Having trouble with your out of control teen? Dump them at a hospital

[UGAalum94]

It seems strange that anyone would choose to abandon their kids, but I think that it's better to give people an option to surrender their kids at any age than to merely intervene once they are actually neglecting or abusing them.

I believe parents are morally obligated to take care of their children certainly, but it's probably a good idea to give them a legal option when they realize that for some reason that they can't.

I just have a hard time imagining that this is going to become a big trend, or at least a bigger trend than we would have seen with kids ending up in either foster care or youth detention centers had the parents been compelled to try to keep them.

[kstar]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

I just have a hard time imagining that this is going to become a big trend, or at least a bigger trend than we would have seen with kids ending up in either foster care or youth detention centers had the parents been compelled to try to keep them.

But it isn't like this is a new concept. The orphan trains of the early 1900s and even the selling of children into servitude has been present in society since Biblical times.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by kstar

But it isn't like this is a new concept. The orphan trains of the early 1900s and even the selling of children into servitude has been present in society since Biblical times.

I don't deny that, but do you think that allow parents to avoid criminal charges for dropping off teens or children at a hospital is really going to create a big trend of people doing it?

I think the only people who would actually do such a thing are parents who are afraid that they've lost the means to provide for the children who if they kept them would likely face criminal charges of neglect or abuse OR are parents who were so poor at parenting or whose children have such strong and out of control personalities that kids would end up out of the parents' care because the kids ended up in trouble with the law.

I just don't think there are going to be too many people who simply decide they'd prefer not to keep their kids even though they could continue to provide for them.

I think it's almost just a way to put your kids in state foster care without having to neglect or abuse them first.

[AGDee]

Anybody who would do this shouldn't have custody of their kids, whether it's for financial, behavioral or purely selfish reasons. But, wouldn't it have been better if that mom in NC had done this instead of driving her kids into a lake in her car and reporting her car hijacked?