A Safe Place to Be Till The Folks Calm Down

By Steve Lopez/Minneapolis

Anita Inamagua remembers every detail from that day in July. She was standing frozen in the kitchen of her home in Minneapolis, Minn., and she was every parent who has come within an inch of losing her temper. Vicente, her 3-year-old, with the body of a bull and the smile of an angel, had taken a jug of milk and painted the floor white. He then dumped a jar of pickles into the mess.

Anita dug her fingers into her eyes to stop the shower of sparks. Several years earlier, when she had felt the same welling rage, a wallop left welts on her oldest daughter's arm. So this time Anita retreated, picked up the phone and called for help. And the calming voice at the other end of the line almost broke her in half. Anita, an imperfect parent like most, wept tears of sorrow and relief.

The place that rescued Anita and her kids that day was the Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery, which opened in 1983 as a haven where parents on the edge could leave their children for as many as three days at a stretch, at no charge. From the start, it had a full house almost every night. And so they opened another one last February, just north of the city. It too has a full house almost every night. The calls come in 24 hours a day, more than 4,000 altogether last year.

This is no glorified babysitting service. Mom can't swing by with a sob story about the pressures of modern parenting, unload her brood and zip off to the spa. The screening questions are intense, and parents--75% of whom earn less than $10,000 a year--have to map out a recovery plan. If there's a hint of abuse, a call goes out to the county child-welfare authorities.

Dozens of such centers now operate around the U.S., says Jill Kagan of the National Respite Coalition, and there is mounting evidence that without them, the U.S. tally of bumps, bruises and worse would be even more shameful than it is: more than a million cases of child abuse and neglect in 1997; more than 1,000 deaths. Senator Paul Wellstone, a Minnesota Demo-crat, has introduced a bill to restore cuts in federal funding for crisis nurseries. Is it possible parents can abuse such a service? Maybe, says A. Sidney Johnson, president of Prevent Child Abuse America. "But we need to err on the side of protecting the child."

Sara Pearson was working the phones at the crisis nursery the day Anita called about little Vicente. Anita had used the service before, so Pearson knew her story: the rocky marriage, the learning-disabled kids, the paycheck that barely covers the bills even when her husband works two jobs. "She loves her children, and I know she's trying," says Pearson, 28, a former Peace Corps worker. Anita, 29, has six children, but Yoralis is 9 and Jessica 8, and the nursery takes kids 6 and under only. So Anita brought in Yoel, 4; Vicente, 3; Edwin, 2; and Romeo, 1.

The boys did fine over the next three days. With 90 paid staff members, private contributions that cover 80% of the budget, and 600 volunteers, the nursery gives each child lots of attention. Yoel loved the mashed potatoes. Vicente kept falling off the bed at naptime, keeping his brothers awake. On the third day, Yoel woke from a nap in tears, as if he knew what was going on at home.

"This marriage is broken," Anita sighed in her living room, and her husband acknowledged their troubles. Vicente Sr., 26, fidgeted with a piece of clay. A short-order cook with a knack for sculpting, he molded a strikingly good devil. Anita reached for something to wipe her tears, and the nearest thing was a small flag of her husband's native Ecuador.

The day after the kids came home from the nursery, Anita and her husband argued, he stormed away, and Vicente Jr. emptied the refrigerator onto the floor again. Anita screamed, at her flashpoint once more, and in the weeks that followed she saw little hope for change.

But Pearson, with saintly resolve, stuck with the case, stopping by the house and appealing to Anita's fortitude. "My husband and I are both in counseling," Anita says. The kids are in Head Start. Romeo is walking. And Vicente Jr. has stopped playing with his food.

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