Little is known on childhood adversities such as growing up in children's home and enduring differences in life satisfaction in adulthood. In the present study we tested whether individuals reared in children's homes differ in their general life satisfaction from people raised in their families. The data comprised of 19,210 German adults (51.5% female) aged from 17 to 101 years (M = 44.79 years, SD = 18.74 years) and were provided by the SOEP, an ongoing, nationally representative longitudinal study of private households in Germany. Compared to people raised in families, individuals reared in children's homes reported significantly lower general life satisfaction in the manner of a dose response relationship. Therefore, growing up in a children's home can be regarded as a game changer - a factor that may alter children's life prospects indelibly.