What was it like in American Orphanages?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This discussion is what happens when unwanted kids are born. Institutions raising kids will never work out to the kid's benefit. Many of those kids will grow up to be dysfunctional adults and produce dysfunctional kids of their own. If only there were a way to prevent unwanted kids from being born....

The death of the parents is what lead most into orphanages back then not parents giving them up

Nope. Many disabled babies/children ended up in institutional settings (aka orphanages) for various reasons, such as the parents felt ill equipped to care for them, the parent were poor, the parents didn't want to care for them or the state pressured the parents to institutionalize them. It was VERY common. I was born with a permanent physical disability in Virginia in 1974 and twice the state and medical experts pressure my parents to send me to an institution because "it's not fair for you to have to raise a disability baby and it's not fair to society to have her out in the world." Both times when my parents refused and fought it, the state then urged for me to be sterilized This was in the mid 70s, not 1920s.

The Willowbrook documentary was in 1972, this is how people like me were treated, cast aside by their parents and society to be in an "orphanage while they wait for us to die.

Read the comments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev80qEtp2u4

Remember when the war in the Ukraine started and all of these "orphanages" needed to be evacuated, many with children with easily identifiable physical and intellectual disabilities? Think all those kids didn't have parents? It's the same thing. In China, these orphanages are called Dying Rooms. When the disabled baby is dropped off, the orphanage basically leaves the baby in a crib and lets it cry itself to death. https://youtu.be/555lqEol7SU?si=KSdRC9JJHYS2v47L

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This discussion is what happens when unwanted kids are born. Institutions raising kids will never work out to the kid's benefit. Many of those kids will grow up to be dysfunctional adults and produce dysfunctional kids of their own. If only there were a way to prevent unwanted kids from being born....

The death of the parents is what lead most into orphanages back then not parents giving them up

Poor families gave their kids away during the Depression. Older, healthy, bigger kids often ended up being adopted by welathier families so they could be household or farm help. Younger kids, especially if they were sickly or had what we would today call special needs, were often given to orphanages.

[Anonymous]

Consider that the government didn’t always swoop in to aid families. Typically families took care of their own so to speak and “took in” or boarded or fostered or “adopted” children in any type of need.

Two such cases in my own family; one was an aunt sent away to live with relatives in a rural area supposedly because she had health issues and was struggling being in a cramped apartment (I think she had what now would be considered some significant developmental delays). Absolutely heartbreaking.

The other was even earlier - a daughter living at home had a baby out of wedlock! Listed on census records as “adopted” but never was legally. By the time this child died circa 1970, his obituary referred to him as child of his birth mother, no mention of adoption.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This discussion is what happens when unwanted kids are born. Institutions raising kids will never work out to the kid's benefit. Many of those kids will grow up to be dysfunctional adults and produce dysfunctional kids of their own. If only there were a way to prevent unwanted kids from being born....

The death of the parents is what lead most into orphanages back then not parents giving them up

Or death of the mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This discussion is what happens when unwanted kids are born. Institutions raising kids will never work out to the kid's benefit. Many of those kids will grow up to be dysfunctional adults and produce dysfunctional kids of their own. If only there were a way to prevent unwanted kids from being born....

The death of the parents is what lead most into orphanages back then not parents giving them up

False. Almost 100% of the time it is because the parents want to keep them but cannot afford them. Now, if it is because of the death of a parent, it is usually the father/husband. Harder for a woman to find a new employeed husband to take on her kids than a single father to find a new wife.

See Les Miserables.

Even nowadays, many poor kids in poor countries are sold to older men as child brides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This discussion is what happens when unwanted kids are born. Institutions raising kids will never work out to the kid's benefit. Many of those kids will grow up to be dysfunctional adults and produce dysfunctional kids of their own. If only there were a way to prevent unwanted kids from being born....

The death of the parents is what lead most into orphanages back then not parents giving them up

False. Almost 100% of the time it is because the parents want to keep them but cannot afford them. Now, if it is because of the death of a parent, it is usually the father/husband. Harder for a woman to find a new employeed husband to take on her kids than a single father to find a new wife.

See Les Miserables.

Even nowadays, many poor kids in poor countries are sold to older men as child brides.

I should say girls from poor families, because this fate only befalls daughters.

[Anonymous]

My mom talks about visiting her three cousins in an orphanage in California when she was in elementary school in the 50s. It’s was her dad’s brother’s kids. Apparently their mom died so their dad gave them up to an orphanage because he didn’t know what else to do. My mom said when she retells the story now, it seems strange and wrong, but at the time she didnt really think it was unusual because their mom was no longer alive and “that’s where they lived.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This discussion is what happens when unwanted kids are born. Institutions raising kids will never work out to the kid's benefit. Many of those kids will grow up to be dysfunctional adults and produce dysfunctional kids of their own. If only there were a way to prevent unwanted kids from being born....

The death of the parents is what lead most into orphanages back then not parents giving them up

Or death of the mother.

There are no orphanages. There are some group homes. No, its drugs, alcohol, or mental illness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look up Georgia Tann, my tablet won't let me post a link.

Whoa.

Here’s just one story of the 5,000 children this woman stole.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-20-vw-882-story.html

[Anonymous]

I have come to realize that most vulnerable populations experience a very high rate of extensive abuse when there is little oversight (or the “oversight” is also involved in the perpetration and coverup of the crimes).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This discussion is what happens when unwanted kids are born. Institutions raising kids will never work out to the kid's benefit. Many of those kids will grow up to be dysfunctional adults and produce dysfunctional kids of their own. If only there were a way to prevent unwanted kids from being born....

The death of the parents is what lead most into orphanages back then not parents giving them up

Poor families gave their kids away during the Depression. Older, healthy, bigger kids often ended up being adopted by welathier families so they could be household or farm help. Younger kids, especially if they were sickly or had what we would today call special needs, were often given to orphanages.

+1 Think the beginning of Anne of Green Gables.

[Anonymous]

I am a CASA and my foster child is in what is basically an "orphanage". She is in high school now. Her mom gave her up and her dad is MIA. I have spent a lot of time at the facility and work with the staff/school. They do a decent job of getting them ready for the world (drivers ed, financial literacy, etc) but there is also some terrible dysfunction with these troubled/trauma experienced girls all living together. There is absolutely nothing Secret Garden-like. Maybe a little like Annie but way way more adults involved. Just as many chores. Better food.

[Anonymous]

My grandfather was orphaned when his parents died in the flu epidemic of 1918/19. They had just immigrated from Ireland. My grandfather grew up in an orphanage in Philadelphia and my dad said he refused to ever talk about it. We know nothing of his young life.

I adopted my own 2 kids from an orphanage in Asia. We have always tried to find out as much as we could, and when we traveled there to adopt our babies I could tell the kids were very healthy.

My heart aches for my late grandfather.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look up Georgia Tann, my tablet won't let me post a link.

"Before We Were Yours" was a tough one to read. Stealing and selling children, some to prominent people. I'm trying to remember which actress bought a baby this way.

Quoting myself, it was Joan Crawford.

She was a horrible abusive woman. Probably borderline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look up Georgia Tann, my tablet won't let me post a link.

Whoa.

Here’s just one story of the 5,000 children this woman stole.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-20-vw-882-story.html

Wow. That baby became a nurse and passed away as grandmother but her kids said in her obituary that she was “born” to the adoptive parents instead of to the birth parents. I wonder why they wanted to put that incorrect detail in there.

https://thomasjustinmemorial.com/tribute/details/1387/Sandra-Sandy-Kimbrell/obituary.html