The information that doesn't seem to be present in the stories I've seen is whether or not the parents have asked for the type of help you suggest. They certainly didn't seem to have in Nebraska.

How on earth would we know this? Or do you mean they didn't ask at the hospital at the time of the event?

Has anybody been following the Nebraska Safe-Haven debacle?

What got me is that there were parents flying or driving thousands of miles to take advantage of the law. A dad who flew from Miami and a mother who drove from Georgia. And I know with the mother from Georgia, she made a point of saying that she loved her son, but she just couldn't get him the kind of help he needed.

Which makes me wonder about the difficulty in getting these kids and parents help in their home states.

And I think I remember reading something about how few of the children left were actually infants, which is who the law was intended for in the first place.

The father who dropped off 9 of his 10 kids invoked the 'no questions asked' portion of the law. This struck me as less a cry for help than a statement.

Why couldn't it be interpreted as someone in such distress that he couldn't talk about it? Can we even assume that the person asking the question was doing so in a compassionate manner and not in a shocked or accusatory tone that might scare someone?

Bottom line, I think the news stories being written about this issue are closer to tabloid journalism than investigative journalism.

Or do you mean they didn't ask at the hospital at the time of the event?

Exactly this.

And who knows how or why the stories are pitched the way they are, but I didn't seen any indication that parents said things like, "We've done all we could. Do you have any other ideas? Can you help us keep our kids?"

In fact, the reporter in the last bit I saw made a point of the fact that several of the parents drove from several states away rather than seek help in their own areas.

The lawmakers stressed that the attraction to Nebraska seems to be that the parents could abandon the kids without threat of legal consequence.

That is the crux of why the state is going, or has gone, into a special session to close the loophole of convenience.

I'm off to a clothing exchange, so I'll be away from my screen for a while. And, truly, while I'm sincerely interested in what folks think of this situation, I wasn't spoiling for a fight. Just profoundly moved by what seems like a good news/bad news paradox with this law.

Sigh. I don't understand people. The Oxford rugby team had a party where the theme was to dress up as Orthodox Jews, complete with bags of money, and bring Jewish girls as dates. [link] The comments on that article are totally confusing me -- aside from an amusing diversion into a comparison between anti-semitism and anti-piratism, there are a whole lot of comments there from people who just don't get why anyone would find this party at all problematic.

few of the children left were actually infants

I had heard that NONE of the kids were infants and that the law was being changed to read 30 days old or less, preferably 72 hours.

And, Sparky, I'm in agreement with your take on the journalism, or lack there of. I'm absolutely NOT indicting parents who can't get their kids the help they need.

The story of the 9 out of 10 dad didn't include an interview, so who could possibly know one way or the other.

My original point is that I'm not sure having a place for parents to give up their kids is actually a bad idea.

I'll restate my original question, can we, as a nation reorder our priorities so that kids who cannot get the help, guidance and love they need in their own families be well supported by the country?

It seems to me that that is a natural resource that is sorely in need of devotion on our parts.

Interestinly, a story I saw in tandem with this one talked about how 40% of AfAm kids don't have basic literacy and how that is being addressed by a program where book nooks are being set up in barber shops and beauty parlors.

Why should that sort of problem solving be left to individuals and communities? Why aren't we, as a collective, supporting our children?

The Oxford rugby team had a party where the theme was to dress up as Orthodox Jews, complete with bags of money, and bring Jewish girls as dates.

Gee, I wonder how Oxford and Cambridge got their reputations as being anti-semitic.

I can recall a newspaper article covering the Nebraska law that went into a couple of the available case histories of the abandonments and it was all for trouble that you would consider major and serious, like the kid who was torturing and killing the neighbors' cats and the state had essentially told the parent that he was either going to have to turn the kid into the criminal justice system OR pay for treatment on his own, which wasn't possible on his salary -- nothing useful inbetween.

FWIW, most of the 'abandoned' children have been placed with other family members, like the family of 9.

he was either going to have to turn the kid into the criminal justice system OR pay for treatment on his own, which wasn't possible on his salary -- nothing useful inbetween.

The inbetween is what I'm thinking about. No real idea what it would look like. But say you have either the kid who is unmanageable or the parent who isn't sound...that kids need to be helped, regardless. If not, society ends up footing the bill anyway. Why not have a solution that doesn't end up being the worst case scenario.

I'm really sorry to throw a thought and then bolt, but I have to run.

And there may be parents using Nebraska as a dumping area for kids that they just don't want to raise anymore. But if someone's willing to drive from another state to get rid of their kid, I don't know how great it would be for the kid to be raised by them. Being raised by someone who considers kids a burden can suck even if they are willing to stick it out.