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Father who abandoned nine kids is now having twins
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File this under "A case for birth control." Perhaps you recall Nebraska's initial attempt at a Safe Haven law in 2008, which was so poorly written that parents from all over the United States were hopping into cars and hotfooting it to Nebraska to dump their kids. Some of them had genuine needs; some of them just didn't want their children anymore.
Wherever 37-year-old Gary Staton fits into the scenario, his nine children are now in the custody of the state of Nebraska. Aged 1 to 17, he left them with a Nebraska hospital last year claiming that he couldn't handle the burden of all those kids alone without his wife, who died of a cerebral aneurysm after giving birth to the couple's ninth child. His story made national news at the time, and was one of the final straws breaking the back of the state's liberal law. (Legislators later amended the law to limit its use to legal abandonment of children under the age of 30 days.)
Fine. Staton met the letter of the law at the time; seven of his nine children are now being adopted by extended family and the oldest two are living with a 75-year-old woman as they finish high school. They are Nebraska's responsibility now and Staton visits them apparently quite regularly. Here's the rub: Staton is now having twins with another woman.
Maybe I'm being judgmental, but it sure seems like birth control would have been pretty high on this guy's list of items to take care of once he dropped off his nine children for the state to take care of. There's no law, of course, that says he can't have more kids. As a foster mom, I just think there oughta be.
Before I became a foster mom, I didn't have a clue how many people had children, had parental rights terminated by the state (for many, many different reasons), and then went right back and had more children. In Colorado, no one even goes back to check on the new child unless the parent does something to hurt that child. There's an assumption that even though the parents have been convicted of neglect, abuse, abandonment, or any other number of things that lead to termination of parental rights in this state, the newest child will surely do just fine in the new home.
I've only been working with the "system" for three years and have already been involved in multiple cases where the mother, father or both parents have had at least five other children before they had the child I happened to be caring for. In each case, parental rights had all been terminated for the prior children.
Why is this okay? Why aren't more people outraged and coming up with ways to combat this problem? Dare I say it: Should there be laws designed to prevent people who lose parental rights once, twice, or even more times from having more children? Maybe they should get jail time. Maybe they need some sort of rehab or serious counseling. I don't know. Maybe we just keep letting the states take care of all these kids, then complain about how they "turn out" because they were in foster care.
Why bother holding anyone responsible? It's just a child.
You can read more here about Staton and Nebraska's law, including how some children and parents really benefited from the help it offered.
Here in Colorado, we have a similar law -- the Colorado Safe Haven Law. This law allows a parent to surrender an unwanted newborn to a firefighter or hospital personnel. Parents can anonymously hand over his or her baby, up to 72 hours old, with no questions asked. To learn more about a parent's options under the Safe Haven Law, call this toll-free, multilingual hotline: 1-888-510-BABY or go to coloradosafehavenfornewborns.org
Thinking about foster parenting? Learn about foster parent requirements and PRIDE classes. If you don't have time to be a foster parent, consider becoming a CASA.
