Nebraska Laws Undermine Families in Crisis
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By Jessica Acee
The debacle surrounding the Nebraska Safe Haven law highlights a hidden crisis within American families.
Last week Nebraska amended its Safe Haven law and social workers and hospital employees across the state breathed an uneasy sigh of relief. Now, only infants 30 days or younger may be dropped off at hospitals and firehouses with no fear of prosecution for the parents. For the last two and a half months, parents have been able to drop off kids as old at 17, and many have done so.
While the state scrambles to find homes for the 36 kids- mostly teenage boys, sometimes from other states- abandoned since September, America needs to start analyzing what conditions exist that drove parents to do the unimaginable. Society wants to blame the parents, but that won’t explain the good-bye scenes that were caught on tape.
“I’ll be good — I’ll be good, I promise,” one youth begged as his mother walked away, Ann Schaumacher of Immanuel Medical Center in Omaha told the judiciary committee. “It is not the right place for relinquishment to occur,” she said of ER abandonment.
Schaumacher describes an exchange well documented in Nebraska. Parents tearfully, but deliberately, dropping their kids off at hospitals and firehouses. These were not parents bent on cruelty, kicking their kids out of the car and fleeing happily off to the mall, but rather, already regretful parents and teenagers with overnight bags hugging goodbye.
A majority of the kids abandoned were diagnosed with a mental illness and 90% of the parents or guardians had tried to get help from the state. Indeed assistance is hard to find. Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS) runs a website called Answers4Families that has an avalanche of information and brightly colored links, but I couldn’t find a single contact number. The NDHHS is arguably under-funded but for families in crises reading an article on autism will not provide the real help their kids need.
Prolonged social and increased economic stress is taking a huge toll on the American family. For a lot of people, life has gotten harder, not easier, over the last 20 years. Food, gas, childcare costs and health care have all risen, while incomes have stayed mostly the same.
To add insult to injury, we live in a society that bombards our families with contradictory parenting messages. For example, breast feed or bottle feed, pre-school or home school? Then add to that a multitude of disciplinary methods to choose from. Don’t believe me? Go into your local bookstore and gasp at the hoards of parenting books available, not to mention the Super-nanny’s and Dr. Phil’s of primetime television.
Many parents also had less than ideal parenting models themselves. As a good friend of mine, and long time school principal, likes to tell her teachers “All parents love their kids. They don’t always do the best they can, but they do the best they know how.”
If the parents of those 36 kids considered abandonment their best and only option, how many hundreds more sympathized with them and went to bed praying for better options for their families? Nebraska’s amended safe haven law sends a “we can’t help you” message to struggling families and pushes them farther down a tunnel with no light in sight.
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Great article Jess! You very accurately describe the experiences and dilemma’s of many family’s I have come across in my work, especially recently. I am currently working with families dealing with a number (if not all) of the issues you address that have the potential result of the heart breaking decision to find better care for thier children. Keep the blogs coming!
Dear Ms. Acee, Apart from my relationship with you, I believe you chose a very thought provoking article to write about. One that I am especially interested, as you might suspect. I am thrilled with your article. Not only were your opinions correct, but it shows a definite weakness in our governments help and our educational resources. Please continue to bring other news or personal plights to our attention. Thanks again for a very well thought out blog. Your loving, Mom
Jessica,
You have successfully managed a feat that is very impressive to me, and would impress any other person with an education in journalism.
Not only are you able to portray a story filling it with emotion and detail, but you are pulling your readers in with strong statements of truth and questions of great importance.
If I would have attempted to write on these happenings, I would have become too flustered to keep things tame and many of the words would have looked a lot like this %*&^.
Your ability to tackle such a task as writing this is impressive in it’s own. You have started a wildfire in the people who read this column, and hopefully that wildfire will consume every bad parent in this world. Because let’s face it, this world would be a much better place without bad parents.
Either way, keep up the great work, and write on my friend, you have a strong future in front of you.
Thanks for the comment Mickey! Keep up the good work!
Hey Jessica,
Great post! AND I’m so glad to see someone take this on. I’ve been vexed about the issue since the first reports about children being dropped off, and wondered if someone would write/talk about what it says about the pressures on families and parents in particular. Thanks for writing this! We’ll talk… I’d love to link to this somehow and post it around.
See you, and thanks again!
Yasmin
Well put, Jess. This is a compelling and thought provoking article, and I look forward to seeing more in the future.
Great article, Jessica! Clear, convincing, and so very concise. You’re a great writer…keep the blogs on important issues facing American families coming!
Thanks John and Ford! I appreciate you taking the time to read and comment!
Hey Jessica! Impressive insights about a
compelling subject. I know first hand about challenges a parent can face, and I feel you are right on when you plead for more guidance for folks who need a helping hand through the maze of limited resources. I praise you for taking on this issue. Keep up the good work.
Aunt Sanny