“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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