All in the Family: Considering Television’s Orphan Plot

In this excerpt from her book, The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood Kristen Martin explores how orphans were portrayed on TV in the ’90s. Shows like The O.C. and Party of Five intermixed orphanhood with teen drama, playing down grief compared to boyfriend problems. So how did watching these shows as an orphan yourself make you feel? And would these characters have escaped the care system in reality? As Martin writes, “In pop culture, foster care is always—like life in an orphanage or with a poor family—something a character has to escape or overcome in order to have a fighting chance.” This cultural piece draws on personal experience to make you ponder your nostalgia more deeply.

Even if our father hadn’t had a will, John and I would have ended up in foster care only if no one in our lives had been suitable and willing to act as our legal guardian. Our lives were nowhere near that precarious. Children like me, with a certain degree of privilege afforded by class and race—even fictional children like the Aldens and the Salingers—still get All in the Family to keep what remains of our families after our parents die. It’s not as easy for charities and governments to exercise power over our lives and profit from doing so.

When it comes to the reality of Party of Five, it does seem implausible that Charlie would be named as legal guardian for all of his siblings, since when the show starts he is a barely employed college dropout who is bad with money. But unlike in The Boxcar Children, there is no kindly, rich grandfather here to step in to materially support, but lackadaisically supervise, the Salingers. Instead, they get financial support from their parents’ estate—$15,000 every four months. In the pilot, Charlie’s suitability as a legal guardian and all of the kids’ ability to parent themselves and manage money come into question.