“Child advocates on Wednesday hailed the actions of a teenage mother who left her 8-month-old baby girl at a fire station — even though [the girl] was too old for Florida’s so-called safe haven law, which allows parents to leave newborns up to three days old at a hospital, fire station or emergency medical complex anonymously and without the fear of a criminal investigation…
“‘I think it was pretty courageous that she recognized that somebody could take care of the baby better than her,’ said Scott Lindeman…’[the mother] is very brave,’ said Nick Silverio…’She did the right thing.’”
The Orlando Sentinel article below sings the praises of a mother who abandoned her baby at a fire station. I don’t exactly fault the mother–she’s young and probably distraught and confused–but I think the labels of “bravery” and “courageous” are a little absurd. If it were a father who had abandoned a baby at a fire station, even a young father, the words for him wouldn’t be nearly as kind.
I’ve often wondered why women who give their children up for adoption are often considered heroic (”they gave the child life and then allowed it to go to a good home”), but fathers who feel unequipped to take care of their children are vilified as “deadbeats” and “deserters.” I discussed this double standard some in my co-authored column Respect a Man’s Choice, Too (8/1/06), written for the left-wing website AlterNet.
The Orlando Sentinel article even expresses sympathy for a mother who called a Florida child welfare agency to ask if they would take her son–who was 12! Imagine a father wanting to dump his 12-year-old kid on the state being treated sympathetically.
Mom praised for leaving baby at fire station
Orlando Sentinel, 8/30/07
Child advocates on Wednesday hailed the actions of a teenage mother who left her 8-month-old baby girl at a fire station — even though the law designed to save abandoned babies didn’t apply to her case.
The little girl, apparently well-fed and cared for, was too old for Florida’s so-called safe haven law, which allows parents to leave newborns up to three days old at a hospital, fire station or emergency medical complex anonymously and without the fear of a criminal investigation.
So detectives with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office were called in to investigate the 17-year-old mother and the events that led up to her decision to surrender her child before sunrise Wednesday.
“I think it was pretty courageous that she recognized that somebody could take care of the baby better than her,” said Scott Lindeman, Orange County coordinator of Safe Haven for Newborns.
It was shortly before 4:30 a.m. when there was a knock at the door at Orange County Fire Rescue Station 27 on Novella Eliza Lane in Apopka. The mother told firefighters that she had been kicked out of her home and could no longer care for her daughter.
They tried to persuade her to stay, but she left, providing the fire crew with food and diapers for the little girl now being called “Alyssa.”
“She felt this was her only option,” Sheriff’s Office commander Jeff Stonebreaker said.
Medical checks showed the girl to be in good health, and she was turned over to the Florida Department of Children and Families while investigators searched for the young mother. Detectives seemed to be concerned because the 17-year-old’s mother said she wasn’t kicked out of her home.
Read the full article here.
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amfortas said,
So, who is lying? Daughter; mother? Both?
And where is the father? Kicked out? None of his damned business, by fiat of the mother/the daughter/the almighty State? Its her body and she can do whatever she wants with it?
Disposable fathers last year.
Disposable babies this year.
Next year, disposable women.
August 31, 2007 at 12:59 am
Ed said,
Had a converstation with another father last evening about divorce. His family well intact with a beautiful wife who doesn’t work, he has a great job, plenty of money, two beautiful healthy children. Lovely home.
He was berating fathers who, once divorced, abandon their kids, the ones who seemingly don’t want anything to do with their once loving children.
And he’s right. In some cases. I reminded him that many of these “mommies” can’t wait to kick the father out, and in 80% of the cases they are the ones who initiate the divorce. I reminded him I had 80+ trips to court because the former wife decided I wasn’t even fit to see my daughter, the friend of his daughter.
He paused long enough to think, and after acknowleging my efforts at being the custodial father who, after the mother having abandened my daughter has been the one at all the school and non-school functions said indeed some fathers do step up.
I reminded him that many of the fathers judged “dead beats” are in fact pushed out of their children’s lives. He seemed to rethink his original stance.
So, I echo Amfortas’s thoughts about disposable dads.
Maybe it is one one conversation at a time. One man/woman/child at a time that needs to be educated to the reality.
Sure, some men desert their kids. I think many don’t and many more wouldn’t but for the courts and vindictive women.
August 31, 2007 at 3:29 am
PolishKnight said,
Feminism is a philosophy that women should do as they please without regard or responsibility to men, children, or society (in that order.) Society has already cut women slack and allowed them to:
1) Get paid (child-support/alimony/welfare) to raise their own children (while men have to pay for time with their own children)
2) Get an abortion simply so they can have casual, unprotected sex without consequences.
3) Adopt out unwanted infants without a requirement to notify the father.
and now:
4) Abandon infants in leau of murdering them (and get a heroes welcome for not killing her own children!!!!)
OF COURSE that isn’t going to be enough!!! There is still some notion of legal responsibility for the woman to live up to. She should be allowed to legally abandon her children at ANY time and get this:
If society doesn’t call the little ladies’ bluff, children will start winding up abandoned or killed. Then, boo hoo, they’ll say that it’s not their fault since a man impregnated them in the first place. Why didn’t HE stop her?
