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Parents Investigated For Neglect For Letting Kids Walk Home Alone
HughPickens.com writes The WaPo reports that Danielle and Alexander Meitiv in Montgomery County Maryland say they are being investigated for neglect after letting their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter make a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. "We wouldn't have let them do it if we didn't think they were ready for it," says Danielle. The Meitivs say they believe in "free-range" parenting, a movement that has been a counterpoint to the hyper-vigilance of "helicopter" parenting, with the idea that children learn self-reliance by being allowed to progressively test limits, make choices and venture out in the world. "The world is actually even safer than when I was a child, and I just want to give them the same freedom and independence that I had — basically an old-fashioned childhood," says Danielle. "I think it's absolutely critical for their development — to learn responsibility, to experience the world, to gain confidence and competency."
On December 20, Alexander agreed to let the children walk from Woodside Park to their home, a mile south, in an area the family says the children know well. Police picked up the children near the Discovery building, the family said, after someone reported seeing them. Alexander said he had a tense time with police when officers returned his children, asked for his identification and told him about the dangers of the world. The more lasting issue has been with Montgomery County Child Protective Services which showed up a couple of hours later. Although Child Protective Services could not address this specific case they did point to Maryland law, which defines child neglect as failure to provide proper care and supervision of a child. "I think what CPS considered neglect, we felt was an essential part of growing up and maturing," says Alexander. "We feel we're being bullied into a point of view about child-rearing that we strongly disagree with."
On December 20, Alexander agreed to let the children walk from Woodside Park to their home, a mile south, in an area the family says the children know well. Police picked up the children near the Discovery building, the family said, after someone reported seeing them. Alexander said he had a tense time with police when officers returned his children, asked for his identification and told him about the dangers of the world. The more lasting issue has been with Montgomery County Child Protective Services which showed up a couple of hours later. Although Child Protective Services could not address this specific case they did point to Maryland law, which defines child neglect as failure to provide proper care and supervision of a child. "I think what CPS considered neglect, we felt was an essential part of growing up and maturing," says Alexander. "We feel we're being bullied into a point of view about child-rearing that we strongly disagree with."
this chart might have some value:
http://www.latchkey-kids.com/l...
it's about being left home alone, but the idea is the same: the age at which a child can be left to fend for themselves for a few hours, legally
the age of 8 for maryland listed here doesn't take into account the concept of a babysitter, which the 10 year old could qualify as
this suggests the parents should be fine, by legal precedent, rather than philosophical inspection, which of course immediately suggests the asshole busybody that called the police needs to get a fucking life, and the cops should have just given the kids a ride or asked how they were and then told to have a nice day and drove off
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Matters to me.
I read this site for news about technology and my rights.
When society imposes upon me the way in which I choose to raise my children, especially when that imposition results in a legal liability, I think that sort of thing matters.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
When I was a child, you had to live at least a mile and a quarter from the school to qualify for the bus. Everyone else walked. This was considered absolutely normal. When I was in first grade, I went with some of the neighbor kids. I was six, and this was elementary school, so the oldest kid in the group was probably 10? Crime rates in the US are much lower today than they were then. Just dumb.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
It's been broken and invalid for at least 13 years. No one gives a shit, at least those that can fix it.
Well someone fucked it up good and proper in the last 2 days. The layout is now totally borked on Safari 6.1, whereas at the start of the week it was perfectly fine.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Per the NYC Department of Education children 5 and above are expected to walk up to 0.5 miles to school. Children between 5 and 11 are expected to walk up to 1 mile, and children 12 and above up are expected to walk or bike up to 1.5 miles to school.
Being run over by a car is by far the most likely tragety to occur to a child walking home from school so I looked up ped/bike fatalities in Maryland, and it is 1.88 per 100,000. This is actually lower than NYC, which had 2.00 such deaths per 100,000.
From TFA:
I think the whole family just learned that.
I'd love to second this.
My sister-in-law just had a baby and she's addicted to heroine. She went to a methadone clinic while pregnant, but the baby was technically addicted when he was born so they said they were required to call children services (probably not a bad idea, I was upset that *NOTHING* was done when his older brother was born addicted to heroine).
So CPS setup a "safety plan" which simply says that my wife and her other sister will supervise all contact between my druggie sister-in-law and her baby. That's all fine, until you try to get clarification on what they mean by that. My wife works nights, so she's home during the day and supervises the contact. That means she must be in the same room as her sister-in-law AT ALL TIMES (can't even go to the bathroom alone according to CPS). It also means she's not allowed to sleep; not even if the baby is asleep and not even if my sister-in-law leaves. At night, my sister-in-law was given certain hours she's allowed to sleep, she can't sleep outside those hours, and if the baby wakes up, she must wake up before the addict sister-in-law (how can you guarantee that?)
