Why do boarding school women have no family. The boarding school is a detached childhood. “Dad could beat us up, but it was deserved. We definitely wanted to be with our parents.”

And finally, the third article. It contains two sad stories. In the first case, after returning to the boarding school, the teenager committed suicide. In the second, a baby who has just begun life, instead of a family, will end up in the Baby House with living parents. In general, about the difficult choice of adults and the consequences of their decisions.

A conversation with a woman whose pupil, after returning to a boarding school, hanged himself

It was this story that prompted the idea to “dig into” secondary orphanhood. When they wrote about a young suicide from Shatalovo, it became known that he had previously been returned from a foster family to an orphanage.

At the same time, the boarding school said that there are many such ...

Then the woman who took him up seemed to many almost the most terrible person in the world. However, a conversation with her showed the situation from the other side.

Vova - three times "adopted"

Larisa Leonidovna has four children. All adopted, she could not have her own. She adopted her first baby, Nastya, at the age of 24. And when Anastasia was already 12 years old, she and her husband decided to adopt another child: a boy. From a shelter on Neverovsky Street in Smolensk.

The director showed a photo of Vova, said that his mother was deprived of his rights, that he was already in two foster families, but for some reason did not take root anywhere. He was then 7 years old.

“We decided without a doubt to take him. They raised Volodya with her husband until the age of 14. Not to say that he is very difficult, just smart. He could not stand deceit, and it was never possible to raise his voice at him, - a woman told me.

Childless with many children

In addition to the two listed, the woman also took four from the inernat. Three children are still with her. And one was taken by my mother when she returned from prison. Released, her daughters took custody of this baby. And the child was taken away.

— Later I found Stepan in a boarding school in Prudki. There are eight stitches on the head. His mother is already in the next world, he again became useless to anyone and ended up in an orphanage. I wanted to take it away, but they didn’t let me: the living space is small. After all, everyone who lives in the house is taken into account, and my family is already large: a husband and three children, and the eldest, Nastya, is already married - she is separate. She gave me grandchildren.

According to the woman, she has a good relationship with all the children. The trouble happened only with Volodya.

— What can I say... It's a tragedy. A terrible tragedy. My house has always been open to him. What happened to him? Don't know. In vain I agreed to send him to a boarding school ...

Mom let me go

Already in adolescence, Vladimir had two sisters. They wanted to get closer to him, to take him for the weekend. The woman offered to solve all this through "guardianship". She didn't like being with her sisters. There were many conversations. And he said:

- Mom, let me go to boarding school. My own sister lives there, in Shatalovo. I want to see her. I love you, but you are also my sister. And then I will run away.

One of Vladimir's sisters herself was brought up in this boarding school. It is possible that the conversation with her influenced his decision to return to the orphanage.

— And I agreed. My mistake is that I wrote this disclaimer at his request. , the woman recalled.

Then they got in touch.

— Mom, I'm fine he said.

He wrote various messages in Odnoklassniki. Didn't complain about anything. And then - the news: hanged himself.

-If I knew that something was wrong with him, I would have taken it, I would have pulled it out- the interlocutor told me bitterly. — It's such a pain...

However, in the guardianship authorities they told me that there was a conflict between Larisa Leonidovna and Vladimir. The teenager was difficult, he smoked Spice. Most likely, this is what led to terrible consequences: returning to the boarding school and committing suicide.

Another non-Christmas story

The case of the happy adoption of a young couple, publicized in many media ( Smolensk couple of 15-year-old orphans and their child savedRussian legislation is sometimes inhumane. But the boys are lucky) ended with the return of all three to the orphanage. Writer, psychologist Yulia Zhemchuzhnaya sympathized with a 15-year-old pregnant orphan girl. Then it was known that if Polina was not adopted, her child would end up in a boarding school. She adopted both her and the father of the child, and their newborn.

