Customer Reviews

The Home: A Memoir of Growing Up in an Orphanage

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This review is in response to the Booklist one above. In The Home, McKenzie makes a case in favor of orphanages as opposed to foster homes based on his own experiences. He points out that The Home is his story and was not intended to speak for all orphans. This book shows how people have choices in life - they can choose to use what they are dealt for them or against them. The stories that McKenzie relates illustrate how he learned valuable life lessons during his childhood, which ultimately contributed to his present success. Although some of the stories in the book made me cry, I thorougly enjoyed reading it. I feel like The Home gives readers a peek into McKenzie's soul. Truly inspirational, very interesting, and it makes you re-evaluate your own childhood!

Prof. McKenzie's book, "The Home", touched me to the core. The plight of children, in all walks of life, are "dear to my heart". The book made me alternately cry and smile throughout with it's sometimes heart- wrenching look at life through a young boy's eyes. It is good to know that children without "parents" and a "normal" family can be cared for and loved enough to grow up and become viable, giving human beings. For the sake of suffering and lonely children everywhere, I believe this story needs to be told.

Some will see this book as an unlikely one to have been written by an economist. Economists are thought of as people who see things in analytical ways, detached from emotion, and McKenzie is a very good economist. Yet reading his book, The Home (the second edition), will be an emotional experience, with highs and lows found in equal measure. It is a very personal story that comes straight from the heart and which everyone who has made the transition from child to adult will relate to in his or her own way. But as an economist myself, I can see the influence of economics in this book, though it in no way distracts from the emotional impact of the narrative. Economists tend to be rather immune to flights of fantasy about how the world should be. They recognize that the world is full of unpleasant choices, with it necessary to compare imperfect alternatives with every decision we make. McKenzie's story points to the some of the advantages he realized from being raised in an orphanage in the 1950s. But he doesn't whitewash his experience by concentrating on just the good--just read the first chapter. He recognizes that in an ideal world there would have been better alternatives, such as an intact and loving family, but that those better alternatives were not available to him. And so while recognizing the hardships and limitations he faced as a child growing up in an orphanage, McKenzie is able to tell as story of gratitude for the sense of place and permanence he was given by the orphanage and for those who, with love and devotion, made it seem like more like a home than he had experienced before. McKenzie's story, despite its realism, is a story that will inspire readers from a wide range of backgrounds. Finally, for those who have read the first edition of The Home, this edition includes an epilogue that brings us up to date with McKenzie's childhood friends.

I read this book and loved it. I'm writing this review to counter the Booklist one above. Courage is where you find it; and this book shows us an example of how the human spirit previals -- with some help. McKenzie and his brother were taken from their parents and raised in an ophanage. Mckenzie went from a troublsome child and slow reader to a PHd in economics. And he thanks the teacher that did it. A sad, but wonderful story. One that shows that courage and perseverence can triumph. A good read too!

In my research I've read several orphanage memoirs, and this is a good one. It's well-written, clear, honest and personal. The book does get annoying toward the end when the author makes his case for bringing back orphanages in place of foster care. The orphan "home" system had its merits and may be beneficial in a combined approach, but McKenzie pushes for it so hard that the end of the book reads more like a political text (which it partially is- the writer is obviously conservative and weaves his political opinions in throughout the memoir) instead of a personal story.

"The Home: A Memoir of Growing Up in an Orphanage," is author Richard McKenzie's attempt to diminish the negative reputation of orphanages and get people to consider reviving orphanages as an alternative to foster care. McKenzie and his brother ended up in an orphanage during the 1950's after their mother committed suicide and their alcoholic father was deemed incapable of caring for them. Life in the orphanage was pretty awful. The children only received two baths and two changes of clothing per week. They spent long, hot hours working on the surrounding farmland, and the small amount of food they received was pretty disgusting. Remarkably, though, McKenzie looks back on his time in the orphanage with fondness and gratitude. He's also conducted a study of people who spent time in the same orphanage he did, and found that most of them had favorable opinions of the time they lived in the home.

McKenzie makes some valid points in this book, and he shares some interesting stories. However, I wasn't too thrilled with this memoir as a whole. McKenzie eventually becomes so preachy about his opinions that the personal nature of his experience is overshadowed. Still, "The Home" is an interesting book that forces readers to consider alternatives for the thousands of orphaned children in the world.

Richard McKenzie's presentation of his experience being reared in an orphange is certainly on point. His represents the early life travels of many children in need of a home in the first half century of our country. The lifetime benefits he received as a student resident of the Home are invaluable to his successes achieved in his professional endeavors. As so many of his contemporaries reared in an orphanage demonstrate, they are proven, productive and responsible members of their respective communities. I share in McKenzie's deep feelings for his Home and the wonderful memories he expresses in tales some tall but all true; for I should know, I was there too!

