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#4914 - 08/03/00 01:01 AM
orphan
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 31
michaelo
newbie
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newbie
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 31
Long Beach, CA, USA
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A search of the AWADTalk database and archives shows zero hits for word "orphan."
In addition to being burdened with my parents' death I also had to suffer the awful weight of being categorized as an orphan since I was five. Sadly, my parents committed suicide and it was the mid-60s and the orphan designation carried a lot of baggage and implications. I was so young but even then it seemed wretched to be called an orphan. Now the word still seems archaic and Dickensian. The worst threat to me as a child was to be sent to "the orphanage."
The word "orphan" doesn't seem to be in current usage and it seems that news reporters somehow can reveal family tragedies without using the word even when it's "appropriate." As much as I despise the word, my experience of being an orphan was every bit Dickensian as the word evokes. Now it seems like being an orphan is one of our last taboos and children with dead parents go on to live happily ever after with their favorite aunt, simple and done as that. I know that this can't be the case in reality. I suspect that orphans are still maligned by the public and aren't the topic of choice at cocktail parties. Also, one doesn't read about orphans in the news, there isn't a TV show about them, and Hollywood treats them as a relic from the 19th century.
So here are my questions: Is the term "orphan" being abandoned? or is it that the phenomenon of a child having both parents die just an extremely rare occurrence in western civilization? what word has replaced it? or, as I have mentioned, is this simply taboo territory?
michaelo (newbie)
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#4915 - 08/03/00 01:44 AM
Re: orphan
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Jackie
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Louisville, Kentucky
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Welcome, mike-o. Good to have you aBoard.
Having spent most of my working life in Child Protective
Services, I'll offer kind of an insider's view. Though not from the perspective of a resident, fortunately for me.
I believe the term orphan has slipped from common use because the term orphanage is not used any more, or only
rarely. And this, I think, is because the word orphanage
developed a well-deserved pejorative connotation. (This puts me in mind of the political correctness thread.) I have very little information on this, but I know that in the
fifties, there was something in the U.S. called the Orphan
Train, which was well-known for dispatching children to all sorts of places, and not all of them were carefully scrutinized to ensure that they really were orphans.
In the first half of this century, there was very little
oversight of who was sent to live in orphanages, or of the treatment they received once they got there. There was also very little checking as to the quality of homes the orphanage children were adopted out to.
Today, orphanages are "children's homes". A bereft child is not generally called an orphan, but is spoken of as being in the custody of a relative, or having been placed at a children's home.
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#4917 - 08/03/00 12:30 PM
Re: orphan
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Jackie
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Louisville, Kentucky
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michael, I think you're right--mostly, the trend is toward the ultra-specific.
I do have to say something about your use of word stupid, though. To me, that almost implies deliberately doing something well, stupid, by someone who at least ought to have known better. The word can also be used,
(here comes that political correctness thing again) pejoratively, to mean mentally deficient. In other words, a
person who is literally "stupid" cannot know better. In this case I really prefer the more politically correct terms. One time I had to testify in front of a set of parents that their children should be removed permanently because they were literally incapable of learning to care for the children adequately. It was one of the hardest things I ever did in that job.
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#4918 - 08/03/00 02:14 PM
Re: orphan
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 200
william
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 200
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i'm very interested that this was brought up. it seems to me that kids get the rough end of the pineapple in many things, including language. orphan seems to be being (is that a tense - please tell me!) replaced with sentences like "his parents have died", or even more oblique ones "he lives with his grandparents. but i think, with all respect to your situation, michaelo, it's not as common these days for both parents to die and leave children.
using the word orphan would seem to be a lead in to a sweeping saga, and perhaps there were so many of these, and too many parodies like G and S, that milked its pathos for effect, that the word can't be used without those connotations any more.
a junior high school boy killed himself in japan this week (not before writing "help" in english on the phone message pad at home). his principal suggested he was easily bullied and seemed not to take it seriously.
i really believe that children are one of the groups yet to be liberated. we use animal sounding words for them: kid, ankle biter; whereas words like bird, bunny are clearly seen as derogatory for women, pillow biter an insult to gays. adults think "kid" is cute, but no children like to be called that.
and we silence them with "when you're older" or "you're too young to understand", if they even try to use our own language against us.
not to mention forced congregation in "schools".
words can change but only after attitudes change. in fact words are probably a clear indication of our attitudes.
jackie, since you have some experience in this field, why is it we can still get away with treating children in ways we couldn't treat other people?
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