BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away

Subject: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Goose Gander
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 06:42 PM

No kidding.

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Goose Gander
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 06:42 PM

No, not little goats.

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 06:44 PM

How long does it take to establish residency in Nebraska?

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 06:48 PM

Residency not required. Five of the "children" (teenagers) abandoned there in recent weeks have been from out of state.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Barry Finn
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 06:52 PM

WHy? Do you need to be dropped off Rigs?

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 07:11 PM

I thought I answered that, but probably:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 09:10 PM

Nearly every state now has a "Safe Refuge" law that allows parents who can't care for their children to drop them off at a "designated safe place" where they'll be cared for like any other street urchin.

The laws generally were intended to avoid "dumpster babies" abandoned at birth by parents (frequently children themselves) who were overwhelmed by the task - or prospect - of caring for newborns.

Nebraska screwed up by not including an age limit. Their law just says "any child" and other laws have been interpreted to determine that "child" means anyone 17 years old or less.

They've seen a recent "surge" of teenagers and adolescents, since the governor announced that the law will be changed "soon." Desperate parents have been coming from several states away - as well as from local areas - to unload their "problem kids" before the law is changed to make it impossible.

For most of these "elder children" there probably are more appropriate resources - in Nebraska or in other states from which kids have appeared; but the consensus opinion from those speaking for Nebraska are that the parents have been unable to find them, or to effectively use them. Only the ones who've failed (and for whom the system(s) have failed) are showing up.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 09:22 PM

And contrary to news reports there haven't been all THAT many.

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 11:44 PM

A case could be made that the folks were trying to do the right thing by endangered children. They just didn't think the whole thing through. It can be fixed.

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 12:01 AM

Think about the self-esteem of the older children who were "dropped off" by their parents.

How horrible.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 06:36 AM

Weren't the "adoption trains" part of the heritage of the USA?

Isn't this the same (ish) - people believing that the best solution for children lies elsewhere?

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: semi-submersible
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 06:42 AM

And the worst is that even after a wake-up call like this, our communities will, by and large, go on failing troubled families. Unless you are already well educated and confident in navigating the mazes of agencies and officialdom (and have plenty of spare time and money) then help with mental health and social skills issues is often difficult or impossible to find or use.

Here in BC, a mother recently had her little girl taken away for months by child welfare authorities, because the mother was seeking mental health treatment and her waiting list was that long!

Besides turning out to vote every few years, just what the **** can we citizens do to make our system work better and give families the resources they need?

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 09:29 AM

Stop using video games and televisions as baby sitters would be a good start. Start spending time with the kids -- start loving them.

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 10:26 AM

Sometimes its hard to love kids when the have spiked hair and hog rigns in their noses and belly buttons.

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Melissa
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 11:12 AM

when I saw this title, I wondered if it was a reverse Orphan Train..

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 11:22 AM

If it was as hard to get married as it can be to get divorced, then we MIGHT end up with a more responsible set of married people. Hence we MIGHT end up with more wanted children.

Just a personal theory.

XG

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 12:10 PM

From what I have seen, the older children who have been dropped off have had serious behavior problems.

Here's one example of a 'serious behavior problem.' I had a co-worker who had a big scar that ran from her lip to her chin. Her husband's daughter had yanked a drawer out of a dresser and smashed her in the face with it.

Given that it was on her face, and given modern medicine's ability to treat wounds so as not to scar, the injury must have been horrific.

So don't be too quick too judge people who cannot bear life with a certain kid any more. You don't know what they are going through.

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Goose Gander
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 12:11 PM

John, do you understand there may be a flaw in your theory?

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 12:17 PM

Ah no, the next step is bromine in the water supply plus contraceptive, and antidotes only available at the market price on production of a marriage certificate.

Isn't it John?

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 12:22 PM

Whatever you say guys. Don't want a dialectical discussion, just airing my prejudices.
It's a popular sport you know.

¦¬]

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 01:36 PM

It's not that it's too easy to get married, it's that it's too hard to know where pregnancies come from, and then too hard to stop an unwanted pregnancy.

Subject: RE: BS: Nebraska parents rush to give kids away
From: Big Mick
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 02:06 PM

Just the kind of replies that I have come to expect from certain corners. Do some of you not recognize in your own history and literary history the same story in tough times? Debtors prisons? Children abandoned to the streets and to the Fagin's of the world? How about the kids in Canada whom we heard so much about?

This should be more of a story of the times and the turmoil than a story about the parents. This should be a story of a society that has lost its way and which has lost its ability to see that which is around it. We have much work to do, and symptoms such as these are proof of it. So how about we put our biases aside and get to work?

Mick