It seemed that happiness should overwhelm everyone. But ... Soon the guy began to write letters to departments that his living conditions were not satisfactory. The house is without amenities, the economy is large, you need to work, etc. All this, apparently, was far from what the young parents dreamed of. And even the fact that their child will now be in a baby house did not stop anyone. They wanted to leave. And the regulatory authorities, already distrustful of this story, began a series of checks.

And here is the result - a Facebook post by director Olga Sinyaeva, who closely followed the development of events: “This epic lasted for six months... The Christmas Story was just an illusion, but in reality it was a bad dream with anonymous letters, the police, the prosecutor's office... Today, officials finished off this story. Yulia Grigoryevna is no longer the guardian of Oleg, Polina and 4-month-old Sonya. She refused herself. It just became beyond human strength. I really sympathize with her. Who knows how, please pray for Yulia and her children. Former and present.

Here is the end of the story.

The right to choose

Of course, both adults and children have the right to choose where and with whom to live. However, native children usually don’t think about it (if you don’t take “extreme” situations with beatings and mockery of their parents). After all, they do not have a boarding school with their usual way of life, old friends and indecently familiar teachers in their thoughts. Blood children were born with a given: here are your parents and here is your home.

It's stupid to protest this. And if a teenager decides to run away from home, then usually it ends with a simple magnifying glass without question: “Maybe you want to live somewhere else?” And even if the mother frightens by giving the child somewhere, no one will take it seriously as a real proposal. In response, unless a teenager shouts: “I didn’t ask me to give birth!” But neither dad nor mom would think of aborting him quickly.

But if the receptionist says: “I didn’t ask to be taken away from the orphanage!” Then the thought of social abortion will creep into the soul: "Wants back, ungrateful." And the teenager is already carried away by the game - he sees: it's hooked. And besides, I really want to make friends. This is how family happiness collapses before our eyes ...

With all this, it is worth noting that the last word in such situations is with adults. It is on them that the burden of a written refusal, the return of the child to the orphanage, forever falls. Let him say that he himself wants to leave, maybe even demands it, but all the same, it is the parents who refuse. And the responsibility for the decision inevitably lies on their shoulders. After all, they also decided to adopt or not, the child could influence only indirectly.

In the near future - the fourth, final, article. It contains interviews with adoption specialists: First Deputy Head of the Smolensk Region Department for Education, Science and Youth Affairs Nikolai Nikolaevich Kolpachkov; and. about. head of the department of guardianship, guardianship and boarding schools Elena Alexandrovna Korneeva and leading specialist of the department of guardianship, guardianship and boarding schools Svetlana Mikhailovna Tsypkina.

my friend studied from 2nd to 5th grade in a boarding school, we were friends with her for a long time before she shared with me all the horrors that she experienced.
in childhood she was kind, affectionate, capable, with self-esteem, which did not allow her to be like everyone else, namely, to bend under the leader, at the same time she did not know how to defend herself and her classmates badly hounded her, beat her, humiliated her) (the scarecrow is resting! ), she endured, did not complain, cried into her pillow every night.
I got a good teacher in elementary school, she was an excellent student, but it was before lunch, then the teacher left, and arbitrariness began, the educators looked through their fingers at the disassembly of the children, at night they could pick up some and put them in their shorts in the corridor with outstretched arms for several hours.
after elementary school it was a nightmare in general, everyone’s studies are at zero, no one takes care of the children, in the 4th grade half of the children already smoked, she was poisoned even more subtly, the teachers only added fuel to the fire, she ran away, cried, begged her mother not to send her back, but only at the end of the 5th her mother still took her. it didn’t leave a trace, she says her studies improved for another 3 years, in a normal school the children didn’t accept her either, they called her a boarding school, then she changed another school and everything went fine there, she says she always thought with horror about the moment when everyone would find out, that she studied at a boarding school and her nightmare will begin again. but it seemed to work out, she hid the memories of those years away.
now an adult woman, kind, cheerful, caring, successfully working, a charming child, has achieved much more than all her classmates from the senior class, but !!! if you accidentally mention those years to someone, she goes away, because she cannot hold back her tears. I once saw this picture, one minute - a completely happy person, and the next - suffocating from tears - horror!
He says - I can not be strong when I remember those years.
And she can’t forgive her mother that she couldn’t protect her, left her to fight alone against everyone ..... even though she loves her, and their relationship is normal ...
relations with her husband did not work out, she loved for two, she dragged her family on herself, and her husband sat on her neck, hung her legs and also poked at her shortcomings.
the child takes care of like a chicken, the child bathes in love and care, .... he is very nervous about the possibility that someone will offend the child, especially an adult.
recently we walked with the children, and through the park we went to that boarding school, the phrase “would burn him to hell, this place smells of evil” ...... and this is 20 years later .......
she says that her mother managed to pick her up in time, another year or two and the person would be lost.
05/06/2006 15:39:35, scary to think...