Michael Vick’s dogs are expected to be better citizens and parents than modern American women.
August 31, 2007 at 6:07 am
PolishKnight said,
You could have reminded this man that his beautiful wife, who doesn’t work, enjoys support from him despite the state discriminating against men in attempts to get more women in the workplace. Does his wife appreciate him? Does she think he’s unattractive and therefore he has to work hard to have a woman like him? He probably would like to think not and even if she is attractive, most beautiful women wind up in the same boat in about 30 years or so.
Except, of course, for divorce. A lot of these men are sellouts (or trained to be submissive to women) because they don’t think themselves worthy of them. It’s like battered spouse syndrome.
August 31, 2007 at 6:12 am
mruffolo said,
Yet children are victims of feminism: abortion, abandonment (in a safe haven program), and divorce (mom as only leader).
Fathers have it bad, and children also suffer by feminist mom’s selfishness.
P.S. I suspect that the popular media is a quasi-government agency, as they support each feminist government program.
Male government employees march to the government’s programs with little regard as the government provides them good paying jobs with benefits. These employees are like soliders in the war against family, the war for big government.
August 31, 2007 at 8:30 am
DcFather said,
While abortion/abandanoment is the most obvious example, women’s “choice” is increasngly extended to all areas of law. For example, if a woman wants an innocent man charged with rape, she can file a false police report, perjure herself under oath, and the absolute worst thing that can happen to her is that she will only put the man through hell for a year or two and bankrupt him without having him imprisoned. In other words, the making of false accusations against a man is just another “choice”, and like a puppet on a string our judiciary will accomodate her every step of the way.
Another prime example is of course in divorce. It is her “choice” as to whether the father will be allowed to continue to parent or even “visit” his children afterwards. About the only thing that is not her “choice” in this scenario is that the father must be forced to continue to pay her expenses, but you don’t hear many women complain about this rare exception to her choices because the fact that she can do whatever she chooses yet he must continue to pay her for having been married and/or having children with her is why 80% of divorces are filed by women in the first place.
Just as in the abandonment example, under divorce, the children, the father, and society must adapt and accomodate her choice. If her choice is for the children to be fatherless, then they must adapt to and accept the higher risks they have for being abused, molested, neglected, and murdered, because it is the choice of the female that is paramount under contemporary judicial philosophy, which of course just so happens to maximize income for lawyers and judges.
In divorce, the father must also adapt to the woman’s choice, and to do otherwise is to be “controlling” and “abusive”. In other words, if its is her “choice” that he never see his children again, that he finance her way while she takes on a revolving door of new boyfriends, and even, as in my case, if she chooses to have sex with the children, then the father must accomodaate the “choice” of the female, and to do anything else is to be “controlling” and “abusive”. He must adapt to her choice, pay her way, forget about his children, accept that they are abused and there is nothing he can do about it, and move on. Short of suicide, his only alternative choice is prison, but after he gets raped a few hundred times he will be put back on the street in the same situation but deeper in debt to the choices of his ex-wife.
The list is endless, but another “choice” she has is to murder her husband in cold blood while he sleeps, however the minor restriction on this “choice” is that to do so without going to prison requires that she claim he was “abusive”, although whether or not she has, or can produce, any evidence of his “abuse” does not matter, and in fact is just another “choice” for her.
It’s comical that some still refer to America as a “male dominated society”. Having a vagina means having choices to which others must accept and adapt to, including the denial of life, liberty, and property to others without due process. The fact of the matter is, it is a female dominated society, and if she wants to be a total bitch about it, well that’s just another “choice”.
August 31, 2007 at 8:44 am
jackal1994 said,
When it does come, I know many men will probably secretly take the birth control pill (or whatever). I will be waiting patiently for the first lawsuit by a women against a man for fraud. “I gave him the gift of sex to have a child and he secretly took the pill so there would be no child! He lied!”
When women are suddenly deceived by men, it will be a BIG ISSUE. Even when the cost to them was zero. But, when women deceive men (to the tune of a HUGE COST–18+years of CS) judges tell men to go away.
I constantly watch shows on discovery & tlc about the science of mate selection, and gender differences and so forth. I saw a show about 2 years ago about male fertility. Two scientists reduced their live sperm count to zero after 30 days of lowering their nuts into 160% water. In order to survive sperm need to be at a cooler temperature than the avg body temp.
Even guys who are desk-jockies can have low live sperm counts (or misshapen sperm) by sitting too long and letting their gonad temp go up.
My thoughts are this: couldn’t you invent insulation lined underwear to reflect most of the body heat back at the gonads? You could even have the briefs powered by a watch battery or AAA battery to create heat in addition to the reflection.
This seems like a pretty inexpensive and simple way to let men control their fertility without all the hormone complications (and very reversible). I don’t know why nobody has invented this.
