My last two blogs dealt with the Nebraska Safe Haven law which allowed parents to abandon children without fear of persecution, and with its amendment last weekend which makes the law apply to infants under 30 days only. While researching these blogs, I came across some interesting stories.
Families.com readers shared my horror at the idea of what being abandoned by a parent–at an age of full awareness of what is happening–must do to a child’s psyche. However, at some other sites I found people commenting in favor of the Nebraska law, which was formerly the only one that did not specify that the law applied to babies only, was in fact the only state to get it right. Why, they asked, should only babies have this avenue to safety when a parent couldn’t care for them or felt themselves in danger of abusing them?
Other parents tell horror stories about trying to get help for a violent and mentally ill child. These parents say no one can judge the parents who left their kids at Nebraska hospitals unless they have been in the same situation. In fact, one woman who abandoned her adolescent son at a hospital spoke at the public hearing held by Nebraska lawmakers last week. She said her son was bipolar and she was desperately trying to get both of them the help they needed, but she was at the end of her rope.
As much as I want to believe that there are other solutions if only the parents had been able to find them (and publicizing services to the families that need them is a big part of the problem), I know that mental health care is not yet funded as other types of medical issues are, either by laws or by insurance companies. Wards of the state and children of the very poor may qualify for Medicaid, but their children either do not have mental health coverage or exhaust its provisions very quickly. (Ironically, health and mental health coverage sometimes are better for foster children than for adopted children, despite adoption subsidies—a situation which deters foster parents from adopting.)
One parent has started an anonymous blog for “parents of domestic violence”—meaning parents who have been victimized by their children. This parent asks, “what would you do if your nine-year-old went after you with a knife?” She reports that she got these responses from the services she tried:
Police: Why am I doing your job? [implying it’s just a matter of parents disciplining the children]
Police: We can’t handcuff a nine-year-old and take him into custody!
Crisis Hotline: I understand you feel your life is threatened by your child. We will send out a person to defuse the situation and place you on our mailing list and help you get involved in a support group.
Child Protective Services: What did you do to create this situation?
Therapist: Call 911 and have the police come. Take your child to an ER for a mental evaluation. [This remark followed several mental evaluations which had been done on the child in question.]
I am not aware that any of the Nebraska cases involved adopted children. However, some children who were adopted suffer from attachment issues, prenatal alcohol exposure and other issues. Adoptive parents say it only adds to their pain when others assume that the parents want the state to resume custody—an assumption that would never be made about a biological parent and child.
Please see these related blogs:
Mental Health and Insurance: Advocating for Makala
A Mother’s Hope: My Little Girl Returns from Residential Treatment
Adoption Considerations When You Already Have Children: Safety