Now that Nebraska is no longer a legal dumping ground for kids, some moms are getting desperate; on Friday, one meth-addicted mother tried to give away her toddler on Craigslist.
The ad was posted in the “volunteers” section of the Omaha Craigslist on Friday morning, according to the Omaha World-Herald. (The ad has since been removed.) Under the subject line “help my baby,” the mother, who has not been identified, pleaded: ”he is adorable. . . . (He) deserves a mommy that is not addicted to Meth . . . unfortunately I am!…I am scared . . . I am desperate . . . can anyone help me . . . can anyone help (him)? PLEASE. . . BEFORE I do something CRAZY!”
A caller to a child abuse hotline alerted authorities, who found the mother and removed the one and a half year old from her custody. The mother, who is in her 20s, is being investigated by police, and a judge will determine if the child should remain in foster care.
In 2008, as Minor Troubles readers will recall, Nebraska suffered a rash of parents relinquishing kids, some as old as teenagers, since its safe haven law had no age limit. In November 2008, legislators changed the law so that only a baby in the first month of life could be given up with no questions asked.
Paging driver’s ed!
While learning to drive, a 17-year-old girl broke her mother’s legs when she stepped on the gas instead of the brake. The mom was sitting on a fence in a movie theater parking lot when the driving lesson went awry, according to the Associated Press.
The girl’s father was cited for allowing an unlicensed driver to operate a vehicle. For a father and daughter perspective on teaching your teen to drive, click here.
Photo by MissLPS
Justin and Jordan were born seven minutes apart, but have different fathers. Their mother, Mia Washington of Dallas, had an affair, and the proof is in babies.
Washington noticed that her sons had very different facial features, and testing at a DNA lab confirmed what she suspected, Fox News in Dallas reported. The DNA Lab Clear Diagnostics tests revealed that the mom had a very rare condition called “heteropaternal superfucundation.” That’s when a woman releases multiple eggs during ovulation and if she has more than one sex partner, the sperm fertilizes two separate eggs.
“Out of all people in America and of all people in the world, it had to happen to me. I’m very shocked,” Washington said.
The 11-month-old boys are being raised by Washington and her fiance, who is father to one of the twins. He says he’s forgiven Washington for her affair. “It’s a day by day thing. It’s going to take time to build that trust like we had,” James Harrison admitted.
Washington says she has no plans to tell the other man that he’s a father.
Having a baby usually inspires new moms to become more gentle and nurturing. Apparently not Jennifer Morris. Shortly after she gave birth to a girl, she allegedly stole another new mommy’s purse from the maternity ward on Saturday.
Morris, of Framingham, Mass., was arrested at her house on Sunday, MetroWest Daily News reported. Police said a security camera at MetroWest Medical Center showed Morris lift the purse from a coatrack. The purse contained the other mom’s cell phone, wallet and a digital camera with photos of her new triplets. Morris allegedly sold the camera. The buyer later told that Morris said she was needed money for crack cocaine.
Morris, 36, was being held in jail on $3,000 bond. It was not reported who would be taking care of her little girl.
The Ohio mother charged with child endangerment for breastfeeding while driving has pled not guilty to the charges, according to the Associated Press.
Genine Compton, 39, faces up to 180 days and a $1,800 fine if convicted. While the police did not witness Compton behind the wheel, another motorist did, and passed on her license plate number. Compton reportedly told police she would not let her child go hungry.
A Florida mother was charged with felony child neglect after she left her 5-year-old son, who has specia needs, locked in her SUV, while she played video games inside an arcade.
According to CBS 12, Evylon Keys Hrusovsky told police that she’d only been in the arcade for a few minutes, but video from a security camera showed that she’d been inside for almost 90 minutes. Witnesses who saw the boy crying and screaming inside the SUV alerted the owner of the arcade.
A fender bender at Greenville Middle Academy in South Carolina on Wednesday ended with one mom being arrested for driving under the influence.
Marcia Peyrouse Gaines, 49, was involved in a minor traffic accident in the school pick-up line. What tipped police off that this mother might be three sheets to the wind? When a cop asked Gaines for her driver’s license, she gave him a credit card. Testing revealed that her blood alcohol level was .23 percent, nearly three times the legal limit, according to WYFF TV News. She faces a fine of up to $1,000 or 90 days in jail.
While no one was hurt, Jason Rampey of the Greenville police said: ”I think one of the things that is so egregious about this is that there were kids present and so many other people present in this line.”
The cuffed mom apparently retained her sense of humor, if not her sobriety. When a WYFF reporter asked her for comment, she replied: ”I’m sorry you’re having such a slow news day.”
An 18-year-old is accused of bludgeoning his mother to death–but would she want him to be jailed for the crime? Sky Walker, who is severely autistic and barely speaks, is charged with the killing of Gertrude Steuernagel, a political science professor at Kent State University. She was found badly beaten in her kitchen last month and died on Feb. 6.
Molly Merryman, a colleague and close friend of Steuernagel’s, told CBS’s Early Show that this was “a mother and son who loved each other deeply.”
Walker was ordered to undergo a competency and IQ evaluation within 30 days to be performed by the Summit County Psycho-Diagnostic Clinic. He appeared at the arraignment over a video feed from the Portage County Jail. According to KentStateNewsNet.com, he was seated in a wheelchair, wearing a nylon and mesh spit mask put on inmates who become violent. He was agitated, thrashing his head as two officers held him.
“Neither Sky nor I will ever win the Nobel Peace Prize,” professor Steuernagel once wrote. “Neither of us will write the great American novel. We will, however, make each other laugh… He is my dance partner and I his. Sometimes we step on each other’s toes and sometimes we navigate with great grace. I’ve learned when to lead and when to follow.”
Working as much as possible might be what your boss wants, but it’s not so beneficial for the little one. Women who take some time off before giving birth are less likely to have a C-section. And those who delay returning to work are more likely to breastfeed and to do it longer.
Those are the conclusions of two new studies by the researchers at the University of California at Berkeley. Bosses, take note: ”What we’re trying to say here is that taking maternity leave may make good health sense as well as good economic sense,” said one of the researchers, Sylvia Guendleman, in a news release.
In the study about pre-birth leave, researchers compared 447 California women who worked full-time and found that those who worked up to their due dates were nearly four times likely to have a C-section. Such surgeries are more costly and can cause complications and longer recovery times for moms.
In the other study, based on 770 full-time working moms, those who took less than six weeks of maternity leave were nearly four times less likely to breastfeed. The other mothers, who received extra bonding time with their infants, were more likely to keep breastfeeding their children. Mother’s milk makes healthier babies, and fewer sick days that mom has to take later.
The newborn whose remains were thrown in the trash by hospital workers might have been taken with other garbage to be burned, the Associated Press reported. Police also are searching a landfill in Kentucky, where some hospital waste is taken.
The body of Bashere Davon Moyd Jr. was discovered missing from the morgue at Christ Hospital in New Jersey recently when a funeral home worker went to retrieve the remains for a memorial service. The child was delivered on Dec. 21, but the mother wasn’t notified that the remains were missing until Jan. 2.
On Wednesday, Christ Hospital in Mount Laurel, N.J., said that it was changing morgue procedures “to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.”
Moore, 26, is disputing with the hospital over whether her child was stillborn. She says that he was alive at birth, but died 20 minutes later. Such a distinction is important in any lawsuit, which Moore seems likely to file, because New Jersey law doesn’t recognize stillborns as human. See a photo of Moore and the baby here.
Moore’s lawyer, Michael Anise, told the AP that a morgue worker was only able to find tags that had been attached to the baby’s shirt and a blanket.