Over the years, a large volume of literature has
been devoted to the structure of the house in America. Prior to the sexual revolution of the late 1960's the former house unit was a mother, a father, and children.
However, as the disunion rate has climbed to over fifty-percent, so has the structure of the house evolved into a myriad of singular parent families and blended families. Things are not quite so uncomplicated as in the days of "Father Knows Best" and "Leave it to Beaver".
There is a growing body of work describing the psychological and sociological adjustments of the adoptive family, the adoptee, and to a lesser extent, the birth parents who relinquished their child for adoption either by option or by unavoidable circumstances.
Interestingly, there has been very itsybitsy attentiveness paid to orphans who were never adopted.
In the film, "The Cider House Rules", the lead character Homer was adopted any times only to be returned because he was either too "quiet" for one join or abused by another.
Therefore, Homer grew up in the orphanage never again to be adopted. Instead, he was trained by the doctor who operated the 'home" to be an 'unofficial doctor' who either in case,granted abortions or helped babies into the world to be adopted.
At one point in the film Homer was trying to furnish relieve to an additional one orphan named Curly. It seemed Curly could not understand why prospective adoptive parents who came to 'look at' the children in the orphanage never chose him.
Homer explained to Curly that he was "much too special to be adopted by just anyone". Only a very special house could have Curly. It was never made apparent if Curly ever believed Homer's exertion to ameliorate the itsybitsy boy's pain.
What happens to orphans who are not chosen for adoption? Where do they go? What do they do?
Back in the late 1960's a valuable estimate of orphans, upon reaching their late teens, were asked to drop out of school and join the military. It was easier to supervise smaller kids than it was older kids with raging hormones.
Some orphans did drop out of school and worked full-time jobs. Most were drafted and sent off to Vietnam.
Maybe an unknown estimate of orphans were able to struggle long enough to quit high school. Possibly, there were a smaller group who applied to colleges. Perhaps an infinitesimal estimate even graduated from college and went on to successful jobs or careers.
The strangeness is the dearth of documentation in regards to how many kids left orphanages without being adopted and were able to lead a productive life. Did they carry on to quit their formal education? Did they produce an entrepreneurial acumen to become successful firm people? Were they successful at love, marriage and parenting?
So very itsybitsy is known about these individuals and even less is understood about what life was like for them that they might as well have been from an additional one universe.
Would most people who had parents, either by birth or adoption, understand these individuals?
When asked, most cannot imagine life without a family. They have never view about how it would feel to be alone on Thanksgiving or Christmas, or worse, to be alone on their birthday.
There needs to be more anecdotal research on young men and women who leave orphanages without advantage of a house or a parent to guide them on their pathway to adulthood. Did any succeed, or did most fail? Did they perpetuate the circle of life and generate kids only to abandon them to grow up in orphanages themselves?
Maybe they continued in their quest for 'belonging' by working their way straight through college and Perhaps graduate school. It is potential that some of them could have waited for the right marriage partner to come along and found fulfillment in being a life-long loving spouse as well as a devoted mum or father determined to be all they could imagine, or what God wanted them to be.
It could be enlightening to many to know what it would be like to be a people of an additional one universe.
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Copyrighted 2005. All ownership reserved.
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