Miscellaneous News

Oh, my god, this is something else: a Nebraska law meant for babies is being used by parents overwhelmed with raising much older children:

In total last month, 15 older children in Nebraska were dropped off by a beleaguered parent or custodial aunt or grandmother who said the children were unmanageable.

Officials have called the abandonments a misuse of a new law that was mainly intended to prevent so-called Dumpster babies — the abandonment of newborns by young, terrified mothers — but instead has been used to hand off out-of-control teenagers or, in the case of the father of 10, to escape financial and personal despair.

The spate of abandonments has prompted an outcry about parental irresponsibility and pledges to change the state law, which allows care givers to drop off children without fear of prosecution. But it has also cast a spotlight on the hidden extent of family turmoil in the country and what many experts say is a shortage of respite care, counseling and especially psychiatric services to help parents in dire need.