I disagree. I know familes with multiple kids who all turn out successful except for one who for whatever reason was hell bent on driving the wrong way down a one way street. It was clearly the child and not the parents.
I’ve known these families too and I still don’t really think it’s the kid’s fault most of the time. See my comments above about ways parents can treat kids differently and also different ways that different people deal. Also, I think people can go “bad” later in life. I have a family friend who was literally an eagle scout, good student in high school, did a full enlistment in the Navy, and then got out and sometime in his mid-20s joined a biker gang and started dealing drugs big time. Served 19 years of a 35 year sentence in federal prison. Did lots of time in solitary. Started a riot in Ft. Leavenworth once. Were his parents bad? I honestly don’t know. If he was a bad seed it seems like they kept him in line when he was at home. Maybe he had a great upbringing and just fell in with the wrong crowd when he got out on his own, whereas his parents and the scouts and the Navy didn’t really allow him to fall in with the wrong crowd. Our discussion here is about kids 0 - 17 years old, and really mostly kids 0 - 13 or so; once you’re about 14 you’re going to run away before you let your parents hand you off to the state. It seems to me the older someone gets before turning “bad”, the harder it is to pin down where the behavior came from. I know a bad 5 year old is almost certainly the fault of the parents; a person who was “good” for their first 25 years and then turned “bad” would be an interesting study.
And parents can be “bad” without the parent or the child realizing it. I think my grandparents unconsciously reinforced a lot of reckless behavior in one of my uncles and they love each other to death but let’s just say he’s had a Michael Bay car chase scene of a life. He’s not a menace to society or anything but I’d sure as hell keep my distance if I weren’t related to him.
But the ultimate topic of this thread is whether the state should accept kids whose parents don’t want them - not if kids can be inherently bad or not. And my personal answer to the former is still hell yes. I do not want any child living with a parent that so blatantly and actively does not want him or her. The foster system may be weak or “broken”, but there are great foster parents out there. I’d rather roll the dice and take a chance on love then let them stay in a cold, likely dangerous situation. Dangerous because how well is a parent going to provide for a kid they’re trying to get rid of? Who is going to be the punching bag when the state says they don’t accept kids?
This is getting out of control.
"Nine children were left at a hospital by their father late Wednesday under the state’s new safe haven law, a move officials say illustrates the problems many feared when the rule went into effect.
The father, who was not identified, left the children aged 1 to 17 at Creighton University Medical Center’s emergency room."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/25/national/main4477585.shtml
Aren’t this people scared? unless they plan on changing identities this kids know their parents names and addresses. A few years in group homes followed by a shitty life that might include some jail time and this kids might decide to get some revenge for being abandoned.
I agree that some children are discipline problems but children are, by their very definition, not fully formed and capable adults. Their parents (barring any sort of devlopmental hindrance) ARE, and are expected to deal with the chips as they fall. This does not include foisting off children because they are difficult or challenging. Granted there are exceptions to every rule, but in the majority of situations, the child is always better off with a parent.
So when this law was signed, was there any part written into it as to re: more financing for the foster system /group homes to deal with the expected larger influx of kids? If not, the lawmakers are short-sighted idiots.
But 2% of all kids is a far cry from the high number of kids who their obsessed parents call “misbehaving” and already use the option to send kids of to the Army, boot camp, military school or religious camps, all of which would be considered child abuse over here for their treatment. I’m always shocked anew at the low level of what American adults consider “misbehaviour” from kids - “Talking back” when kids dare to have their own opinion and argue with a parent, instead of following orders like a robot, or having a curfew of 10 pm for teenagers, room arrest for using swear words, forcing kids to have a certain hair cut or not wear goth/punk clothes … and for that kids get sent to boot camp to be completly destroyed, as early as 13 years old. Even if they haven’t been convicted of any harsh crimes, because parents have complete control.
So I’d say that a normal group home is better for a lot of these kids.
:dubious:
I wonder if society has set itself up to provide more support to moms than dads. It’s sad this guy felt it would be better to give his kids up even though he loves them.
A sad story. If only he’d discovered condoms about eight kids ago, he might not be in such dire straits and his wife might still be alive.
