I'm amazed an autistic (or otherwise disabled and therefore bigger challenge than normal) teen hasn't been dropped off.

I wonder how many kids are getting threatened with Nebraska the way my mother use to threaten to put us all in a foster home when we were too young to know we would have been better off.

Except one sister who took that bet and thrived because of it in a more loving foster home. I hope some of these kids likewise wind up better off. One thing's sure: they aren't leaving anyting good.

But the asshole parents should be prosecuted. Can't the out of state one's be prosecuted by their home states for child abandonment or some such since it's Nebraska law not the law of the state they're returning to?

I think the "Dumping of Children" in Nebraska got another use than freeloading the public system. As the article said, parent wouldn't be sued for abandoning (I.E. freeloading the system) their children but be charged with other crimes related to child abuse. Besides, is there a better place to detect child-abuse than in a hospital?

This is, for me, the best legal "Trojan Horse" against child abuse that I saw. Unlike the Californian model where you can leave the child to any public servant's place of work, the Nebraskan system send it to a place where child abuse can be easily detected.

For this reason and this reason alone, I think it is a good idea.

I don't know how many gallons of gas that is, but I'm pretty sure a bullet's cheaper.

Nebraska law won't prevent Michigan from prosecuting that Michigan mother.

Suppose a mother abandons a child - is the father still required to pay child support?

Suppose the child was given to the father rather than being out in the system - would the mother have to pay child support? Could the mother sue for custody after abandoning the child?

.....The teen became the second child from another state to be left at a Nebraska hospital under the law, which sets no age limit on the children who can be left.....

I’m in the process of booking reservations for a trip to Nebraska. My three adult children are all being sent special invitations. We’re leaving as soon as I can talk one of them into driving.

This is definitely sad to see. Some of these stories I've been hearing are heartwrenching, such as the unemployed widower with 6 kids who dropped 5 of them off because he couldn't hack it as a single parent after their mother died. But they all reek of the kind of selfishness reserved for Hollywood heiresses. If you have kids you have the obligation to get your shit together and take care of them. This no questions asked thing in Nebraska is suborning child abandonment by those too stupid to know the difference between endangered children and children they simply don't want to care for anymore.

(No, I didn't follow the link.)

1. Where's Dad?
Parents divorced, right? How did I know that?

2. The kid's 13.
Mothers and teenage daughters are like no other relationship in the world for being theatrical and melodramatic. If a 13 year old really felt like she was going to be ditched during a cross country trip, she could have walked away during a stop for gas and gone to the center of town to sell her body for drugs until the circus came to town, when she could have gotten a job selling cotton candy and cleaning up after elephants. That happens all the time.

Incompetent parents don't know how to apply discipline through anything but threats, and will often use society's crisis mechanisms (e.g., police) in these schemes.

This was nothing but an asshole trying to mindfuck her kid.

Well, it's better than killing them. There need to be consequences though. Like, you give up a kid (or have one taken from you), you get a government-paid sterilization on your way out.

Why was the girl returned to her family? Seems you can't possibly be less fit than driving across country to dump the kid.

My daughter is 14...the whole "eat your veggies, there's starving kids in Africa" has now become "wash the dishes or you're going to Nebraska." It's become a great joke between us, but on a more serious note, I think of how my daughter would feel being driven 700 miles to be abandoned with strangers in a hospital. What the f-in-hell is wrong with these people?????

The difference between you and my mother Ddub is that your kid knows you don't mean it; we knew she did (while filling our heads with horror stories about foster families). I'm with you what in fucking hell is wrong with them?

And what the hell kind of defense is at least she didn't kill them? I hope to hell that Michigan does prosecute and if she is getting child support, I hope she goes to jail if one more thin dime comes her way and for interference with visitation rights (assuming she has full custody and not joint, in which case kidnapping's even better).

Sure it could have been WORSE...but that doesn't make the chosen course of action even one iota better than it is. There is a great deal said about the way children develop mentally & emotionally, but the best saying is, "They may not do as you say, but they will do as you do."

What did that bitch teach her child?

I know, normally I answer these questions myself...but fill in the blanks yourselves this time around, I find it to personally disgusting to linger upon even a moment more.

The psychological damage caused by being left by one's own mother must be catastrophic for a child that age. I don't care if it was done for real or to mess miss the kid's head. That kind of behaviour is simply disgusting and the state should not be allowing this.

> The psychological damage caused
> by being left by one's own
> mother must be catastrophic
> for a child that age.

