Reply #16: now that we know his side of the story, i'm not trying to judge, BUT

[Blue_Tires]

10 kids? and the 10th kills the mother in childbirth? Where are the friends or extended family???

IMO, if you cannot survive even a year on your own before throwing in the towel and ditching the whole lot, then i'm willing to bet the financial/domestic situation wasn't all that rosy even when the wife was still alive...Dude is in his 50s -- wasn't there any forward planning done with the wife about what would happen if disaster strikes? And I don't care what the story is, leaving them ALL speaks more about the father than his hardships...In extreme cases, i could understand leaving maybe the two youngest, but this is insane...

In my past life as a reporter, I wrote a profile on a woman widowed with 15 kids in suburban D.C. -- married in their early 20s, this couple had a single baby EVERY year for 15 years, and probably would have continued had the father not dropped dead of a heart attack at 39. I know every situation is different, but this woman had friends and family to help out, and the household was structured so every kid had specific chores, and a responsibility to look out for someone younger while the mother worked during the day.

I would hope the father in Nebraska at least tried to arrange something like that while keeping his job, which was the only source of income. I mean, damn...You're the ONLY breadwinner, and you QUIT your job? I know he was undergoing some kind of deep depression, but this was not the way to deal with it...At least he didn't drown them in the bathtub...