General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsShould it be legal for parents to abandon their children over state lines?
Nebraska law was once written in away that it was legal for people to drive there and abandon their children. This loophole was soon exploited and soon rejected by the community as morally wrong and a way to avoid parental responsibility. The law was soon changed.
Why would we even consider allowing it and enable it over our borders?
And not just one or two. Nebraska found itself facing an epidemic of abandoned children
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1859405,00.html
Should a parent be able to pay a cartel smuggler to take their problem child to honduras, guatemala, el salvador, canada or mexico and hope for the best for them? Wouldn't we consider that a crime?
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)In one scenario, it is illegal to abandon children.
In another scenario, there is an orderly process for doing so, in which the children are taken into appropriate care.
I don't know whether the first scenario is preferable, from the standpoint of protecting children from abusive and life-threatening circumstances.
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)place to be a young man. So they took my grandfather to Italy and put him on a boat to the US. By himself. He was 11.
He arrived speaking no English, with nothing, an illegal immigrant in a country that had no use for a Catholic farm boy who spoke an antique dialect of German. And a few years later when most of the young men in his part of the world were in graves if they were lucky and rotting on the bare earth if they weren't, he was still alive. He learned the language, he supported himself, he married an American woman, bought a house in the suburbs, and put the kids her previous American husband had abandoned through private school. They had a few more kids. He ran marathons, started a business, and eventually died a very contented and very loved old man.
His peers never had that chance.
People don't send their kids away for fun. They do it out of desperation. Criminalizing a crisis doesn't solve it.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Great thought provoking personal story by the way.
renate
(13,776 posts)Oh, how I would love to read his autobiography.
And yes, absolutely, people don't send their kids away for fun. There are crappy parents out there for sure, but as a rule, it is a supreme sacrifice. The rest of their lives must be so scarred by the loss and the sorrow.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)WW1 ended in 1918, so it's possible your grandfather could have died as a soldier (or civilian) in WW1, or as a soldier in WW2 as he would have only been nearing 40.
Not many guys in that age range survived both world wars. Awesome foresight from your great grandparents.
snot
(10,540 posts)oh gawd, really? That's the best we can do for them?
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)The alternative is foster care, often not a great solution either.