Pop culture is full of lovable orphans. There’s Annie, of course, and Harry Potter, and the Boxcar Children, and James (with the Giant Peach), and Cinderella—the list goes on and on. They have familiar stories: The protagonist loses parents and finds themselves in dire straits, typically under the supervision of evil caretakers. But through grit, wit, and, often, the help of a wealthy, generous benefactor—think Daddy Warbucks—they’re able to succeed.
When author Kristen Martin lost her own parents to cancer as a child, her experience as an orphan was nothing like that. There were no evil stepparents to outsmart before going on epic adventures. Relatives stepped in; the grief was consuming. The “utter disconnect,” she says, between her experience and those of pop culture protagonists was part of the inspiration for her book, The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood.
Martin explores the history of orphanhood in America since the 1800s and its harsh reality today, coming to a striking conclusion: It is poverty—rather than the death of both parents—that has often led children to be deemed orphans. “The fact is,” Martin writes, “most of the children we’re talking about when we’re talking about orphans had one or two living parents but were separated from them, either voluntarily or involuntarily,” she writes.
Despite the narrative that “we are a nation that values the nuclear family, rallies around children in need, and believes all young people have promising future,” in reality, “only some are deserving of strong familial ties.”
