I wonder how long it took them to come up with that headline.
Anyway, this is an article from Newsweek about what’s happened in Nebraska since they changed their safe haven law to only include children up to 30 days old.
I’d like you to read the article and offer your opinion. Are some of these mothers too quick to in depending on the government to help them out or do they have legitimate concerns?
Thanks to Stormey for the tip.
Mental illness is horrible. It’s just as devastating as a physical illness, yet there are many who don’t even believe it exists. In children, most people want to blame the parents. They don’t understand how difficult it is, to even GET treatment (a teen can’t be “forced” into treatment for mental illness because of laws that differentiate it from physical illness,) let alone how difficult it is to access “real” treatment. Hopefully, the new mental health parity law that was signed (with the 700 billion dollar bailout) will help.
There are no easy answers, to be sure.
I honestly don’t know what I’d do in the place of the mom in the article, with her mentally ill 10-year-old. I hope her daughter understands and forgives her parents someday.
Well, a couple of things I got out of the article. One: There is a difference between the Byers case and most of the “Safe Haven” cases. I think the Byers were and are very caring parents who really did run out of reasonable options. As the article pointed out, though, most of the other parents qualified for Medicaid but didn’t bother with it. Big difference. Also, the Byers made a point of continuing to be involved in their child’s life and care. I’m guessing that, for example, the woman who drove her son up from Georgia and then drove herself back to Georgia didn’t have plans to stick around and be involved with his life.
Second: Mental illness is a real and serious problem, but we also have a tendency to label any behavioral problem as a “mental illness.” Megan Byers may really have needed the full arsenal of psychiatric care that the state could offer. Most of those kids probably don’t. I believe that there should be some more state programs, other than Medicaid, to help parents of kids who really have mental illness. But I do think that a lot of cases of “behavioral problems” aren’t real mental illness and do stem from the parents’ behavior. There is a link, for example, the link between food preservatives and hyperactivity (not the only cause, certainly, but a factor). And how, exactly, is abadoning a kid–and that is what most of these parents have done, although not the two parents they chose to focus on–supposed to help with behavioral problems? How is that not supposed to exacerbate behavioral problems? Some of the kids I’ve known with bad behavioral problems were abandoned by their parents, and that abandonment caused the behavioral problems.
I think we do live in a time when the knee-jerk response from everyone, for any crisis, is that the government should do more to help, that the government should take care of us and solve our problems (all without raising our taxes, of course). I also think some of these families probably did run out of ways to help their kids because, without Medicaid, their resources were limited. The problem always seems to be, in an era of “don’t judge”, that the people who really need a service open the door for those who are just too irresponsible or lazy to do something about their situations for themselves. The father who dropped off his 9 kids, for example, says he couldn’t care for them himself, but he was already investigated for child neglect in the past, when his wife was alive, and …again, how does he think being dropped off at a hospital is going to help his kids deal with their mother’s death? Gee, Mom died and Dad doesn’t want us. And now, most likely, the siblings will be split apart, too.
People ask me all the time why I don’t have more compassion for parents, since I am a parent (and also have very little money–too much for Medicaid, not enough to be “middle class”). I always say that all my compassion is with the kids. I just read a couple more articles about the fallout from the Nebraska Safe Haven law, and so many commenters were saying, “Well, it’s better than the alternative in which the parents abuse the kid or something.” That isn’t the only alternative, though. The other alternative is that the parents “man up” and figure out that their kids’ needs (especially for being loved by their parents) take precedence over everything else. It gets hard sometimes, really hard, but that’s the only alternative that’s acceptable to me. Again, I think the Byers did that, even while relinquishing custody. But just abandoning your kids because you’re exhausted and frustrated is reprehensible.
Sorry it’s so long. I have strong feelings about this. Like I said, all my compassion is with the kids, not the parents, who perhaps should have exercised one of their many birth control options before having all these kids.
Oh my goodness! I am so glad I am an Australian…we have a national health care service that is available to ALL Australians, regardless of your income.
No matter how much you earn, most people would simply not be able to afford the standard treatments for many serious illnesses…including mental illness.
Private health insurance is encouraged if you can afford it & there are tax benefits for you if you do take it out but if you can’t afford private health insurance then the medicare system is there.
I have had several hospitalisations, two lots of surgery, a baby & my husband has had surgery & we have not spent a cent on our hospital treatments…the only thing we had to pay for were follow up appointments with our family GP & subsequent prescriptions (heavily subsidiesed by our government)…we could have gone to the free clinic at the hospital but we preferred to stay with our family doctor.
As for dumping your child…this is absolutely disgusting! Disgusting that some people did it even though they had other options & disgusting that some people had no other options left! Shame on the US government for allowing this to happen…maybe some of the money spent in Iraq would have been better off invested in your own people…bad Bush!
That’s why I love living in the “Lucky Country!” An Implanon rod was $5 and it was bulk-billed to have it installed. I have remained baby-free since then (well since forever lol)
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