I suspect most of those regularly raped and beaten would disagree. Certainly the ones who've been murdered by their own parents aren't better off that way. I'm a strong believer in a healthy two parent home, but that's the oft unrealized ideal, and if the ideal is unrealized you don't just throw up your hands and say, "oh, well, nothing we can do. " An orphanage is hardly the ideal, but I do feel it's preferable to being regularly brutalized or even endangering a childs life just to make sure a parent remains in the picture. Dave Thomas was an orphan and he did OK.