Harriet or in The Home, each would surely have taken the former. However, we either didn’t have parents or left parents behind who were not worthy of their roles. Those who think that private orphanages are ‘extreme’ solutions to the problems many children face do not appreciate the realistic options available to many children. Few of us would have entertained adoption and virtually all of us today shudder at the foster-care option. The dominant emotion for those of us who have returned each year for homecoming is neither hostility nor regret, but sheer gratitude.”

I was touched by a deluge of readers’ reactions in letters and calls, especially from orphanage alumni, saying with pride, “Right on! My orphanage was far from perfect but was a damn site better than Oliver’s.”

Before embarking on my orphanage advocacy in 1994, I presumed Dickens was right about orphanages in general. My home must have been special. However, other alumni groups professed no less affection for their homes and reported annual homecomings with attendees in the hundreds and thousands.

Benefactors offered support for the development of a documentary in which the alumni from four orphanages reported their experiences. More importantly, George Cawood, an extraordinarily filmmaker, enlisted the pro bono work of more than a hundred of his Burbank colleagues. The award-winning film, Homecoming, filled theaters to overflowing in film festivals and was aired on PBS in 2006.

Production crew members, steeped in Dickens imagery, were initially stunned by the alumni’s positive memories. After a day of interviews, one crew member returned to his van to ask in disbelief, “Richard, why aren’t there more orphanages?” My response was quick, “That’s the question we hope all viewers will ask on leaving the screening.”

The most compelling account of alumni’s dedication to their orphanages occurred unexpectedly, when we were scheduled to film at the reunion of the Hebrew Orphans Asylum of New York City on Sept. 13, 2001.

The film crew, understandably, couldn’t get into the City and the reunion was postponed for eight weeks. Still, 300 alumni, all octogenarians, attended. Remarkably, the Hebrew Orphan’s Asylum had closed its doors forever in 1941!

I and other orphanage alumni lament the passing of our homes into childcare history for a reason not considered by others: Today’s disadvantaged children will not have access to the life advantages we had. Most will be shuttled through multiple destabilizing foster care placements.

When I return to what remains of my former orphanage campus and witness the bulldozers creaking across the campus, I can’t help recalling memories of generations of children who lived in the cottages and worked the fields, most of whom have passed on. The bulldozers mark the end of something important, but largely disparaged, if not unrecognized, and certainly underappreciated.

English poet John Dunne wrote my last orphanage testimonial long ago with a message for the ages: “Death [no, Bulldozers], be not proud.”

Richard McKenzie is the Walter Gerken Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of California, Irvine and author of The Home: A Memoir and executive producer on the orphanage documentary, Homecoming.