It is possible to provide this kind of environment for children in settings other than their homes. But apart from the pragmatic problems of how to construct such an environment and how to pay for it, two other dilemmas remain.
First, people living in a free society rightly shrink from the idea of forcibly removing children from their families. So we have a problem regarding what to do with children whose parents do not wish to place them in some kind of alternative setting. Second, it is unclear how to provide a child in an institutional setting with someone who can take the place of a mother. Parents seem to earn the devotion of their children just because they are their parents. Youngsters who spend most of their waking hours in day care nevertheless become more attached to their mothers than to any substitute caretaker. No one really knows why. Abused children similarly retain an attachment and loyalty to their abusive parents that amazes observers. Again, no one knows why.
McKenzie understands all of this. Here is his unsentimental recommendation: "Today's disadvantaged children need a break. They need love and nurturing. When those precious advantages cannot be provided, children need, at a minimum, a safe, stable, structured, and permanent place that provides opportunities for personal growth, a chance to live down and away from the problems of their past. They need the break I was lucky enough to get at The Home....With all the current talk about family values, we must remember that there are families that value very little, least of all their children. Some families are worse for children than even the worst institutions."
This was the point that Gingrich struggled to make in response to the criticism that his orphanage solution was cruel and heartless. If we want to entertain the orphanage as a way of coping with "no parent" children, McKenzie and Cmiel provide helpful illu strations of the kinds of alternative child-rearing settings that have been tried in the past and important lessons about what pitfalls to avoid.
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