The Parent Trap

Ah, Friday. Mornings at the juvie and county clinic, afternoons at home, and the wonders of the weekend looming ahead. There's an interesting rhythm to the influx of detainees at the juvie - as the weekend approaches more "troubled" kids are brought in. Come Friday and through the weekend, however, the majority of the newly detained are simply kids out having "too good of a time." Unfortunately, I was forced to send one such detainee to the ER, this AM as his nightly tonic of marijuana, alcohol, Morphine and Trazadone proved to be too much for his system to handle, and he proceeded to begin withdrawing on my shift. Nothing like having someone say to you, "Did I eat dog poop last night? Because man, I think I did." Yeeha for drugs. Anyway, after dealing with that situation, I headed to the county clinic, and saw a whopping...five patients. I should note, however, that four of those were from the same family, which brings me to my message of today, responsible parenting.

First, a caveat. As a parent myself, I know that having a child (or children), while a blessing, can be a very emotionally draining and tiring job. Anyone who says "being a stay-at-home mom/dad is just a cop out" is either a very crummy parent, or doesn't have kids of their own. That aside, if you have children, you should at least act concerned for their general welfare. The foursome I saw this morning was composed of sick nine- month old twins, a "sick" two year old, and a mom with the apparent interest of a crab cake, who stated that she had had a cold for "three months." Her affect was flat, her teeth rotting, and she didn't seem to care that her children had snotty pools instead of noses, and from the smell of it, had been in a pooping contest half an hour before. As I listened to her complain about how her kids were keeping her up at night, how they interrupted her meeting yesterday, and how sick her three-month cold was making her, it occurred to me that she had not once mentioned what was affecting her children. After (unsuccessfully) redirecting the conversation multiple times back to her sick kiddos, I finally just gave up, and proceeded to perform my physical exam.

With the exception of one of the twins, everyone was fine. The mother had allergies, and the older kid and the other twin had colds. The first twin, however, had bilateral wheezes in his lungs, and had lots of pooling snot around in his nose. Since it 'tis the season for RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus - a potentially deadly respiratory virus that affects infants), and I have jack squat at the county clinic for pediatric patients, I decided that the twin needed to be referred to one of the free peds clinics. I explained the situation to the mother, who simply sat there and responded..."do you think I need braces?" I almost went ninja on her. If someone told me "hey, your kid might be really sick, and might have to go to the hospital," I would like to think I would be able to concentrate on my child, and not the alignment of my teeth. Once again, I'm not trying to say "hey, poo poo on this mom," because Lord knows, if she's in the shelter she has a lot more problems than I do. I simply think that if you become a parent, especially if you're a repeat offender, you need to take responsibility for your children. While dental health is very important, all the orthodontic work in the world won't take away the pain of a deceased child.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. Everyday children are born to parents who either don't want them or have no idea how to care for them. We as a society like to think that these cases are unique to the ghettos and urban barrios of our country, while in fact they exist in the poshest neighborhoods across the nation. The question then arises "what do we do about it?" Are there enough social funds available to educate potential parents about childrearing? Is it the role of government agencies to teach these, in most cases, children how to raise children of their own? My opinion is no. As parents we have the responsibility to lead our children, not only by word, but by example. Social change has to come from within, and from the bottom up. That said, we can't expect 9 month olds to understand the importance of safe sex and good citizenship. The onus lies on us to "teach our children well," and hopefully their children, and their children's children will benefit from the work we've done.

And now for the disability quotes of the day:

When asked if the patient ever saw or heard anything that other people didn't, he looked around and responded, "Oh yeah, I see...(whispered) dead people."

Me: "So, is there anything that you can identify that causes your chest pain?"
Claimant: "Well, this one time, my husband was mowing the lawn with a ridin' mower, and I got chest pain for three days."
Me: "That's an excuse to get out of mowing the lawn if I ever heard one."
Claimant: "Huh?"

Have a great weekend,

-DD