I was more than dismayed today to learn that in Nebraska, some parents are using the cover of a “safe haven” law to abandon older kids and teenagers to hospitals and police stations. According to a New York Times article:
In total last month, 15 older children in Nebraska were dropped off by a beleaguered parent or custodial aunt or grandmother who said the children were unmanageable.
Officials have called the abandonments a misuse of a new law that was mainly intended to prevent so-called Dumpster babies — the abandonment of newborns by young, terrified mothers — but instead has been used to hand off out-of-control teenagers or, in the case of the father of 10, to escape financial and personal despair.
The spate of abandonments has prompted an outcry about parental irresponsibility and pledges to change the state law. But it has also cast a spotlight on the hidden extent of family turmoil around the country and what many experts say is a shortage of respite care, counseling and especially psychiatric services to help parents in dire need.
The Nebraska law allows for parents to drop their kids off, no questions asked and without fear of prosecution. They are the last of the states to enact this type of law, which was designed to protect infants from being abandoned by overwhelmed teen/young moms. It went into effect September 1, 2008 and protects parents for abandoning kids anywhere up to 19 years old. No other state goes that far, to my knowledge.
As someone who’s worked with kids for a long time and has dealt with a number of parents who have fantasized about being able to ditch a troubled teen, I have to say I’m not surprised that now that it’s legal, Nebraskan children and teens are being abandoned by their parents.
What really surprises me is that those well-meaning legislators who offered such a haven for overwhelmed parents are suddenly shocked that parents are now taking them up on it. Why enact a law if you don’t expect people to actually fall under it?
I’m no expert in Nebraska law or politics, but it how could they not see this coming? If New Jersey tried to enact such a law, you can bet that every hospital in the state would have been screaming, “ARE YOU NUTS?” We know that we’ve got overwhelmed families here – maybe because we just have so many families period.
Of course parents shouldn’t abandon their kids – no matter what. I won’t even go into the kind of trauma such an act does to a child or even a teenager. But it’s not so hard to see that some parents just don’t have the skills or the resources (internally or externally) to cope with some very troubled, challenging children.
While New Jersey’s system of care for kids is far from perfect and pristine, I must say I’m glad it’s there and I hope Nebraska looks to implement some sort of system to support their struggling families. Because just changing this new, poorly conceived law isn’t going to change the fact that there are parents out there who still want to abandon their kids and would if they had the chance.
You must log in to post a comment.