Here and there - "she is very nervous about the fact that someone might offend her child" - this is about me ... Of course, legs grow from childhood, what can I do ... Recently I found out that my child was left alone in a group in a kindergarten, since she didn’t have proper shorts in physical education ... I threw such a scandal on the manager that she apologized to me for a very long time ...
My deep IMHO - parents should stand between the child and the world like a wall until she grows up, protect him from everyone and everything. Because he is a chick and they are his parents... 05/07/2006 00:31:37, stray bird

According to the “Our Children” charity fund, only 22% of children in boarding schools are orphans (the fund collected statistics for the Smolensk region, but fund experts note that the all-Russian figures are 10–20%. - Note. ed.). The rest belong to the category of social orphans - that is, children left without parental care. In this case, the parents either abandon the child themselves, or for some reason are deprived of the right to raise him.

According to psychologist Ekaterina Kabanova, the main problem of most children in boarding schools is the trauma of abandonment. “There are also a number of consequences that girls brought up in the system face,” says Kabanova. “It’s about broken boundaries, and imposed gender stereotypes, and early sex because of the need for attention.” Many inmates of boarding schools give birth to children early, find it difficult to get a specialty and work, and face difficulties in family life. Afisha Daily talks about the main problems of young women who grew up in a closed boarding school system.

The most significant, dear and safe figures in the life of children are their parents, and their refusal to take care of him is the first experience of betrayal in life. “If the parents abandoned the child, he will no longer form the basic trust in the world, that is, the feeling that you are accepted on this earth,” says Kabanova. - Trust will be created artificially, but inside the child will live with a sense of loneliness and the conviction that no one will ever need him. Virtually all children in boarding schools and orphanages have this feeling of loneliness. At the same time, the older the child who is abandoned, the harder he experiences this trauma.

Arina (20 years old) was in the system at the age of four. “My mother sent me to a boarding school. My older brothers and sisters stayed with her, but they never visited me. I didn’t really know my father,” the girl recalls. Now Arina has her own family and three children, but she could not understand her mother's act.

“I don't want to be like my mother. Of course, there are hopeless financial situations when it is hard to feed a family and someone decides to send their children to a boarding school. But it's one thing to do it for a while, while the parents earn money, and another - forever. Only a very bad mother can do that.”

Even occasional parents are better than none, says sociologist Lyubov Borusyak. “Families with many children, and parents send one or more of them to a state institution, can hardly be called prosperous,” says Borusyak. - Of course, there are poor parents who love their child very much, but they send him to a boarding school and take him away for the weekend, because they simply do not have money to feed him. Such children feel a connection with their parents, their love and care.

Maria's mother (aged 15) died when she was two years old. “She drank heavily, smoked a lot and was a walker,” says the girl. - Aunt said that she slept with everyone under a bush. The father is the brother of the aunt. She does not want to communicate with him, because he chose the wrong path: he drinks heavily, does not work, lives in an unknown place and with whom. Maria recalls that she never heard anything good about her parents. “They said that dad beat my grandfather with wires and pieces of iron in front of everyone. They didn’t feed me, I slept on the floor by a cold battery, and bread with salt and water were all my food, says Maria. - Once in the winter I was thrown out into the street. When my aunt arrived and saw that I was very thin, she asked my parents what they fed me. They answered that there was porridge on the stove. Aunt looked into the pan - and there is mold. Then she decided to take me with her and later arranged for guardianship.”

