My name is Jenn, and I'm a 27 year old married and babied chick. In addition to a husband, a seven year old daughter, and a five year old autistic son, I also have four cats, three hermit crabs, two frogs, a few fish, and one snorty little Pug. I work from home doing a variety of writing and even some web design. I love blogging, digital photography and web design.
I just read a news story about a two and a half year old boy who was abandoned at a Wal-mart. A woman, presumably the mother, left him with a backpack filled with toys, diapers, bottles and sippy cups, and a note explaining that her husband had left them ten months ago, and she could no longer afford to care for her son. The little boy was found safe and sound, thankfully, and is currently in foster care while the authorities try and decide what to do next.
The one thing I don’t like about this situation is that the mother is being sought and criminal charges of child abandonment are being considered. I understand that it is VERY stupid to leave a child in such a public place, but a big problem here, and with many other cases of abandoned babies (that’s babies, not infants) and toddlers is that the safe haven laws that many states have do not apply to older babies.
Unfortunately, just as new mothers may find themselves unable to or unwilling to care for their newborn babies, there may be mothers of older babies and toddlers who find themselves in similar circumstances. Instead of subjecting these children to possible abandonment, abuse, neglect or even eventual murder, we should change safe haven laws to allow children up to a certain age (or hell, even all ages!) to be surrendered anonymously to hospitals, fire stations and police stations.
What do you think?
It really breaks my heart to read that :*( Poor little boy. And honestly I feel for the mother as well.
I see where you’re coming from, it’s such an incredibly sad thing to happen, but I do agree with you, that there should be safe places for children to be “surrendered” where parents, who obviously have severe problems, can know that they will be taken care of.
I suppose it’s better for that to happen than for them to stay with the parents and possibly suffer abuse or neglect.
I don’t know. I really don’t. The best of a bad (terrible!) situation, I suppose!
Poor little boy! I don’t think I could ever leave my child, no matter how hard it is.
I agree with you, but not in this situation. I don’t think she tried hard enough to keep her son. There are plenty on single parents out there. What was it that made it so hard? My mom raised me and my younger brother all by herself. She had nothing. She didn’t have any family and didn’t depend on friends. She had a little help from the gov’t in the beginning but that’s it.
The one thing I don’t like about this situation is that the mother is being sought and criminal charges of child abandonment are being considered.
Jenn please tell me where you read this???? Martin, the little boy was left not far from here and had been all over our news for like a day. Then, nothing. I combed the news websites and found nothing else about him. At least, wthr.com where I originally saw the news that night. From what I read they want to find the mother so they can reunite them and offer her help. I’m outraged about criminal charges or the thought of it. I think they should leave her alone, she did a selfless thing. It could have been done differently, but still. We’re all just happy she didn’t harm him instead.
Nobody really knew off the top of their head if this was a safe haven state or not, and we all agreed she might have thought to leave him at the hospital? And of course the mother/foster mother in me wants to find out where he’s at and adopt the little guy. He’s adorable!
I agree with you, but not in this situation. I don’t think she tried hard enough to keep her son.
I think they assume she’s Guatemalan. He looks to be that at least. Whatever his origin the general consensus is that the parents are on the move because there isn’t any work for them in Indiana anymore since there seems to be little work for legal Americans here right now. Didn’t she also say the dad left her or something? I figured she couldn’t get any help from the government without getting deported so she went that route. I’m going to look into the whole safe haven thing because if we have it, it’s not well known. I’m also looking for more things like this to start happening here. It’s really sad. The area where she was from my cousin lives in and he was just telling me about the place he worked was people from all over the world and they travel around to wherever the jobs are. I’m looking for more kids to get left behind from young mothers who just can’t handle it.
Oh I didn’t know all that. I haven’t seen any pictures so I just assumed she’d be legally in the US so can get some form of help or be able to get a decent job or jobs.
That sucks a**. Kids shouldn’t have to be put through this.