August 31, 2007 at 8:48 am
Thomas said,
Clearly this is about women giving up their chidlren and their children’s rights to a father.
The worse part of this is the blog of comments on the article in the sentinal - more than a hundred, all basically praising the law and the young woman - check how many mention ‘hey where’s the dad in all this?’
August 31, 2007 at 9:39 am
jackal1994 said,
August 31, 2007 at 11:07 am
El Cid said,
1. The primary purpose of a child is to fulfill the woman. Any need the child might have are filled at the convenience of the woman.
2. Children are also be useful as pawns for extracting money from men and the government.
3. Oh, and as a shield for hiding the woman’s sins–you know, just because the child is not yours is no reason not to pay me child support. The child will be hurt if you don’t give me my money.
4. Moms do not care for their children out of love for their children. Moms care for their children because women are oppressed by the evil patriarchy. If not for men, women would have leave the child to care for itself. After all, the belief that children need care is a myth perpetrated by the evil patriarchy to oppress women.
5. Any $5-an-hour childcare worker can raise children as well as mom.
6. If a child is inconvenient, kill it. The woman should then claim she is troubled because only a very troubled woman would kill her child. She can then get compassion (for her) and “help” instead of jail time. Any question, see item 1 above.
And we wonder why the modern world is so screwed up…
August 31, 2007 at 11:38 am
bolwriter said,
August 31, 2007 at 12:07 pm
solangedee said,
re: the article. i think the reason they are heaping such high praise on this “heroic mother” is to encourage more distraught young mothers to relinquish their children if they are unable to care for them. the number of maternal homicide rates always surprises me. much better for people who are not mentally able to care for a child to relinquish it than to do something much worse out of fear. i don’t think this about women being able to do anything they please (as a previous commenter said). its about protecting babies from unstable/stupid/nutty mothers (and sometimes fathers).
this story isn’t really similar to the situation of the typical deadbeat dad. a deadbeat dad leaves the mother and baby. when you reverse that situation (ie deadbeat mom) the social consequences for the woman are much greater.
August 31, 2007 at 12:23 pm
mruffolo said,
The feminist government (family court, police, DCFS, child support agencies) is the decision maker while the father is the spectator and ATM machine.
In America there is more honor and rights to bed with another man, contract aids, and die childless, than to be a father.
I pity the next generations of American men.
August 31, 2007 at 12:35 pm
jackal1994 said,
Or any of the times where you are out of condoms and passion is mounting between the two of you. The idea of reducing live sperm to zero is (if nothing else) it would be a fall back position. What about in a committed relationship where you have repeated discussions about having kids, she is and you’re not. If you don’t trust her to take her pill, you could wear these shorts. Something like 40% of women polled in a UK women’s magazine said they would stop contraception to have a child whatever the man wanted.
Also, there is many hundreds of thousands of teen pregnancies, so obviously these teens aren’t wearing condoms. But, if you told them you could wear this underwear (with no hormonal side-effects) and not get a girl pregnant–and it’s totally reversible, then I bet you could get many of these teens (and even 20-30 y/o men) wearing these.
The first person who invents this is going to be very rich.
August 31, 2007 at 3:09 pm
PolishKnight said,
High maternal homicide rates are not a surprise on this forum because we actively bust the notion of women as innocent, entitled victims. Our culture is awash with images and sentiments of violence from women being acceptable: Commercials showing women attacking men for offending her, women “warriers” such as Xena or Buffy beating up dozens of larger, better armed men, women killing men in their sleep due to “temporary insanity” and now the diaper wearing astronaut that just “wasn’t herself.”
WE don’t buy into your claim that infant abandonment laws were created to protect infants from their own fathers as well as their mothers. The whole reason society puts up with letting women abandon their children in leau of murdering them is because it’s afraid of holding women accountable. If a father is a threat to his own child, it’s simple jail time. That’s all there is to it.
The best options to prevent unwanted bastard babies from showing up a man’s door is not condoms (as discussed above, a woman might now steal sperm from them) or even oral sex. We’re in a post RoeVWade world where it’s now obvious that women want men’s income and will do ANYTHING to get it (including child exploitation.)
The best option (drum roll Anton) is to set up a fake identity. Thanks to our friends from South of the Border, there are numerous places to buy fake ID’s and it’s not uncommon for women to not even know the last name of her bastard child’s father. I know of one man (who was a roommate) who actually received a notice of child support with his LAST name spelled wrong!!! What did he do? He wrote back to them using his PROPERLY SPELLED NAME!!!
In another case an attorney friend of mine handled, her client slept with a mentally disabled girl who worked at a Ralph’s Supermarket and a few months later when getting his groceries she saw him and said she was pregnant. Instead of dropping his groceries and running out the door (which would be the proper but not necessarily best instinct) he does the worst thing which was to give her his full name and address. IDIOT!
Quite simply, young men shouldn’t drop their last name and should maintain a separate PO Box which refers to another local mailing address. If they rent a room or share an apartment, it’s easy to keep their name off a published lease.
September 1, 2007 at 1:00 pm