Still it seems they had a bit of a blind spot where human nature is concerned. A young person's need for belonging doesn't shut off at age 18.
@skeeter How were THEY supposed to know that,when my father was forced to quit school in the 3rd grade and go to work as a laborer in a shipyard by his drunken mother,who took all his money each payday. For HIM,that was normal because it was all he knew.
As for my mother,at age 8,she and her 6 year old sister were "given" to a one-legged Civil War veteran because their parents died in the flue epidemic of 1918,and there was no such thing as a public welfare system for children back then. This was arranged by the local Ku Klux Klan,who at THAT time,was the only government working for white people. The official government were all carpetbaggers whose only concern was to steal and sell everything in sight. The deal was they were to cook,clean,and keep him company,and in exchange,he was supposed to keep them fed,housed,and sent to school each day in clothing appropriate for little girls their age. BTW,I am living on that land right now. I bought it in 1980.
My mother was basically forced to marry a disabled WW-1 vet when she was 12 or 13 because the Civil War vet died,and she and her little sister needed a place to live. He was a mean drunk,and she ended up divorcing him and marrying my father several years later.
THIS was the world they both grew up in. It was all they knew.
BTW,this sort of thing was VERY common back in the pre-Social Security days. If you were a child and your parents died,your sole source of income also died.
In the late 1800's there were passenger trains full of orphans leaving out of places like NYC to go to rural farm states so the children would have a place to live and work as farm laborers. This usually worked out for the kids because they had a place to live,plenty to eat,and grew up learning a useful trade.
Life ain't always pretty,but it is what it is.