“Woman accused in Tenn. baby grab staying in jail - KVIA.com” plus 3 more

Woman accused in Tenn. baby grab staying in jail - KVIA.com
DOCS books baby into rehab with alcoholic mother - News.com.au
Essex Woman Sentenced for Baby Shaking Case - WCAX
Baby Bundle: Japan's Cash Incentive for Parenthood - Wall Street Journal

Woman accused in Tenn. baby grab staying in jail - KVIA.com

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 04:18 AM PDT

Associated Press - October 8, 2009 7:25 AM ET

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - An Alabama woman charged with kidnapping a newborn was ordered to remain in federal custody after a court appearance in Tennessee.

Tammy Renee Silas is charged in the September 29th abduction of a 4-day-old baby boy, taken after his mother was stabbed at their Nashville home. The baby was found unharmed with Silas in Ardmore, Ala., last week.

A Nashville magistrate said yesterday that the 39-year-old defendant must remain in jail and set a bond hearing for Oct. 27th.

Public defender Isaiah Gant asked for an interpreter for the case, explaining that while Silas speaks English and Spanish she needs an interpreter to fully understand the legal complexities.

Silas' live-in boyfriend, Martin Rodriguez, earlier said he was shocked by the arrest and thought Silas was adopting a baby from a cousin in Texas who had to go to jail. Rodriguez says he met Silas when they both lived in Nashville. He said Silas is bilingual and was born in Tarrant County, Texas, where she had family. Efforts to locate her relatives for comment were unsuccessful.

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DOCS books baby into rehab with alcoholic mother - News.com.au

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 02:33 PM PDT

A SEVEN-week-old baby could be forced to be with his alcoholic mother as she undertakes rehabilitation because DOCS wants to save time and money.

Baby "Jake" - the fifth child to be removed from the mother's care - has been placed with a foster family.

And even though there is no medical reason why the baby should go to rehab, case workers have booked him into Odyssey House in southwest Sydney with his mother, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Jake's horrified foster carer said that the woman drank all through the pregnancy with her newest son and the carer now fears for his safety.

Jake has thrived with the foster carer after being born at full term weighing just 2.2kg - the weight of a six-week premature baby. In his first three weeks in care, Jake gained 1.5kg.

His carer believes Jake is being sent to rehab so DOCS can avoid the costs and staff time of taking him to three weekly meetings with his mother, visits she has regularly missed.

"Somebody has to transport him, supervise and that costs a bit of money. The only drug rehab they could get the mother into is quite a distance from here," Jake's carer said.

"He came into care as a two-day-old, straight from hospital. He is baby number five of a chronic alcoholic. All four of his older siblings are in long-term foster care."

"They (DOCS) were going to be asking (the court) for him to go into long-term care like his siblings. That was the plan.

"Then they decided the baby can go to rehab with the mother. She's done rehab before and it has not been successful."

For legal reasons baby Jake, not his real name, his mother and foster carer cannot be identified.

DOCS admitted it had decided to send Jake to rehab with his mother but last night, after inquiries from The Daily Telegraph and a complaint by the carer to the NSW Ombudsman, said the decision was under review.

"If the baby is to stay with the mother at Odyssey House, he will be placed in a nursery and receive 24-hour care from specialist staff," a DOCS spokeswoman said.

"While at Odyssey House, the mother's parenting skills will be assessed over a four to six-week period and Community Services will use this assessment to inform future decisions about his care.

"No decision has been made about the long-term care of the baby."

Opposition community services spokeswoman Pru Goward said Jake should remain with his foster carer.

"The community is sick to death of neglectful and abusive parents being given non-stop chances to prove themselves - all the while as the needs of the child come last," she said.

DOCS alerted the carer to the rehab move two days ago, at the same time as the NSW Ombudsman released a damning report into how the department had failed Ebony, the girl whose starvation death shocked the state.

Experts said yesterday a low birth weight was one symptom of foetal alcohol syndrome and if the disability was confirmed, Jake would likely have an intellectual impairment, cognitive difficulties and behavioural problems.

One of his siblings suffers from the condition and Jake has fortnightly appointments at a Sydney hospital with a paediatrician.

Essex Woman Sentenced for Baby Shaking Case - WCAX

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 05:51 AM PDT

Burlington, Vermont - October 8, 2009

An Essex day care provider has been sentenced for severely injuring a child in her care.

Twenty-three-year-old Taryn O'Connor was arrested last year when police say she violently shook a 13-month-old boy at her home day care in Essex. Court papers show she was also dealing with her own children at the time. The 13-month-old suffered head and brain injuries and had to undergo surgery. At the time, O'Connor was already under a court order barring her from any unsupervised contact with children, including her own, stemming from a previous assault charge.

On Wednesday she pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and violating an abuse prevention order. In exchange, prosecutors dropped a count of cruelty to a child. O'Connor was sentenced to six to 15 years behind bars and will be strictly supervised once she's released.

WCAX News

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Baby Bundle: Japan's Cash Incentive for Parenthood - Wall Street Journal

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 11:27 AM PDT

By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI and MIHO INADA

Japan wants to set just the right mood to get its people to make more babies. But forget dinner and candlelight: The government's plan depends heavily on large amounts of cash.

