Let's Look for Solutions

I couldn’t’ sleep last night.  I saw the story before I went to bed.  Another mother, another child with autism and another death.  People will point and analyze and name-call all over the internet.  The mother will be called everything from ‘selfish’, ‘evil’ and ‘crazy’ to ‘desperate’ and ‘broken’.  Some will say it’s the fault of the system, many will suggest it is due to a lack of autism acceptance and the myth of a cure, others will just say Jillian McCabe is simply a horrible person.  Everyone will come in with an opinion.  And none of it matters.  None of it will keep this from happening again

 I myself went through the roller coaster of emotions.  I thought “HOW COULD A PERSON DO THAT?” when I read the headlines.  Then I read the details.  She had financial troubles, a husband with MS, she was desperately attempting to raise funds and she called the police on herself.   I’m sure there was more to the story than what I read in a press release.  Sad.  Horrible.  I still don’t understand; it’s still not okay. But my opinion doesn’t matter.  No one’s opinion on this will keep it from happening again.  

Can we put something in place that will make a desperate person feel like he/she has a better option?  When this type of thing happens, people cry out “She could have called 911!” or  “She could have put her child in foster care!”   I don’t even know if that’s true.  What happens when a desperate parent calls 911?  What is the process for putting your child in therapeutic foster care?  Does it get taken seriously? Does it happen quickly?  Are the parents given any reassurance at all that the child will be well cared for? 

I think of a story I heard on a call-in show years ago.  In Nebraska, a law was passed where parents could drop off children of any age at hospitals without being prosecuted for abandonment.  The Safe Haven law was originally intended to give the parents of newborn babies an option when they felt they couldn't care for their infants, but that was not the way it ended up being used.  Parents and guardians drove their children in from all over the country to take advantage of the ‘Safe Haven’ law.  Kids, preteens and teenagers from places like New York, Georgia, Indiana and Michigan were dropped off every week at Omaha hospitals.  For the most part, these were not negligent parents dropping off kids after they had gotten tired of the responsibility.  They were parents who had been trying to get help for their children for years and always came up short.  Money to get the right care was often an issue; safety from violent children was another main concern.  When I heard the radio program on this topic many callers phoned in and said “I wouldn’t do it, but I certainly understand it.”   Safe Haven was showing the country how many families had needs that were not being addressed.   But Nebraska didn’t want to deal with the problem of children with unmet needs.  This law was intended for infants.  Low cost infants that had waiting lists of screened couples ready to adopt them.   So they “fixed” what they saw as the problem by changing the law.  Now it is only legal to drop off babies up to 30 days old.   As far as I’m aware, there was nothing to address the children whose needs were not being met.  (Please comment and let me know if I’m wrong about this.)

Maybe the original Safe Haven law in Nebraska was on to something.  Maybe this could save children’s lives.  Maybe we need to have a ‘drop off’ in place for guardians and parents who are going through life-threatening times of desperation.  More often than not, parents know when they are beyond desperation.  Usually, they ask for help and there either is no help or the help offered is paltry.   Communities and social groups do what they can, but the need exceeds the resources available.  A ‘drop off’ would give a desperate person an option that would keep a child physically safe.  Something immediate that requires no one’s approval, no paperwork and no waiting time. Too often messages are left on a social workers answering machine or people are sent home from the emergency room with a very large bill and no response to their needs.     If many children are being left at the hospital by desperate parents, the system would be motivated to get families the help they need before they go to a ‘drop off’.  Starting something like this would involve cost, but think about the mega-millions that are spent on anti-suicide fences on bridges all over this country, anti-terrorist tactics, or the prevention of the spread of ebola.  Spending a small portion of that to help prevent the killing of children should make sense.  If we value these children, something needs to be put in place.  Yes, there are people that may abuse the system.  Checks and balances would need to be part of this.  It wouldn’t be perfect but nothing is perfect.  Let’s look at the benefit.  Children that may otherwise be killed wouldn’t have to die. 

If you want to judge Jillian McCabe, I will not ask you not to.  I understand why anyone would.  Please realize, however, that judging doesn’t help stop what we are seeing.  Let’s really try to think of answers to this problem.  Parenting is hard, mental illness is rampant and people in a variety of situations are driven to a point of desperation. Harsh judgment will not change that.   How can we keep children safe when it happens?  The hand-wringing, name-calling and philosophizing won’t keep this from happening again.   Let’s talk about solutions, which will make a difference.