ALSO TODAY:

> Table Talk
Internet addict clicks her children away

Time for one thing
Laura Nyro

- - - - - - - - - -

YESTERDAY:

Birth doctor, mother, abortionist
A woman on the front lines of America's most emotionally charged debate

- - - - - - - - - -

Mamafesto
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

Newsletter
Win a set of
signed Anne
Lamott books
when you
sign up

_______________

PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER

Internet addict clicks her kids away

Police say an Ohio woman left her children in squalor while she surfed the Net.

their mommy had to have her fix. And with the click of a mouse, she apparently got it. While Sandra Hacker logged onto America Online and wandered the endless corridors of the Internet, her three children sat in squalor, according to Cincinnati police.

The children, ages 2, 3 and 5, were found in a room littered with human feces on the floors, walls and ceilings. Urine stood in a puddle; glass and garbage was scattered. A refrigerator held only a few edible items.

On June 14, responding to a call from a local child protection service, police arrested Sandra Hacker and charged her with three counts of child endangerment. The children have been placed in the custody of their father, who was the person who had notified the protection service. He said his estranged wife was addicted to the Internet.

"Inside the house, the computer room was the only room that was clean," Cincinnati police Officer Greg Berting said. "It was a $2,500 computer sitting in a house of filth, basically."

Hacker wasn't addicted to drugs or alcohol, but she was allegedly addicted all the same. Do you believe she was addicted to the Internet? Is it possible to understand or even excuse such an addiction? Or do you think Hacker is simply a monster? Have you ever had an addiction, or needed something so badly that you neglected everything else in your life? Join the discussion in Table Talk.
June 24, 1997