Prom night, pregnant prom queen, baby found in garbage. The typical scenario everyone wants to avoid. But what people haven’t been realizing is that newborns aren’t the only ones parents want to relieve themselves of.
In what was originally targeted toward teen mothers with unwanted babies, Nebraska’s Safe-Haven Law is instead bringing in abandoned teenagers, according to The New York Times. The law, which permits parents to permanently drop off their kids at hospitals without a word, is being greatly exploited.
One parent who took advantage of the law is Gary Staton, whose wife died last year. After his wife’s death, he decided to give up nine of his 10 children. He was quoted in The N.Y. Times as saying, “I didn’t think I could do it alone. I fell apart. I couldn’t take care of them.”
Since September of this year, 18 children, many of them in their teens, have been discarded at hospitals. Reasons given by parents for abandoning their children are that they are too wild or that they feel incapable of caring for them because of financial and/or other reasons.
This wave of abandonment has obviously sparked the question, “Why?” and officials have finally begun to scrutinize parents and the lack of available help that many need, especially with our failing economy.
Mark Courtney, a child welfare authority, told The N.Y. Times, “These days there’s a huge void in services for helping distressed families.”
It’s true that the government should step up its game, but is it right to put all the blame on our governments? No. The right people to blame for this discarding of children are the parents.
Parents have the responsibility of caring for their children at least until they reach adulthood. While all parents would like the perfect son or daughter, quite often they wind up with unruly children who don’t respond well to authority.
Before becoming parents, people should think about all the possibilities of how their children will turn out, and make the decision to put in years of time and effort to raise their children well.
Parents are associated with responsibility; they should realize that as parents, not only are they responsible for their own lives, but their children’s lives, as well.
A parent is also someone to whom children should be able to run to for comfort and help. If your own parent turns you away, what is that going to do for the psyche of young children and teenagers especially, who are just beginning to discover and remake themselves?
Even with financial burdens, it is unbelievable that parents would ever consider giving up their own children. The problem is that parents do not search thoroughly for outside help, whether from friends, relatives or the government.
“Help is out there, but people have to know how to find it,” Judy Lopez told The N.Y. Times. Lopez and her husband took in her two grandsons several years ago after they were taken from their neglectful and abusive parents.
Although facilities for children are scarce, programs that aid families and specifically children are available, but no one is seeking them out.
Jean Kim is a creative writing major and a contributing writer for the Daily Forty-Niner.
