The article mentioned they cant go after kids that were abandoned for 10 or more of their first 18 years.
Seems kind of arbitrary. So if Mom gives you up at age 9, you're still on the hook for her nursing home costs 40 years later? Fuck that shit.
EDIT: Also, that seems to be merely the Pennsylvania implementation of the statute. I looked up North Carolina's and there's NOTHING about an abandonment exemption.
If any person being of full age, and having sufficient income after reasonably providing for his or her own immediate family shall, without reasonable cause, neglect to maintain and support his or her parent or parents, if such parent or parents be sick or not able to work and have not sufficient means or ability to maintain or support themselves, such person shall be deemed guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor; upon conviction of a second or subsequent offense such person shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
If there be more than one person bound under the provisions of the next preceding paragraph to support the same parent or parents, they shall share equitably in the discharge of such duty. (1955, c. 1099; 1969, c. 1045, s. 3; 1993, c. 539, s. 227; 1994, Ex. Sess., c. 24, s. 14(c).)
The NC version appears to at least address splitting the burden, but it's those terms like "sufficient" and "reasonable" that are the crux of the problem. The nursing home might find me feeding my kids pop tarts for breakfast each day and having $50 a month leftover after expenses to be sufficient and reasonable. I would not.
This is actually for some concern to me. My father surrendered full custody to my mother when I was 3. My mother surrendered full custody to her parents when I was 6. FUCK BOTH OF THEM. My father isn't an issue--he's got more money than I do. My mother, however, is an abject failure with numerous health issues. She's currently living rent-free in the house I grew up in, which I technically own and have no legal right to remove her or sell the property until she dies. Like hell I'm paying one dime for her.