For several years, Maria lived with her aunt, but when she was 14 years old, conflicts began between them, and the girl ended up in a boarding school. “All the fights happened when I was talking about my father,” Maria says. - I had a desire to just talk to him and about him, but my aunt and cousin did not like it. At that time, I got in touch with a bad company, started skipping classes, and practically did not study in the eighth grade. In the last conflict, I was infuriated that everyone was against him, and my sister and I even got into a fight. I left home and lived with a friend in Smolensk for a week. I ended up in a boarding school after that incident.

“Dad could beat us up, but it was deserved. We definitely wanted to be with our parents.”

Arina (20 years old) was twice tried to adopt. The first time was when she was in elementary school. The girl does not remember what happened, but at the last moment, potential parents changed their minds about accepting her into the family. “In the fifth grade, when new adoptive parents came, I myself refused,” says Arina. “I thought I was going to miss my blood mom.”

Even if the parents themselves sent the child to a boarding school, it is very difficult for him to refuse them in return. “Mom and dad can be toxic and emotionally distant, drink or beat a child, but he has already formed an attachment to them,” says psychologist Ekaterina Kabanova. - When children end up in a boarding school, they again have to form these attachments. Someone manages to do this, and they end up in other families, but it often happens that children see the possibility of adoption as a betrayal of their family, especially their mothers.

Love for parents is genetically recorded in our country, sociologist Borusyak believes, so many children in the system suffer from their mother and dream of seeing her, even if all childhood knew only beatings and drunkenness from her. “Over time, such pain greatly changes memories: children grow up and remember that their mother took them to the zoo at the age of three, which means she spent time with them and loved them,” says Borusyak.

Alina (19 years old) ended up in a boarding school at the age of six along with her three sisters. “My father's sister called the guardianship: she said that we always go naked and hungry,” says the girl. - Yes, mom and dad drank, the house was in poor condition, but I remember my childhood: we could walk at night, but we were always well-fed and dressed: dad made good money. He could beat, but it was deserved: we ran through the wastelands, broke our knees, brought home syringes from an abandoned hospital. One day, my dad started beating my mom, but I stood in front of him and protected her. We definitely wanted to be with our parents.”

First, Alina's older sisters were taken to the boarding school, and she and her younger sister stayed at home under the care of her aunt, but the girls could not live apart.

“It was unbearable for me without my sisters, I really asked for them, and we were also taken away,” the girl says. - In the hospital, where they conducted an examination before being sent to a boarding school, we all met and realized that we would be separated from our parents. Then we escaped through the window. I was six years old, Olya was four, Masha was ten, and Katya was fifteen. We were quickly found and soon sent to a boarding school.”

Alina's mother died when the girl was in fifth grade. But she found out about it only two years later, because the addresses and contacts of relatives were hidden from the girls.

When Alina was fourteen, they wanted to adopt her and her younger sister, but she was against it: “I did everything to prevent this from happening: I behaved very badly in front of a potential foster family. I had no idea what it was like to lose my sisters again, as well as the environment that I was used to. According to psychologist Kabanova, living in a family with a low social status is much easier when a child has brothers and sisters. “Children create their own safe world and hold on to each other,” says Kabanova. - There is a break from reality, but thanks to mutual support, even a dysfunctional family is happy to some extent for them. The boarding school means the destruction of such a safe world, and if the children do end up in the system, the main thing for them is to stay together by any means.

