THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 22, 1994 TAG: 9412220007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By THOMAS G. MOELLER
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
Few aspects of the Republicans' welfare-reform plan have produced as much negative visceral reaction as the proposal to ban payments to children whose paternity has not been established or to those born out of wedlock to women under the age of 18. For that, you see, might require that some children be raised in orphanages, a fate which many liberal columnists and politicians seem to believe is worse than death itself.
``For the kids, there are always orphanages,'' intoned E. J. Dionne in The Washington Post. ``Oh, happy day!'' A day later, Hillary Rodham Clinton got into the act, ridiculing ``the unbelievable and absurd idea of putting children in orphanages.''
Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether any rearing condition could be worse than those endured by many children on welfare, I really wonder whether critics such as Dionne and Clinton know anything more about orphanages than they may have picked up from reading Dickens' novels.
I have to admit that I am biased in this matter. You see, I spent two summers while in college working in an orphanage. Of course, I can't know to what extent that particular orphanage (by then it was called a ``home for children'') was representative of others. But I do know that the children there were well taken care of, both physically and psychologically.
I can speak with some authority on this particular orphanage. Not only did I work there, but my father lived there on and off from the age of 6 until his high-school graduation.
The orphanage had its own elementary school, from which the children went on to attend one of the local high schools. I remember my dad telling me that the kids from the orphanage school were much better prepared for high school than the kids who attended the local elementary schools. This was certainly true in my dad's case, since he ended up being the valedictorian of his high-school class.
Dad, who eventually became an accountant, continued to maintain contact with some of the boys who had been with him in the orphanage. One became the advertising director of a nationally distributed newspaper. Another owned a new-car dealership. One was a janitor. All four got married, stayed married and had children who were able to make good lives for themselves.
Of course, these are only four of probably thousands of children who lived in this orphanage until its demise in the 1960s. I might be inclined to think that these ``success stories'' were atypical if it weren't for the annual reunions. Hundreds of former residents took time each summer to return for one day and renew acquaintances and reminisce about the ``good old days.''
I have to confess that I was too young at the time (not to mention, much too interested in playing baseball with the other kids who came) to conduct in-depth psychological interviews with the ``alumni.'' However, judging by the number who came, and the impression I did have of the people I met, I have to think that a large proportion of these ``orphanage kids'' did pretty well as adults.
They did so in part because this orphanage involved what Craig Bowman, a middle-school teacher in Jefferson County, Colo., refers to as a ``village'' - a community of care and concern. In a column in the Denver Post this past March, Bowman describes telling his seventh-graders about how he had been raised in such a village, called St. Clara's Orphanage.
After Bowman described his experience, one of his students blurted out: ``Hey, Mr. Bowman, it's too bad we don't have villages anymore. I wish I'd grown up in your village. At least they cared about you.''
I don't know how effective the re-introduction of orphanages might be in helping to break the ever-expanding cycle of family disintegration, dependency and violence which we see today among some of our youth, particularly those in the so-called ``underclass.'' Nevertheless, it is extremely short-sighted to reject this solution out of hand and to make believe that our current situation will solve itself.
If we're really interested in the long-term welfare of children, we ought to reject the emotional hysteria over this question and instead be willing to take a good hard look at whether some variation of an orphanage might help improve the lives of children. MEMO: Dr. Moeller is professor of psychology at Mary Washington College in
Fredericksburg. by CNB