I think you're casually buying into a fantasy/nightmare of what this kid's life is like. I'm quite certain Mom's an asshole, but she's probably raised her daughter to be an asshole too. The kid was not likely to be any more fucked up after she left Nebraska than before she went there. In any case, we oughta be very careful before mouthing off about what "the state should allow" in terms of childrearing.

My husband, who is now in his late 30's, was kicked out of the house by his (divorced, moderately well-off, white, West Austin socialite) mother at 15. I wonder if she would be arrested for child abandoment if she had done that now?

He already had a job at a nearby golf course, so he got an apartment near the school, and eventually ended up buying a car and doing OK. The mother kept collecting child support from the father. Husband found an attorney, sued BOTH parents for child support (and won.)

Nowadays, Husband can admit that he was a bad kid. His mother can not admit that she was a horrible parent.

From the article: "This is the 11th time the haven law has been used. The Michigan teen is the 19th child left at a hospital or, in one case, a police station by people intending to make use of the law. Most of the children left have been teens and preteens. None of the cases has involved an infant."

I live in Nebraska, and they've been talking about this on the news a lot lately. They're talking about revising the law, since it was intended for infants and small children, not teens. They want to reword it to say what it SHOULD have said to begin with.

> His mother can not admit that
> she was a horrible parent.

Using only thumbs, I can count the number of people in their fertile years who've confessed to me that they weren't very good parents. They happened to be brother and sister, and they didn't speak too fondly of their own mother. But they liked to live with truth, which I found endearing.

Well ... what am saying is that a child is the parents' (or parent's) responsibility, not other taxpayers' or the state's. The government should not be in the business of taking in unwanted children. I fail to see how this is somehow endorsing government's role in childrearing.

What I am also saying is fucked up children can be fucked up even more if abandoned.

Today from the Houston Chronicle: Mom left three children at home alone while she partied:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27187634/

When it comes to the news about shitty parents, it's kind of like the presidential election this year: the choice is between the lessor of two evils. But somewhere, somehow, some parent is thinking up a way to be even shittier.

Being a parent is tough and brings on crap that is not explained in any manual. Last Tuesday, my ex was carted from state jail to state prison, and I still haven't told my son, though I will before he finds it on the web. And I won't be dropping him off in Nebraska anytime soon. My responsibility. Wouldn't have it any other way.

I"m saying, driving 700 miles is better than killing the kid, which some parents do. I do think there needs to be a way for parents who just can't handle it to let the kid go. Otherwise, some parents would kill them.

Also said these people shoudln't be able to have more kids.

> I fail to see how this is
> somehow endorsing government's
> role in childrearing.

This part:

> the state should not
> be allowing this.

And again...

> children can be fucked up
> even more if abandoned.

...This child was in no sense abandoned, except in the sense that [A] her father is almost certainly not a loving, close figure in her life and [B] the friends of her parents should never have allowed them to have kids anyway. If anything, the child is being held too tightly in an embrace of adult will.

Yes, this woman was burdening the rest of us by involving us in her intimate dramas. But in terms of just the mindfucking, I think all parents do that. Almost everyone I've ever known can talk about some family behavior or espression pattern in their childhood that's gruesome and whack.

> Wouldn't have it any other way.

Your sentiment's misplaced.

> I do think there needs to be a
> way for parents who just can't
> handle it to let the kid go.

Absolutely! And usually there is. The kid can spend a summer or a semester with a cousin, grandparent or close friend.

It takes setting boundaries and not letting them get away with stuff.

But these are things the actual parents need to do, consistently! I just last Friday took #1's cell phone away from her for 2 weeks, for being nasty and disrespectful to me. And then found out the #2 was nasty and disrespectful to their grandmother. Now she has no tv for 2 weeks. Last night, #1 came up to me and apologized before she went to bed. We hugged and kissed and I said, you know you're not getting it back until next Friday, right? And she said, yeah mom, but if Dan (the new boyfriend) calls, will you tell him to call on the house phone? She has limited (5 minutes per call, no more than 3 per day) on that phone, until next Friday. And no computer privileges until this Friday for either of them. Believe me, I don't like to punish them, but I don't like being disrespected by them even more. They're getting the message, slowly but surely.

"I'm saying, driving 700 miles is better than killing the kid, which some parents do. I do think there needs to be a way for parents who just can't handle it to let the kid go. Otherwise, some parents would kill them. Also said these people shouldn't be able to have more kids. "

Amen to that. Not holding my breath til it happens tho'.

I think what all this NE child dumping, ranting about the law itself & assorted child abusing/scapegoating (ie: starving 1 kids & feeding the others)/killing REALLY shows is that way to many selfish assholes out there don't give a rat's ass about kids (theirs or others) at best & consider them their personal torture toys at worst.