"My life could have been much better"

Alexandra Omelchenko, a psychologist at the Our Children Charitable Foundation, believes that one of the most serious problems of boarding schools is a system where adults decide everything for children for years to come. “Students in state institutions are not taught to see the causes and consequences of their actions, set goals, plan, think about the future. Orphanage staff often add fuel to the fire: for example, with the phrases “An apple from an apple tree ...” in the context of the supposedly bad heredity of the pupils. Firstly, children who find themselves without a blood family are still drawn to their origins - consciously or unconsciously. Secondly, such suggestions complicate the self-identification of the child, reduce his responsibility for his own destiny.

A child who grew up in a state institution is maladjusted. “He doesn’t know how life works, where the food on the plates comes from, how hard it is to live without a profession, what prices are in the grocery store,” says sociologist Lyubov Borusyak. “They think that everything happens by itself. Even pregnancies and children appear unexpectedly - and this is not their area of ​​\u200b\u200bresponsibility. The sociologist is also sure that the more closed the regime of the institution, the more cruelty appears inside it. “What happens behind the doors of a particular institution is unknown. It happens that the employees of boarding schools themselves are kind, which means that the pupils are lucky, but it can be different. The degree of openness here, including social control and the presence of volunteers, is the main factor that the rigidity and cases of violence in the boarding school are minimal,” says the sociologist.

Alina (19), who ended up in the boarding school with her sisters, says that children in the boarding school have repeatedly faced ill-treatment.

“We were always told that you yourself are to blame in any situation,” the girl says. - If, for example, someone was caught smoking, they were forced to eat cigarettes. And the teacher of my younger sister constantly beat her classmates. The boys in her class were crazy: they constantly harassed, exposed their genitals, pinched the girls on the buttocks. I've always fought them."

Alina is sure that the presence of her parents in her life could change something: “I think if my mother was alive, it would be easier for me. She has always been kind to me." Arina (20), who abandoned adoption at the age of ten, now regrets her decision. “My life could have been much better. I would finish the eleventh grade, get a higher education,” she says.

“Many girls believe that if they stayed in the family or agreed to adoption, then everything would change dramatically, and their life would be successful,” says Borusyak, adding that this is also due to the delay in socialization due to growing up in a closed system. “These girls do not have adult ideas about life, but most importantly, they do not see examples of other developments. After all, where do they get the model of a successful family?

"I didn't think I could get pregnant so fast"

In 2010, the Federal Center for Health Education in Germany, together with the WHO Regional Office for Europe, will jointly document standards for sexuality education in Europe for 53 countries. The program is aimed at combating sexual health problems: the increase in the prevalence of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, unwanted teen pregnancies and sexual violence. Working with children and young people here is a key to the overall promotion of sexual health, and one of the goals is to develop a positive and responsible attitude towards sexuality, as well as awareness of all the risks and pleasures.

Unlike most Western countries in Russia, there is no sex education in schools, and even people who protect the interests and rights of children in the country are often opponents of sex education.

Sociologist Lyubov Borusyak says that in our country there is no sexual education, not only in schools, but also in families. At the same time, she is sure that in a boarding school it is especially necessary, because early sexual relations are very typical for girls in the system: “The desire for warmth and care for them is often realized in sexual relations. Moreover, sex does not arise as a manifestation of love, but as a need for individual attention and affection from another person.

In the boarding school, Arina (20 years old) did not ignore information about the female reproductive system and sexual education. Despite this, the girls were not allowed to show independence in elementary matters of their health - each time they had to turn to adults for personal hygiene products. “At the age of thirteen, I had my first menstruation,” says Arina. - Gaskets were issued only by the teacher, they were in a special warehouse. Around the same time, gynecologists from the antenatal clinic came to us to talk about women's cycles, the prevention of pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.”

At the age of sixteen, Arina first thought that someday she would become a wife and mother, but she never dreamed of romantic love. “It was then that we met Alyosha,” recalls Arina. - He was not from an orphanage, home, from a large family, and two years younger than me. We did not enter into sexual intercourse immediately: a lot of time has passed since the first meeting - about two months. At that time, Arina was seventeen years old, and she went to college to be a cook. Despite the consultations of gynecologists, her own pregnancy was a shock for Arina: “When nausea started, classmates advised me to take a test. This proposal made me feel uneasy: despite the lectures at the boarding school, for some reason I did not think that I could get pregnant so quickly. I came to the gynecologist only after two tests, one of which showed a positive result, and the other negative.