This book, written by an orphan, contributes a first person voice to the conversation on child welfare. A reunion of orphanage alumni convinced the author to write about his own orphanage upbringing. The permanence of "The Home" and knowing that he would not be sent away helped him develop a sense of place and of belonging. The alumni agreed that this was seminal to their well being. The author's upbringing in this Presbyterian orphanage is testament to the healing power of a constructive rural life. The children learned to care for themselves and each other by raising their own food (crops and animals) and maintaining the farm equipment and the buildings. They went to school and church on the property until they entered high school. The administrative leadership was strong, moral and fair. His story is not a nostalgic rendition of the experience. It is a very objective assessment of the benefits he received from growing up on this particular 1500 acre farm orphanage.

"The Home: A Memoir of Growing Up in an Orphanage," is an unabashed attempt to burnish the reputation of orphanages. It is somewhat of a rejoinder to Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us." McKenzie attempts to correct some negative stereotypes of orphanages and reconsider the orphanage model as a viable alternative to foster care. I enjoyed this book and, as a resident of a similar orphanage for about ten years, I can say that it rang true in many ways.
McKenzie is correct to mourn our society's has abandonment of the orphanage model. The arguments for doing so have revolved around the impersonal nature of the model, accusations that the model is merely a "warehousing" of children, and the cloistered nature of such places which enabled some to institutionalize and hide some neglect and abuse. One major but unspoken impetus for abandoning the model has been the costs of running orphanages. Orphanages are expensive. In America, orphanages have historically moved away from large, impersonal dormitories and towards smaller cottages with higher staff to child ratios. This was not only because the cottage plan was seen as more like the traditional family model, but because it was believed to offer greater comfort - physical, psychological and emotional - to the children. The cottage plan also mitigated against the "warehousing" argument. The cottage plan provided a true home for that group of children.
After the introduction of the cottage plan, foster care came to be seen as a logical and even better way to offer the traditional family model to children in need. Unfortunately, history has shown that the foster care model has its own drawbacks. While the orphanages have experienced improved and more effective monitoring - through trustees, social workers, and legislation - foster care has experienced less qualitative and quantitative oversight. One can easily recall newspaper reports of children in foster care situations being abused, neglected and even "lost" from state supervision. Some foster parents have turned foster parenting into a type of business which does not even attempt to duplicate the intimacy of the traditional family model. Children placed in such an environment can feel isolated and inferior. They cannot form even the camaraderie with other children that is inherent in the orphanage experience.
The economic costs to the state of the foster care model, only partially supervised, may be cheaper than those of an orphanage, but the non-economic costs to children in need can be greater. Consider the child who is unable to integrate into foster care placement and bounces to multiple placements with attendant emotional and psychological damage. The orphanage model can provide a stable placement alternative for the child - certainly superior to the inevitable placement in a state-run juvenile detention facility. Consider, too, the large family of four or more siblings. There are few foster care placements which would provide a single home place for all the siblings to grow up together. The orphanage model can more successfully adapt to placements of large families.
In fact, the modern orphanage model is, in some cases, a viable alternative - even the preferred alternative - to the foster care model. That the modern orphanage model may be more expensive in terms of actual dollars spent per child per year is not a convincing counter argument. The long-term success of orphanage children (documented in McKenzie's "Rethinking Orphanages for the 21st Century") is valuable to society. There is a long-term cost to society of an alienated, demoralized, amoral adult. That cost comes in the form of pressure on social safety nets (welfare, workfare, unemployment) and other institutions (law enforcement, corrections, substance abuse treatment centers) as well as lost productivity and reduced tax revenue. The moral arguments for appropriate and successful care of children, unassailable as they are, are buttressed by the economic arguments.

McKenzie's book is compelling and I'm 100% in agreement with his belief that many orphanages were superior to the present foster care system, with the exception of some religious orphanages. In an orphanage you were among peers at approx. the same economic level who could identify with your problems and circumstances. You learn early the realities of life, that it isn't fair-- that you're not the only person or one of a few who have gotten a bad deal. Your do not feel inferior to other children which might be true in a foster home when you see that others have been more fortunate than you. McKenzie is right on the mark when he stresses the camaraderie and friendships that develop in orphanages, and the grit, perseverance and resilience that many of the alumni display. I was not in Edward McKenzie's orphanage but as a former "orphan" I applaud Edward McKenzie for telling it like it is. Completely believable. I know!!!!