Dad Dumps Nine Kids Under Nebraska Safe Haven Law

JeanneSager — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:19:00 GMT

Ever consider dropping your kid at the zoo? What if there were nine of them?

The new Nebraska safe haven law allowed a father to walk into the Creighton University Medical Center and drop not one, not two, but NINE children and make a fast getaway. The siblings, aged 1 through 17, automatically became wards of the state, which cannot tough their biological father with any charges of abandonment.

Most states allow parents 72 hours after a child's birth to leave a child at a designated safe place without risk of prosecution. But Nebraska officials couldn't agree on a limit – they approved open-ended legislation that allows parents to drop off a "child." Since July, three kids aged 11 to 15 have been abandoned (not including this family) under the new safe haven law. But never a whole family, and certainly not one this big.

Each abandonment in recent weeks has thrown more egg on the face of wishy washy politicians, but this particular case stands out for the warning it sends to parents who shoot for big families - yes, you love them and yes, they can drive you up the wall. That's because they're supposed to act as very expensive birth control.

My very Catholic grandparents had seven back when they were considered the small family on the block. I'm refusing to walk in my grandmother's very able footsteps because I just can't imagine handling a screaming baby and a college-bound rebel. Imagine buying diapers for one kid and tampons for another, paying nursery school and college tuitions in the same month and nursing your newborn through your oldest's high school graduation?

I'd have to find a big zoo.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Based on comments below, I decided to pull the photo that originally appeared with this story. It was not meant to offend people based on the race/ethnicity of the family pictured - in fact it was simply a photo of parents with nine kids as one comment notes. The reason I'm removing the photo is because some people seem to believe this was a picture of the family described in the article. There was no intention to mislead readers.

Source: Omaha World Herald

Image: The Sun

Quick Where's the Fire, er, Baby?

Nicole Kidman drank the Kool-Aid and it was fertile

Should It Be Legal to Abandon Babies in Safe Places?

Elderly Man Resues Abandoned Baby

Teen and Tween Legally Abandoned Under New Law

Sorry Moms, the Brain's Out For . . . ever

For Dad: How to Beat Up Your Daughter's Boyfriend and Not Get Caught

How to Annoy Your Sister: Advertise on Craigslist

When They Can Curse in Context

Quick Where's the Fire, er, Baby?

JeanneSager — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:50:00 GMT

My local fire department is always happy to see me at their pancake breakfasts. But if I came in mid-contraction and leaking amniotic fluid, something tells me the boys would get while the getting’s good.

Not only did El Cajon, Calif. firemen Robert Laatsch stick around, but the rookie delivered his first baby right in the backseat of her aunt’s car.

Alicia Mondragon-Avila, ready to pop with her second child, was afraid she wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time. Her sister, Rosemary, caught sight of a drawing of a baby on a building and spun the wheel toward the fire station on East Lexington Avenue. She was just in time to catch Laatsch, a firemen who just completed his first year on the squad. He caught Mondragon’s niece, a healthy baby girl.

The city put up the drawings of babies on its stations for desperate parents who are looking for a place to drop their child under California’s Safely Surrendered Baby Law, passed in 2001. California parents have up to 72 hours to abandon their babies at state-designated “safe surrender” places without facing penalties.

The surprising brush with babies hasn’t changed the department’s plans for October’s Fire Prevention Week. On the agenda? A kid’s day – parents invited too - even pregnant ones.

Source: Union Tribune

Image: El Cajon Fire Department

Strollerderby : safe surrender law

Dad Dumps Nine Kids Under Nebraska Safe Haven Law

Quick Where's the Fire, er, Baby?

Should It Be Legal to Abandon Babies in Safe Places?

Elderly Man Resues Abandoned Baby

Teen and Tween Legally Abandoned Under New Law

How to Annoy Your Sister: Advertise on Craigslist

When They Can Curse in Context

Quick Where's the Fire, er, Baby?