“It was too late to have an abortion: I felt tremors in my stomach,” says Arina. - No one told me how pregnancy and childbirth should go. I was very scared. Luckily, my daughter was born healthy.”

Lyubov Borusyak notes that pregnancy is a common situation for boarding schools: “Girls in the system do not have a sense of responsibility, and pregnancy comes unexpectedly for them, even if they know about contraception.” At the same time, there is no specific statistics of pregnancies in the system. Natalya Shavarina, an employee of the Our Children Foundation, explains this by saying that boarding schools hide such information in every possible way. “Neither I nor my colleagues have ever seen any single data for the country,” says Shavarina. - And even if there was information about the pregnancies of the pupils, it would be very far from the truth. Because in closed institutions, most often on paper one thing, but in reality another.

Alina (19 years old) and her sisters ended up in an institution where any sexual education was banned. “They never talked to us about sex or relationships, and in biology lessons they even skipped the topic of conception and birth,” says Alina. - I didn’t have any loves in the boarding school, because most of the boys smoked and drank. I saw how my older sisters build relationships, and that was enough. Once Olya was almost raped. In the eighth grade, she began to smoke, drink, run away from the boarding school, sleep with everyone. Nine classes and did not unlearn. Maybe she didn’t have enough parental love, and she was looking for her in different guys.

The main problem faced by girls brought up in a government institution is the lack of maternal and paternal love and care, says Alexandra Omelchenko, a psychologist at the Our Children Charitable Foundation. “Students of boarding schools really agree to intimacy more easily than domestic girls,” says the psychologist. - For them, this is a way to feel loved, beautiful, needed. Often we are talking about a change in status: more experienced girls look more authoritative in the eyes of their peers.

Alina had a young man after graduating from the boarding school. “We walked, went to cafes, cinemas, rode in a car at night. I really loved him, but he never became my first man, - the girl recalls. - He was taken into the army, and when he returned, he said that he decided to serve on a contract basis in Moscow, and I needed to finish my studies at college. I got angry and started dating his best friend. Some time later, I became pregnant. I didn't think it would happen so quickly. But I really wanted a child to take care of him, to teach something - to give everything that I was deprived of. In addition, I was afraid to have an abortion - to repeat the fate of my older sister, who now cannot have children.

“I don’t care about love - I need to put the child on its feet”

According to psychologist Yekaterin Kabanova, girls leave the orphanage lost, because most often they are not told what prospects and opportunities they may have.

“With boys in this regard, everything is a little easier, and the upbringing of girls in the system is greatly influenced by gender stereotypes and patriarchal views,” says the psychologist. - Nobody tells them that it is possible to have a career, does not encourage their aspirations. The psyche is based on the fact that they need to build a family and create relationships. After the boarding school, girls become pregnant and give birth to children, not only because of the lack of sexual education and the fear of abortion, but because they do not know and do not believe that they have a choice.

Arina (20), who gave birth to a daughter at the age of seventeen, became pregnant again a few months later. At that time, Alyosha (her young man) was sixteen years old, and he was under the care of his aunt, because his father killed his mother and went to prison. “My aunt was a badass, their relationship did not stick,” says Arina. - We decided to get married, and it so happened that until my husband came of age, I was his guardian. We had a son, and two months ago our youngest daughter was born.” When Arina found out about the third pregnancy, she went to a psychologist to decide on an interruption, but in the end she left the child. Now the family lives in a rented two-room apartment on Arinina, a pension in the amount of eight thousand rubles, as well as for child benefits - up to a year and a half, six thousand are allocated for each child.

