Parents abandoning kids at Nebraska hospitals

[adhocisadirtyword]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/200 ... kids_N.htm

Between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday, three fathers walked into two hospitals in Omaha and abandoned their children. One left nine siblings, ages 1 to 17.

[beware_the_sluagh]

hmmm....that's weird.
I wonder if it's better to have parents be able to do that rather than having parents who obviously don't want them looking after them. It seems unlikely, however.

[Aspen]

:shock: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/200 ... kids_N.htm

Between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday, three fathers walked into two hospitals in Omaha and abandoned their children. One left nine siblings, ages 1 to 17.

That dad was trying to raise the children alone after his wife died a year before. He was probably suffering from depression and was overwhelmed and just didn't know what else to do. Here is an excerpt of another article about them:

http://cbs4denver.com/national/omaha.ab ... 30940.html

...Instead, Staton left nine of his 10 children at Creighton University Medical Center last week under the new safe-haven law. He did not bring his oldest daughter, 18-year-old Amoria Micek.

Staton said he surrendered the children because he was overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for them since his wife, the Manzer's daughter, died early last year.

Micek told "Today" that her father was worried about losing their home.
"He was more overwhelmed and didn't know how to handle the situation," she said.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services has tried to place the nine siblings with relatives until permanent custody is decided. Seven were taken in by an aunt, but a Douglas County judge on Wednesday ordered them back to foster care. She said some of the children were sharing beds while others slept on air mattresses.

The state has appealed the order, saying it's in the children's best interests to stay together with a relative.

The two oldest children chose to go to another home to avoid changing schools....

[adhocisadirtyword]

I'm sure he had his reasons. Nobody wants to give up their children.

I just found the article interesting - especially considering the state of the world right now. People need help so desperately they're willing to do something extreme.

[Sophist]

Yeah, heard about this. Now they're going back and trying to write the law tighter because it was originally supposed to be for mothers and newborns and rather than dumping the infant into a trash can, they take it to the hospital, no threat of arrest.

Unfortunately, the wording of the law only suggested it should be for newborns but didn't state it explicitly.

[beware_the_sluagh]

yeah, looking after 9 children would be difficult. 9 children on your own a lot more so. 9 children, on your own, whilst trying to recover from your wife's death

Maybe the state people will be able to sort out something so he doesn't have to give up his children in order to cope.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services has tried to place the nine siblings with relatives until permanent custody is decided. Seven were taken in by an aunt, but a Douglas County judge on Wednesday ordered them back to foster care. She said some of the children were sharing beds while others slept on air mattresses.

The state has appealed the order, saying it's in the children's best interests to stay together with a relative.

oh, the horror, sharing beds and sleeping on air mattresses If it's only temporary, I think it's better to stay with relatives, like "the state" thinks. In any case, if sharing beds and sleeping on air mattresses, or even the floor, means children should be in foster homes, well, there's a hell of a lot of children from poor homes doing that their whole life that clearly need to be separated from their families. (sarcasm, or some other negative joking tone)

[goddessoflubbock]

Several years ago, before I developed several recent dx's, Ken and I looked into fostering a child. Well, the foster child has to have their own room. They don't have their own room where they are now, they are stacked in bunk beds like inventory. I have a girl and a boy, each with more than enough room to share. How could having a home life with parents and sibs not be better, just because you don't have your own room? Most kids I knew growing up did not.

When Nebraska wrote their safe haven law, legislators couldn't decide on a time frame for the child's age, so they decided to leave it out. Mmm, big mistake that. But many of those people who dropped off older children had been through various systems with troubled children and got no help. They were at their wits' ends.

[SomethingElse]

My cousin recently started fostering, but I think she's already thinking about stopping. The kids she's currently looking after (if she still is, I'm not sure how long they're meant to be with her) are three and two. The two year old she can bath and dress and whatnot, but the three year old she's not allowed to touch - she has to bath and dress herself and my cousin can only supervise.

I don't know that much about kids, but now I'm working in the school I have a better idea of what kids are capable of. The kids I spend most time with are four and five years old. I once helped in my favourite class on a day they had PE. They're five year olds (some of them may even already be six) and they needed help to get dressed. It seems so unfair that a three year old is expected to grow up so fast. But of course, they are, because the sooner they become independent, the better. You're even supposed to encourage them (at that age) to help set the table and stuff like that, apparently. Now, at dinner time at the school, most of the kids (who are obviously older than the three year old little girl) drop their knives and forks and can hardly be trusted to get their own trays and cutlery. They still need (or just like, in some cases, perhaps) to have their dinners cut up for them.

It's just such a shame that some children don't really get to be children properly.

[beware_the_sluagh]

Having to be able to have their own room is ridiculous. About the only people who get to have their own room their whole life are single children. Many children with one sibling get their own room, but often not for their whole life (parents tend to wait a while to upgrade their house I think - waiting until money availability and children getting older meet at some reasonable point). Three or more kids, and most houses here aren't big enough for a room each, and 4+ bedroom homes are very sought after and expensive.

For the first however many months of my brother's life, he slept in the hall! That's why we had to move My sister and I already shared a room (up to me age 9, her age 7).
Actually - since Dad snores and Mum sleeps lightly, Mum usually slept on a kind of fold out bed in the living room, but for a while Mum, my sister and I would take turns with the fold out bed experience, with the other two in the room.
I can't remember now how it worked out in the next house - I think my sister and I shared a room, Dad had an office (as he partly worked from home) and Mum and my brother shared a room, and Dad had his own. Then, stuff got shuffled round and Dad's office and bedroom were the same room, Mum and my sister shared a room, and my brother and I got our own? And stuff got shuffled a few more times over the years, but I can't really work out how and where everyone fitted.

[SomethingElse]

Me and my brother shared a room when we were little even though he could have his own room (my mum was born here and had lots of siblings (nine) so before she was born my grandparents got a three bedroom house, although one of the rooms is actually tiny and really only has space for my brother in it (he has the smallest room because he's youngest and it's kind of lucky that he's not as much of a hoarder as I am) but my mum and two of her sisters used to sleep in that room (shared a bed) and the boys all had to share beds, too (six of them, although I'm not sure how many were living at home when my mum was born/was little). And then the other room was for her parents.

When we were little my grandad had one room and me and my brother slept in my mum and dad's room. Then the middle room was decorated pink (I always hated pink when I was little but my mum liked the idea of girls having girl things so I had a pink room and my brother had blue) and was my room, but we had our bunk beds in there (which had previously been in my parents room) and shared. Then the bunk beds were split and my brother moved into his own room (not sure how old we were then but before it became inappropriate for us to be sharing.

[Aspen]

I shared a room with my brothers when we were little.

Some aunts (I think) told my mother that a girl needed to have her own room, so I was moved to my own room, which was our third bedroom. I shared it with my aunt (mother's little sister) off and on when she would come to live with us after her husband beat her.