Sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom for a family to get back on their feet. A mom who took advantage of the controversial Nebraska law that's been used as recently as this week to drop teenagers at designated safe place around the state, has been reunited with her daughter.
Martina Carilo told her story to TV crews last night in Spanish, her 8-year-old daughter interpreting. The little girl said her 14-year-old sister is pregnant and has been running away from home on a regular basis. Frustrated and thinking she had no place else to turn, their mom took the teenager to the Immanuel Hospital last Friday and said goodbye.
It was a shock to the teen girl, who spoke to the news crews too, the camera trained on her hands twisting in her lap. "I thought I was not going to see her anymore," she said. "I was sad being there and not seeing my mom anymore." Carilo quickly felt remorse too, and when she returned to the hospital, they set the family up with a counselor. The Carilos' church has gotten involved to provide support as well. And Martina can get her daughter back on track without having to fight with the courts because of a split second decision made out of desperation that - in the end - hurt no one. Heck, it really and truly helped her family.
It's an unhappy story, but it's got a happy ending, especially compared to the details released by the dad who lost his wife before abandoning nine of his 10 children earlier this week. My heart aches for every single member of each of these families, but I'm wondering why it has to come to essentially "legalizing" abandonment to give a frustrated parent the channel to finally find help.
That old adage "absence makes the heart grow fonder" has a lot of truth to it. Sometimes, kids don't listen. Sometimes, parents need a break. But in most states, getting a break from your child is nearly impossible. Remember Lynette kicking the kids out of the car and driving away on Desperate Housewives? She was gone for only a few seconds, but off Magnolia Lane, her butt would be sitting in a jail cell.
I remember my mom leaving me in an Aeropostale in a busy New Jersey mall one afternoon when we were back-to-school shopping. I was about this girl's age, and I remember we were fighting, as usual, about something stupid. Hello, I was a teenage girl and this was my mother - of course we were fighting! I was probably alone for no more than an hour, and the sheer terror of it made me a very quiet teenage girl on the ride home. And I was a pretty good kid. I didn't run away from home. I wasn't pregnant at 14.
Teenagers are maddening, and their parents aren't always that sympathetic. They sometimes forget what it was like to BE a teenager - no matter how recent it was. But parents who want help often face few options. Health insurance doesn't always cover family counseling. And that's if a family even HAS health insurance. Then there's finding time, a sitter for the other kids, and the list goes on. Then add in a teen pregnancy, a mom who's working to try to make ends meet for her two kids in today's economy . . .
I still think a blanket abandonment law is extreme, but holding parents liable for every twist and turn in the parenting process is ridiculous. Every child is different, and thus every path as a parent must be different. So how do we make it easier for everyone to raise their kids?
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