All day Arina takes care of the house and children. “Alyosha does not like the second and third, it can be seen,” the girl says. - The first is all the attention, and he almost ignores the younger ones. To be honest, I'm suffocated by resentment. But I don't tell him, I don't show him. Unlike me, my husband received a secondary vocational education - he became a welder, but he could not find a job. During the day he plays computer games, but if I ask, he helps me around the house. On weekends he goes out with his friends - all unmarried, unmarried. Of course, my husband has a slight envy of their way of life, but I do not force him. In fact, me and his brother are his only support. And my husband is mine. Unfortunately, now our feelings are coming to naught. I don't remember the last time we were alone - with whom to leave the children? We begin to wean from each other, move away. I can’t imagine a family without him, but I don’t know what to do in this situation.”

Psychologist Kabanova says that when your boundaries are violated, you cannot say "no", express your anger, explain what you do not like. “Many women who grew up in the system simply do not know how to express their own feelings, and perhaps they are not even aware of them and their own boundaries, because reflection is not available to them,” the psychologist explains. - Nobody taught them to pay attention to what they feel and why it is important. Many Russian women have problems with this, but in a boarding school, where there are 50-100 other children, no one will take care of the psychological health of girls.” According to her, not understanding your own (physical and psychological) boundaries and the fear of being abandoned are very interconnected things. “Often a woman is silent also because she is afraid of losing her partner. This is due to the trauma of abandonment experienced, ”Kabanova believes.

After Alina (19 years old) became pregnant from a friend of a former young man, they signed, but the marriage did not last long: “When we moved in together, he began to sit on my neck: I receive a good pension as an orphan. He dropped out of school, worked at the car wash, played computer games all day long, - says Alina. “And recently he found a thirty-year-old woman and went to live with her.” Alina wants her ex-husband to communicate with their daughter and the girl knows that she has a father, but she herself does not plan to be with him: “I won’t accept him after another, because I treat myself well. Now I'm not up to love - I need to put the child on its feet, find a job. I wanted to enter the Institute of Arts as a dancer, but I failed the exams because I prepared one dance instead of three. As a result, I received the specialty of a social worker, but this is not at all for me. In the future, Alina would like to meet a man and start a family: “I want three children. You just need to find a normal husband who will not say: “Why should I work? Let's sit with the baby." The most important thing is that he accepts my child and is hardworking.”

Maria (15 years old), who ended up in a boarding school a year ago, is still living there. “At first, I was not very comfortable here, and I ran away. I could have a drink with someone, after that a conflict began. Then I thought: why run when you can complete your studies and return home, ”the girl says. She does not think about relationships and family yet.

“I plan to finish my 9th grade, go to college to be a hairdresser and take massage courses. I don't have any romantic relationships. I know about contraception, but I don't always use contraceptives. What is love, I don't know. Probably, this is when you care about someone and are afraid of losing him, ”says Maria

Of course, there are times when the pupils of boarding schools and orphanages become very successful. “Compensation works - do everything to break out of your past and never be like that again,” explains psychologist Ekaterina Kabanova. “But more often than not, children from the system do not have internal permission to succeed. They do not believe that they have the right to be significant, to create a good family, where there will be love, trust and healthy affection. Once they were abandoned, and deep down there is a feeling of guilt for this. For them, finding a resource in themselves, motivating themselves and achieving something is a titanic work.”

Who helps children in boarding schools

If we want to somehow change the situation with the number of children in the system, we must start by helping families in crisis, says sociologist Lyubov Borusyak. Another solution may be to raise children in foster families. This is a form of raising children at home, in which the parent (an employee of the Authorized Service for Foster Care) takes care of them and receives a salary for this. In Russia, there is no federal law on patronage, and this form of education is still little known. According to, in Russia only 5,000 live in foster families. For comparison, there are 523,000 children in foster families in the United States.

