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No one knows all the circumstances. A child given up has a chance, versus one abandoned and left to the streets. One parent, and that many kids, one person could not do it.
 
No one knows all the circumstances. A child given up has a chance, versus one abandoned and left to the streets. One parent, and that many kids, one person could not do it.

They should have thought about that before they had all those kids.
 
They should have thought about that before they had all those kids.

while i agree it is rather absurd to have 9 kids today (who the hell could afford it?), who factors in the chance of their spouse suddenly dropping dead?
 
Why is this so shocking? the kids are getting away from parents who clearly don't care about them and likely haven't been caring for them well.
 
And this is the main problem.
Where, and what exactly is the problem? Some people are unfit, unwilling or unable to cope with the demands of parenting, with or without the impossible demands of a hard-edged system lacking in compassion and allowance for human frailty. The only thing standing between many others and this kind of despair is a disparate availability of resources.
 
while i agree it is rather absurd to have 9 kids today (who the hell could afford it?), who factors in the chance of their spouse suddenly dropping dead?

The mother should clearly have thought about it before she selfishly died.

I didn't read the article, but I mean still, if the circumstance came down to it why would you abandon your kids at a hospital?!
 
I didn't read the article, but I mean still, if the circumstance came down to it why would you abandon your kids at a hospital?!

9 kids, one father who clearly cannot raise them.....would you rather he tried to keep raising them and ruin the future for those kids?
 
The man lost his job, trying to take care of the kids, which included a new born. With out money, he can't feed or cloth them.

On another note, I have seen large families before, and they survived, as all pitched in and helped. The loss of his wife was just too much.
 
I didn't read the article, but I mean still, if the circumstance came down to it why would you abandon your kids at a hospital?!

The whole point of a safe haven law is to establish places (such as this hospital) where a child may be given up in a controlled fashion. Hospitals make good sense. They have... security officers, and in most case police officers, they have social workers, they have psychologists and physicians to deal with the presence of psychiatric or non-psychiatric trauma.

What's unique here is that the law allows older children to be given up to the state in this way -- one of these children was 17 years old. But then 17-year-olds are not particularly immune to neglect or abuse that may arise if an incapable parent is forced to keep a minor for whom they cannot care. In fact I know of many cases of abuse of teenagers. If you're a 17-year-old and your guardian is... beating you, not providing you with basic sustenance, subjecting you to an environment with drugs or excessive alcohol, etc... someone needs to get involved and help put that to a stop.

P.S. As a psychology trainee, I have never been provided training to diagnose someone with a "lack of common sense." Hmmm.
 
Where, and what exactly is the problem? Some people are unfit, unwilling or unable to cope with the demands of parenting, with or without the impossible demands of a hard-edged system lacking in compassion and allowance for human frailty. The only thing standing between many others and this kind of despair is a disparate availability of resources.

If one is not fit to have a child then they should not have one. Simple as that. There are too many irresponsible people in this world where issues like this come about.

The world isn't perfect.

Thanks for letting me know!
 
If one is not fit to have a child then they should not have one. Simple as that. There are too many irresponsible people in this world where issues like this come about.



Thanks for letting me know!

im afraid we deal in the real world. Things happen all the time that shouldnt.
 
If one is not fit to have a child then they should not have one. Simple as that. There are too many irresponsible people in this world where issues like this come about.
People break. Better sometimes to pick up the pieces than to indulge in pompous moralising, don't you think?
 
It's not an ideal situation but I rather the parents use this law and abandon the kids to somewhere safe than to resort to killing them (I've read way too many of these types of stories).

The world isn't perfect.
 
From the article it sounds like the guy isn't all there in the head. This may be a rare occurrence where the law is justified.

But with some of them being in there teens, i wonder if any of them called family members or were having mental problems as well.
 
If one is not fit to have a child then they should not have one. Simple as that. There are too many irresponsible people in this world where issues like this come about.

So... Who do we put in the position of deciding who gets to have children and who does not? The government? Do we really want more government control of our personal lives?

JohnMC
 
Wife died and father had a bit of a breakdown. For all we know, they could have been a good, solid family. I know quite a few large families. Is such a thing just really not conceivable to some people?
 
Wife died and father had a bit of a breakdown. For all we know, they could have been a good, solid family. I know quite a few large families. Is such a thing just really not conceivable to some people?
I think for quite a number of us, it would be hard to understand what they went through. I'm just glad that those children would at least have some aid in times of abandonment.
 
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