The Basic Unit of American Society Has Been Ignored for Much Too Long

Government, for much too long, has either ignored the family unit, or walked all over it. There are too few government-based benefits available to those within the family, and too little help when requested by the government. School systems are a large part of this. There are many requirements placed on parents, dependent on a parent's conformation to school policy, but very little support given to that same parent.

Many like-minded parents end up home schooling their children, and socializing their children with each other's children. This puts parents back in charge of what their children learn, are exposed to, how this education and socialization takes place, with whom, when, and for how long. Of course, this takes federal money out of the school corporation's pocket that would have been given to that corporation by the federal government, and none reaches the home schooling parents' pockets, but the majority of those parents don't mind.

This ability to home school isn't for everyone, of course, and it is those parents who have needed help with other areas that has been brought to the forefront of our news coverage in the past few weeks. Home schooling is but one small area of this subject. Nebraska's Safe Haven Law has allowed several parents of older children to drop those children off at a hospital and abandon them. Why would a parent do such a thing, many people ask themselves and others. 'I would never be able to do such a thing to my child,' they say. Most parents feel this way, but there are some children who have such problems with acting out through 'bad' behavior, developmental delays, and physical problems that caring for them becomes a serious problem, and the parent or parents find it too difficult to cope. When an 'opportunity' comes along like the Nebraska Safe Haven Law, parents who have been wondering what they can possibly do, find their answer in the new legislation. However, if they had been able to find a solution through government or another source, they wouldn't have felt desperate enough to have abandoned their children. These people don't hate their children, and they certainly don't 'not love' their children, but taking care of them is something that seems impossible.

There have been too many times when someone has gone to the government, asked to place their children in temporary foster care due to an illness, stress, family emergency, and so forth, and promised that when the family crisis is over, that their children will be reunited with them, only to find out too late that they have to fight to have their children returned to them. Too many of these people lose their children forever. The State has them, and pays for their care in foster homes using your Social Security money. Social Security funds are paid into the system with the general understanding that this money is to pay for retirement payments to those who retire from the work force. There is another general understanding of Social Security, and that is that the system is nearly bankrupt and many don't understand why. It's partially because of foster care payments being given to States and foster families to care for foster children, even though many of these children could have been returned to their families, or should not have been removed from them in the first place. Why is this the way it is? Why do strangers get paid out of Social Security money for caring for other people's children after there has been a problem, and yet, no money is ever offered to the parents of these children to be used to help with the care of those children, in order to keep those children with their parents? Is it more important to our country to have children raised by strangers than it is to have them raised by their own parents? Sadly, I think this is the case today. If it weren't true, I don't think our system would be set up the way it is. There is a saying that you may not have heard, but it goes like this: There is no man-made institution (meaning area of society) that has no purpose. In other words, if we, as a society, didn't need foster care, we wouldn't have it. Since there isn't any kind of help given to parents during a crisis that would allow the family to remain together, obviously, there is no need t keep families together, at least in society's eyes.

If society doesn't think families are worth keeping together, I don't think it's fair to judge those same parents for taking their kids to a state (Nebraska) that allows (temporarily) parents to take a child there to be abandoned. At least it was some kind of help, even if not much. The fact that parents were accepting this help shows that there is a real need for some kind of help, adequate help, help that empowers parents fom the parents' perspective, not some kind of help that makesthe caseworker think he or she is doing a good job. Parents know what they and their families need, and the govenrnment should fill this gap, not dictate what they think it is, and then force the parents into some mold. How many parents out there considered dropping their kids off at a Nebraska hospital, but couldn't get there? Nationwide, I am sure there were quite a few. It doesn't need to be this way. But until government does its real job, which is to serve the people instead of dictate to the people, it will continue to be this way.