Alexandra Omelchenko, a psychologist at the Our Children Charitable Foundation, believes that early pregnancy, one of the most serious problems for girls in the system, can be dealt with through sexual education. In 2014, the foundation launched the project "Between Us Girls" - regular classes on the prevention of early pregnancies, as well as conversations about the role of women in society, career, acceptance of oneself and one's own body, and much more. The organizers planned to work with ninth-graders and older, but the director of one of the orphanages convinced them to lower the age threshold - two pupils turned out to be pregnant in his institution, and one of them was a seventh-grade student.

“Classes are taught by two psychologists, the group comes from two to twelve or thirteen people. Our main task is to teach girls to respect themselves, their bodies, - says Omelchenko. - They often complain about menstruation, consider them shameful, embarrassed by feminine forms. This is skillfully manipulated by boys who want intimacy. For example, we had a case where a girl was convinced that sex would help her lose weight: she believed and became pregnant.” Omelchenko says that the project gives hope: “None of the underage participants has yet become a mother at such a young age. They have a chance to build a happy full-fledged family. True, this happens more often when they find a husband not from an orphanage. Recently, the project was redirected to children of both sexes, because the boys were also keenly interested in the subject of the project. Now classes are included in the general course for all older children, it is called "Life Hacks of Adult Life".

Not much has been written about the life of orphanage graduates. Most often, the life of boys is under close attention - it is they who bring the most problems, first in an orphanage, then outside it. Girls are not such a problem for society, but they themselves have a lot of problems. And one of the main ones is that many of them cannot create a normal family and become a mother. No, of course they give birth. And of course they get married. However, very often all this ends in a complete fiasco: the marriage falls apart, and the children are abandoned even in the maternity hospital. The reason is the inability and unwillingness of a young woman to bear the maternal burden, to solve everyday problems. This requires experience, at least peeped in childhood. Orphanage girls have no one to spy on.
Everything lies in the area of ​​their formation, first as girls, then girls within the framework of an orphanage. Where quite often they never become them. Again, they become outwardly, and nothing more. You will not envy the pupils of the orphanage. At first it is difficult for them to fit into a virtually boyish orphanage, then to survive in it. After all, there the division into boys and girls is purely visual. You have to be in constant tension, defending your rights. The girl learns to fight back even in the simplest situations not with words or a pause, but vice versa - aggressively, often earnestly. Because otherwise you will not survive in this environment. They are not offered any other options for regulating relations. A successful girl in an orphanage is unlikely to be just as successful in adult life - because the main tool, aggression, outside the gates of an orphanage becomes not a virtue, but a disadvantage.
What else is happening is that orphans have no ideas about personal space. And there is no proper sex education. It is difficult to measure, but it is reflected in the future life. And when I see photographs that squeeze not only orphans, but also incoming volunteers, I understand that volunteers continue to blur the boundaries of personal space. This process cannot be stopped, and often children already need it, they get used to these hugs. This is already their personal minus. Is it possible to fix this? Theoretically, yes, for example, introduce separate education, add male employees (so far, the vast majority of employees in orphanages are women). But this, again, will be the eradication of one problem by acquiring a new, somewhat different, different content. Children will live separately, but they will not receive the experience of fatherhood and motherhood.
The experience that a mother or father conveys to a child is difficult to project and convey from a spoon, this requires contact, process, communication, cooperation. Is it possible within the framework of the orphanage to create conditions under which girls will receive empirical maternal experience?
Again, only in theory. Most of the employees are women. Maybe they will pass on their experience to the pupils? Otherwise, orphan girls do not see only performers in their teachers. But not women with diverse experience, interests, needs, problems. However, even with all the desire, the employees of the orphanage will not be able to portray family life at work. And they will not share their experience - not for that they are not there for that.
The conclusion is obvious - in order for an orphan girl to become successful precisely as a woman, as a mother, she needs a family in childhood. Let the guest, but the family. And so there will be an endless repetition of what has been passed, graduates of orphanages will perceive harsh treatment of themselves as a real attitude, because they did not know otherwise. But love and feelings are something else.