With a worried eye on declining birth rates and an aging population, Japan's new leaders propose offering new parents monthly payments totaling about $3,300 a year for every new child until the age of 15. Other initiatives include more state-supported day care, tuition waivers and other efforts designed to make parenthood more appealing.

Reuters

Despite a declining birth rate, Japan's relatively low spending on child-care services means day-care waiting lists are long.

But experts warn money alone does not a baby make. Governments have a mixed record in pushing up birth rates, as economic inducements sometimes fail to overcome other complex societal forces that affect baby-making decisions.

In Japan, they include the traditional reliance on mothers to perform the bulk of duties in the home, including child-rearing. Demographers say Japan might have more success if they also encourage more Japanese men to come home and do the dishes.

"I myself thought 'I don't want to have a baby again,' " says Yoshie Komuro, a 34-year-old consultant on work-life issues and the mother of a three-year-old son. Women in Japan often forgo a second child because in most households they shoulder most of the domestic burdens of having the first, she says.

But she had a long discussion with her husband about helping with household chores, and they now share the work equally. She looks forward to having a second child soon. "I experienced trauma of feeling isolated from the society while taking care of my first one for the first two months after he was born, as my husband did not change the way he worked," Ms. Komuro says. "But I really want to have the second one this year."

France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and others have offered economic inducements to their citizens to get them to have more babies. Results have been mixed, dividing researchers who study government enticements.

They generally agree on one point: Money goes only so far. Other major factors governments need to consider, apart from a greater role for fathers at home, include the acceptance of working mothers and a supportive corporate culture.

Without other major changes such as shared responsibility for child rearing, "All the money in the world may not make a long-term difference," says David Coleman, a professor of demography at Oxford University.

The spending is to avoid a bigger fiscal price tag for elder care. Japan's birth rate of 1.37 children per average woman means fewer people will have to work harder to pay for Japan's aging population and support its massive debt. To fix that, new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and his Democratic Party of Japan propose boosting government per-child payments to more than three times the top level under the current, more restrictive allowance system.

The DPJ also calls for a boost in the lump-sum payment upon birth to 550,000 yen, or $6,000, a 31% rise from current levels. Other planks include free tuition for high schools and greater spending on day-care facilities. Total cost: $71 billion per year, the party estimates. That's still less than a potentially higher cost of Japan's aging population: The country's public pension spending is already 8.7% of a $4.9 trillion gross domestic product, according to figures from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.

Japan hopes to follow the example of nations like France, which spends 3.8% of GDP on family-friendly policies like inexpensive day care and lengthy parental leave, and has seen its birth rate rise to 2.02 children per average woman. Japan spends 1.3% of its own GDP on family benefits -- a full percentage point below the OECD average, though roughly the same as the U.S.

The government's proposals are meant to counter a variety of Japanese policies and cultural issues believed to discourage parenthood. On the policy front, Japanese tax laws encourage single-income families with a tax deduction that keeps many mothers at home. That slows the development of family-friendly corporate policies and social acceptance of working mothers.

Researchers cite those factors as among the reasons behind one of the most counterintuitive quirks of demographics: Developed countries with more working women also tend to have higher birth rates, because they offer greater parenting assistance such as day care.

"In economies where women are forced to make choices between having kids or having good jobs, they are increasingly deciding they want the job and not the kids," says Patricia Boling, associate professor of political science and women's studies at Purdue University.

Among Group of 10 nations, Japan has the lowest percentage of working mothers with children under the age of two -- around 30%, compared with 54% for the U.S. and 73% for the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, the weak economy has led to increased job insecurity and intensified Japan's already gung-ho work culture. That discourages professional women from motherhood. It also gives professional men less time to spend at home, burdening women with more domestic tasks.

That isn't appealing to some young Japanese woman, who are waiting longer to get married. Yuko Shoji, a 32-year-old office worker who lives on the outskirts of Tokyo with her parents, says she wants to get married and have kids, but she refuses to settle for "just anyone," like many in her parents' generation. "Maybe in the past, women didn't feel they had the right to be selective," she says, "but I want to find a partner, not just a man."

Socially, out-of-wedlock births are heavily discouraged. That is bad news for Japan's birth rate, because single people, especially those of prime child-bearing age, are staying single longer -- narrowing the baby window, if not closing it entirely. The percentage of unmarried men and women between the ages of 30 and 34 has tripled and quadrupled, respectively, according to government statistics.

Tight public day-care capacity is another issue dissuading potential new mothers. Olivier Thévenon, doctoral studies officer at the French National Institute for Demographic Studies, cites a relationship between Japan's birth rate and its spending on child care. According to figures from the OECD, Japan spends 0.32% of its GDP on child-care and early-education services, compared with 0.59% for the average OECD member, where in many cases birth rates are higher.

Japan's health ministry estimates 25,000 parents are on wait lists for day-care facilities. Mina Naito, a Tokyo-based Sony Corp. employee with a 22-month-old daughter, fruitlessly applied for a spot at four government-run day-care facilities when she returned from maternity leave. One private day-care facility told her she was 42nd on their waiting list.

Ms. Naito, who is 36, has no immediate plans for a second child. She eventually found a spot at a day-care center where the tuition is twice as much as at the government-run facilities.

"I didn't realize how hard it was going to be," she says.

-- Carlos Tejada contributed to this article.

Write to Daisuke Wakabayashi at Daisuke.Wakabayashi@wsj.com and Miho Inada at miho.inada@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A16