I had a pipe dream for many years. I used to think about it a lot. I would think about things I could start doing to prepare for it. Degrees I thought I might need to earn. Property I thought I might need to acquire. Money. Plans. My pipe dream consisted of creating a place that would service three groups of individuals who are in essence, “throw-aways.” It’s a horrible thing but it is the truth. The three groups are foster kids, the elderly in nursing homes, and homeless animals.
So that is it. My pipe dream was to create an orphanage but with the same number of senior citizens that could serve as the grandparents for the kids and everyone would have a dog or cat or whatever animal they wanted. It would be a different kind of orphanage; more like a big family. And they would all live happily ever after. I should have added the adjective “idealistic” to describe my pipe dream because it sounds like a fairy tale.
Well, here I am, retired. I was a classic workaholic for the past 25 plus years. I worked all the time., sometimes having as many as five jobs at a time. When you work all the time, time goes by fast and sometimes you get lost in time. Now that I am retired, I want to stop and smell the roses. I also want to be an advocate for people who have not had anyone to advocate for them.
During my years as a workaholic when I would get a free moment to dream about my idealistic pipe dream, I did a little research. One of my sisters is a social worker and some of the horrific stories she told me about her daily job sparked my interest. Her job at one point was to remove children from their homes and place them in foster care. Unfortunately, sometimes these children would be placed in worse situations than their original situation. I asked her why there weren’t orphanages in the United States anymore. I had visited orphanages in Mexico and the ones I visited seemed to be happy places. I know things aren’t always as they seem from the outside, but I have talked to two different adults who both grew up in great orphanages (outside the United States), and had happy childhoods
When looking into it, I learned that the United States has not had orphanages for many years. At a certain point in time, the U.S. went to the foster care system, a system that is wrought with problems. Currently there are over 400,000 foster children in the United States. Many of these foster children are moved from home to home, never able to attach to any one family. Or worse, they run away and become homeless. I should note that there are also many wonderful foster parents that help these children and provide ideal homes for them. Obviously, orphanages became extinct for a reason. President Roosevelt had a noble vision for how to help the many children without homes. However we live in an imperfect world, and out of concern for the many children in orphanages who were neglected or abused, the foster system was born. My concern is for the foster children that fall through the cracks and have no one to advocate for them.
Many Americans go to other countries to visit orphanages or donate money to orphanages. That is great, and a noble endeavor. However, why not help the children here? The children who are hidden away in the foster care system. If you search the internet for orphanages in the U.S., you won’t find much. There are some group homes for the kids that never got adopted and for which a foster home may not be available.
In my research, I did find one orphanage that is still in existence. It was instituted back during the depression and received enough donations to keep it running all these years. I was pleasantly surprised at what I found out about this place. There was an Alumni page that I came across. So many alumni had posted their thoughts on it and I learned that many children had grown up there and it seemed like the kind of place in my pipe dream (minus the grandparents and animals). The alumni posts talked about how it had been such a wonderful place to grow up that now that they were grown with children of their own, they wanted to bring their children back there for Christmas so their own children could experience the warmth and family that they experienced growing up there. Many of these people had grown up to be very successful pillars of the community. A number of them had advanced degrees. The orphanage had a lot of private funding and education was emphasized. They also talked about having 100 brothers and sisters at any given time and the sense of love and family they had growing up there. Reading about this place re-ignited my pipe dream and took away the adjective of “idealistic.” Maybe something like this was actually possible! I started talking to my sister about it; asking her what her viewpoint was as a social worker. I thought about funding. I wondered if I should go back to school and get an MBA or what I should do to prepare so I could try to start something when I retired.
Another interesting thing about the United States is that many families send their aging parents to facilities rather than caring for them at home. Many families cannot care for an elderly parent or relative that needs major assistance, minor assistance or no assistance at all. Consequently, nursing homes are packed with elderly people who have been placed there because they require some level of care and do not have a family that can perform the care needed.
Having worked in Healthcare for many years, I worked in a number of different nursing homes. Every single one of them was full of elderly people who were essentially forgotten. They rarely had visitors and sat in a room most of the day or in the hallway. The facilities smelled bad and were always short staffed. The worst part was that many of the elderly people there were mentally sound and physically able to get up and walk around. It’s just that they didn’t have any family or their families couldn’t care for them or didn’t have space for them, so they were sent to a facility. As I walked down the halls to the nursing station, I walked by the many faces of them, sitting in the hallway with blank looks and empty stares, passing the time away. It’s as if all sense of purpose was gone and any dignity they had was sucked out of them.
Homeless animals are just as sad. Some come from abusive backgrounds and some simply don’t have a home or were abandoned. Helpless innocent creatures that need homes, sitting in cages or being euthanized because they are taking up space.
I believe that all three of these groups benefit from one another. Kids benefit from a relationship with grandparents. Grandparents benefit from a relationship with grandchildren. And everyone benefits from a relationship with animals.
My pipe dream was put in a closet years ago. But I still think about it. My personality test always comes out as a Defender. I’ve been a defender as long as I can remember. Especially for elderly people, children, and animals. I like to help the disadvantaged and enjoy being an advocate for people/animals who are unable to advocate for themselves.
In regards to my badge, and taking into consideration the seven classic quests, I would most closely associate with quest #5: Working to be reborn as a better person. The theme of it would be advocacy.
Because my faith is very important to me, something to represent that would be at the top. This would emanate throughout the patch, because without it, I would not have my pipe dream. Then, something to represent the children, elderly people and animals and how they benefit one another. Maybe something showing them being lifted out of their despair by bonding with one another. Something about how their bonding would give them new hope.
