“When marriages and families are healthy, communities thrive; when marriages break down, communities break down.” The Heritage Foundation

Have you heard the story out of Nebraska concerning the abuse of their ‘safe haven’ law? Safe haven laws and provisions are prevalent throughout the country. In Texas where am from, for example, a baby can be dropped off at a fire station or library with no questions asked because these are designated as safe haven drop off points. The law in Nebraska is similar in that its intent to allow a parent to abandon their child in a safe place, rather than in the nearest dumpster.  

However, we have learned that the good intentions of this law have turned into a gross misuse and abuse. We now know that parents have dropped off teenage children, up to 19 years old. My first question is why are children so old being abandoned? Out of 17 children who have been dropped off, 4 have been younger than 10. Of the 4 that were under 10, they were among a group of 9 siblings who were abandoned in an Omaha hospital!

There was a story aired on Fox News this past Sunday which concerned a mother who dropped her child off because of behavioral problems. She said she attempted to remedy the problem by taking the child to medical experts. However, she said that those visits began to take on and air that she was part of the problem. She said she feared for her and her child’s safety. So that neither she nor the child would be harmed, she felt the best solution was to drop the child off.

In both situations it appears seemingly reasonable people did unreasonable things. There has to be more information to these stories than what a brief news article or television interview can bring out. But what is evident and glaring to me is that there is a serious breakdown in the American family structure. Breakdown is what caused these reactions. I’m not here to criticize because surely the whole of these stories haven’t been told. But these stories have caused deeper thought about the ongoing erosion of the American Family Unit.

It may be debated that the parent who dropped 9 siblings did so because of economic hardships. What caused the hardship to spur this action? Was it because of a loss in income due to our faltering economy? Was it because of income loss due to job loss? Could there have been a failure in personal financial management? I empathize with the economics of raising a family of 9; I come from a family of 9. Raising 9 children in our day and time is a ginormous task. I wonder what would drive parents to abandon 9 children. Whatever the reason, ultimately this was an act of desperation. I attribute this action to a breakdown of a faulty ‘value set’.

Now the parent that abandoned their child because of behavioral problems concerns me even more. What is wrong with our children’s attitudes? Why are they so angry? Does this child have a mental disability? Given the ‘symptom to medicated’ culture we live in, I’m sure there is a name for what this child is experiencing. I believe the problem is a simple as the loss of control of the home by the parents. I believe somewhere down the road this child gained immunity to   ‘time out’. A ‘time out’ in my day was time mom took to catch her breath in the middle of a ‘good old fashion’.

We have arrived to a point in our society where we cannot impose discipline in our homes, other than what is government approved. Government thinking I that one size fits all, and as far as discipline is concerned that‘s not the case. I’m not advocating ‘open game’ in disciplining children. But as a parent we know what works best in disciplining our children without them getting off free when they commit an infraction. My impression of this parent is that she believed she would be scrutinized to the ninth power by a social service agency for her disciplinary technique.

 There is a right way to discipline a child and our ways of doing that is as varied as our households. The right way is to not to do discipline our children while we are angry. The right way is not to discipline our children because their last action was the last straw on a pile of straw. The right way to discipline them is out of a sense of love and concern for them. The goal of our discipline should be to ensure that our children are disciplined to the norms of society and are not a ‘menace to society’.

We need to return our disciplinary authority back to our homes and to our families, without the fear of retribution from our local social service agency (government). How reasonable is it to allow a peace officer to crack over our children over the head or choke them out? They don’t know our children, yet have more authority over our children than we do as parents. We should be able to discipline our children, as we deem necessary and without abuse, before it reaches that stage. The fact is, if children are taught a healthy respect for authority at home, the problems in our cities and towns would minimize. It’s cool to have a rapport with our children, but it’s even cooler when we establish ourselves as an authority figure for our children. We serve them beyond friendship by being their lead, guide, and moral compass.