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The Abandoned Children of Nebraska

There are a couple of ways law-abiding citizens can abandon children in Nebraska. Sometimes a desperate parent will tell the child they're going to the hospital for something minor, like a rash — then, in the emergency room, the child waits and waits, only to discover only the doctors are there and mother has walked away for good. On the other hand, unruly teenagers might simply be dumped at the ER door. "A parent will pull up and say, 'All right, get out of the car," says Lisa Stites of Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha. In other states, laws that allow parents to leave their children in hospitals or fire stations are usually limited to newborns of a few weeks or months. In Nebraska, the law failed to define the word "child." As a result, children as old as 17 have been abandoned.

Not just one or two. Nebraska found itself facing an epidemic of abandoned children after the legislature passed a safe haven law in July, allowing parents to leave their children in a safe place, such as a hospital, without fear of prosecution. It was one of the last states in the country to do so but the law had that very large loophole that covered all of childhood. To try to patch that loophole, the state legislature gathered Friday in a special session to begin fixing the state's "safe haven" law. Just the day before, three more kids were abandoned at Omaha hospitals — bringing the total to 34 since mid-September, shortly after the state law was passed. A five-year-old boy was left by his mom on Thursday night; two teen-age girls, 14 and 17, were dropped off earlier the same day. The older of the girls ran away from the ER before authorities could arrive. A Florida man traveled from Miami to drop his 11-year-old boy earlier this week.


But while Nebraska can easily narrow its statute, dealing with the underlying causes of abandonment is much harder, child welfare experts say. "These parents had to be totally overwhelmed to do something like this," says Rev. Steven Boes, president of Boys Town — the original safe haven of Father Flanagan fame, which happens to be headquartered in Omaha. Once upon a time, Depression-battered parents would buy bus fare for their children and hand them a sign, "Take Me to Boys Town." Their counterparts today "are parents who have tried to navigate the system for years and this is their last resort; these are parents who ran out of patience too darn fast and gave up too early, and everything in between," says Father Boes.


For each abandonment, there are just as many parents who arrive at the safe haven but, in the end, don't carry through, says Courtney Anderson of the Immanuel Medical Center in Omaha. As a medical social worker, she has been on duty in the ER when some of the abandonments unfolded. "Some parents want us to threaten the child — they feel that would set them straight." Some parents cry; others are merely angry. Some children begin to cry when they figure out what's going on, says Anderson, while others are hardened veterans of the foster care system and "are used to these ups and downs."

Five of the children abandoned in Nebraska have been from out of state, but most are local. A majority of the children are older than 13 and have a history of being treated for mental health issues. Nearly every abandoned child came from a single-parent household. In September, one father walked into a hospital and left nine children, ages one to 17. He reportedly told hospital workers he'd been overwhelmed since his wife died a few days after their youngest was born.


Boes says one root of the abandonment problem is that there is simply not enough help for parents in crisis. In Nebraska, for instance, there are only six child psychiatrists in the entire state, he says. "It's a national problem... insurance often won't pay after six visits — so if the kid's not fixed, you're out of luck. States have a jumble of services. It's a puzzle with missing pieces."


State Sen. Mike Flood, speaker of Nebraska's unicameral legislature, introduced a bill Friday to change the law to cover newborns only, up to three days old. He expects debate on whether to expand coverage for the first year of a child's life, as some states do. "We'll be looking at the bigger issues next year," he promised. "Mental illness, the behavioral health workforce, caseworker loads."


Boes says the parents who are leaving kids shouldn't be demonized. "Father Flanagan said it: he learned there was no such thing as a bad boy. And I have come to believe there is no such thing as a bad family." There is a 12-year-old girl at Boys Town now, he says, who desperately wants to see her mother, the same mother who broke the girl's arm and used to hold her down and burn her with cigarettes. "Why, I wonder? But if she can see something good there, surely there is good in all families."


http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1859405,00.html

Nebraska's Abandoned-Kid Law : http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1858355,00.html