I’m gonna guess that you don’t have any children. Why? Because if you have 2 or more kids, you don’t need to do a scientific study to observe that kids are born with a personality. I’m not denying that good or bad parenting can make a difference, but I have no problem believing that a lot of problem children are born that way.
Of course, it’s probably a tricky issue to study scientifically, because the kind of parent who neglects or abuses his or her child is probably also more likely to have transmitted genes to his or her child which will promote anti-social behavior.
It’s starting to look like the parents who are droping off their kids aren’t just parents who can’t deal with their children.
According to this, most of these children were seriously disturbed children, that the parents have tried unsuccessfully to get help for.
“Several teenagers and pre-teens left by families at Nebraska hospitals over the past several weeks are mentally ill or have severe behavioral problems, according to the Omaha World-Herald.
The newspaper reports today that families sought help for these violent or out-of-control kids, unsuccessfully.”
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/triage/2008/09/children-left-a.html
This is looking more like an issue of their not being adequate services for teenagers with mental health issues.
According to the article cited above it was not the intent of the law to include teenagers or children of any significant age.
You realize that no one sends their kids to the military anymore, right? They can’t do that without the kid’s consent. Secondly, what makes you think that kids go to boot camp to be “completely destroyed”, especially as early as 13 years old? It takes a high school diploma or GED and a birth certificate to enlist. You’d have to hire someone to kidnap your kid, forge their signatures and fake a birth certificate to pull off a stunt like you’re dreaming up. And even then, you’d have to shut up the kid somehow. I realize that most of the nonsense you spew about America is baseless, but you’re not even attempting to hide it here. “Parents have complete control”? On what planet?
As to the rest of the thread, why hasn’t anyone suggested that the kid has some input into this? It’s a very plausible scenario where a 15 yr old boy beats his mom until she promises to dump him off somewhere. He has misguided notions about if that’d improve things for him but that’s beside the point. I’m sure in some families the parent(s) says “I don’t want you here anymore” and the kid says “Good. I don’t want to stay.”
Cisco: I agree that only bad environments produce bad kids, with rare exceptions, but why does that have to be due to the parents’ behaviors? Some people live in bad places. Kids have the most loving of parents but they go to bad schools and join a gang discover drugs. That’s just one possibility. How’s a parent supposed to fix that? Always environment, yes. Always parents, no.
I dunno. I’ve thought about this thread for a few days and I think it’s fucked up how people need to feel either the kids or the parent(s) are fucked up.
I have a Samoan friend and I’ve mingled with his family/tribe a bit, and they laugh at typical Americans who always try to go it alone. If a Samoan for any reason can’t handle a kid then the kid goes to mom & dad, or aunts and uncles, or cousins. No biggie. The kid knows who its biological parent is, and who its day-to-day parents are and it doesn’t seem to warp them too much.
Who are we to judge? Sometimes Americans just can’t handle parenting on their own, and all too often there’s no family support system in place to take up the slack.
Saying “he should have used condoms” is really closing the barn door after the cows have escaped, and not particularly helpful.
I could name any number of Samoan kids who have been raised in other families completely outside of the American foster/adoption system.
From The Omaha World-Herald this Sunday:
There is a follow-up article that is not posted on the site that profiles each of the adults and children involved. None indicates that the children were abandoned because the parents were self-indulgent. Rather, we see parents who didn’t know of the options available or had exhausted what was available, or were not helped by the system.
From the article:
Yes, the law as written is a bad law with unintended consequences. But if it draws attention the dire situations these families feel they are in, then it’s a godsend. I hope the adults and the children get the help they need.
Actually this happens fairly often- it’s not real boot camp, but rather various “schools for troubled teens” you see advertised in the back of Sunset magazine. Most of the facilities where you can send your kids to be locked up are located in sketchy countries overseas. But it is perfectly legal to send your kid there (just like it is legal to force your kid to go to school or go on vacation with you) and some even offer kidnap services where they will pick your kid up off the street in a van and make sure they get on the plane. Many of these places use extreme discipline and brainwashing techniques. There have been some crackdowns and some rather famous cases, but these places still exist and plenty of kids get sent there, often for “crimes” such as wearing too much black or being gay. There is plenty on the internet about this and I think it is a fascinating but sad subject.
even sven, you fail to mention the reason these places make the news is most often, is kids die or are killed at these camps.