After Christmas, they canceled the night shift during inventory and made it mandatory for my wife to work during the day and gave her less then 24 hours notice. It sucks, but she was laid off in November and this was the best option she could find. That meant both of the approved supervisors had to be at work at the same time, so my addict sister-in-law called to ask what to do and made several reasonable suggestions like could she drop off the baby with my wife, leave, let me watch the baby all day, then after my wife came home, then return so there was no unsupervised contact between the two. CPS said either one of the supervisor would have to miss work even if that meant losing their job or the addict could break the safety plan and CPS would assume custody of the child. I was listening to the conversation on speaker phone so after they elaborating on how all day care or baby sitting is unacceptable that the baby must be in the prescience of one of the two approved supervisors at all time. After awhile of them providing no options, she got a supervisor and eventually (like 45 minutes later) they agreed to add me to the safety plan so I could watch him.
If Job and Family services mission is to strengthen families, how are they doing that? They've added a lot of stress, they haven't outlined what's acceptable (if its says supervise contact, then if she's not there, there is no contact). They've said his own grandparents, aunts (other then the two), uncles, father, etc aren't allowed to watch him. My wife and supervisor sister-in-law are both mothers (sister-in-law a single mother) so how would them losing their job by not showing up (which they would do to prevent my nephew from entering foster care) strengthening families. Why would you setup a safety plan without even talking to my wife? Why would you think its practical to require one of two people to watch my nephew at all times (imagine if this were a typical family and you said only mom or dad could EVER watch the child)?
I wish I could say this surprised me, but three times I've had to deal with CPS before this (the law says they have to do an investigation on any report; all three times the determination was there was no evidence of neglect) and one time the "investigation" which by law must be completed with 30 days although they can apply for an extension to 45 days took over 3 months. Keep in mind the case worker's supervisor supervisor told me the law, sent me a letter saying they were in violation of the law, but a year later their records indicated they took 22 days to close the investigation. Thus they falsified documents and I can prove it as I have the paper work from when they first showed up at my house and the letter stating that there was no evidence supporting neglect.
They also will not let parents drink unless they take the beverage and pour it into a red cup. Their justif
To contact Chief Manger:
By e-mail: MCPDChief@montgomerycountymd.gov
By mail: Chief Manger
Montgomery County Police Department
100 Edison Park Drive, 3rd floor
Gaithersburg, MD 20878
In Japan they have something called "first errand". Young school children, say 5 or 6, are given a simple task to do such as go to the local shop and buy a specific item, then bring it home. The school organizes this and gets the parents to come in and help by watching the children from a distance. Adults are not allowed to help the children unless they get into serious difficulty.
By that age, many Japanese children are already walking home on their own. Granted, Japan is much safer than a few parts of the US, but even so it demonstrates how in the west we treat children as far less capable than they actually are. It's not just respnsibilities and safety either, they consider children's emotions to be genuine and to be respected, rather than trivialized and ignored or even punished like the west does.
There .. fixed that for you. Don't believe what the media tells you, it's really not that bad over here. Children are more at risk from their family and family friends than strangers.
Other than that, I agree with the concept 100%.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
I do not know about Maryland in specific, but I have an Aunt that is a Guardian Ad Litem for children in another state. As soon as CPS is involved, you as a parent are essentially fucked. You will be forever on a watch list an if _anything_ bad happens to your kids they will immediately get involved.
They have very broad powers to reomove children after a report like this and even if discussing it with a lawyer would have brought them back same day, the CPS still could have taken the kids.
I suppose it does reinforce the lesson that authority should be mistrusted.
In the interests of discussing facts rather than emotional reactions, does anyone know:
(a) whether the CPS worker was actually authorised to act in that way (i.e., following official procedures and lawfully permitted)
(b) what legal weight the parents signing such an agreement in that situation would have had, and
(c) whether the CPS worker, or someone they immediately contacted, would have had the legal authority to immediately remove the children forcibly in that situation if the parents had refused to sign?
I unfortunately had a run in with CPS when my son was born and while they don't have the power to take them on the spot, what they recommend to the judge is what happens. While going through that we hired a lawyer and luckily my parents were friends with an ex-CPS worker from one of the counties involved (I had two counties to deal with in this case) who moved in down the street from them. Basically whatever a Nurse/Doctor/Cop/Teacher/etc.. says is taken as gospel in these cases and the parents are treated as villains regardless of a lack of evidence (or even basic common sense regarding the accusation).
The lawyer we hired was dealing with another case almost identical to ours. They unfortunately didn't control their gut reactions to these injustices (and it is very difficult when they are threatening your family like that) and the 2 month old child was removed from their home. 2 years later they were finally getting custody back again.
Both the lawyer and ex-CPS guy also said that even after the issue is "settled" you don't want to try to go after them as they will find some reason to re-open the case or find an excuse to start a new one. People complain about the abuse of power and unaccountability from Cops, but they really don't hold a candle to CPS.
No, they just kidnap your family, put them in an abusive foster home where some kids are killed by their foster parents or other foster kids, and then say it's your fault for being a bad parent.
but even so it demonstrates how in the west we treat children as far less capable than they actually are. It's not just respnsibilities and safety either, they consider children's emotions to be genuine and to be respected, rather than trivialized and ignored or even punished like the west does.
Don't mistake the US for the entire West. Here in Switzerland, very young schoolchildren get on the train by themselves, ride to the appropriate stop, and walk in small groups between destinations on both ends of the route. No adult supervision.
On a side note, kids here are usually bilingual and often trilingual, too.
CPS isn't authorized to take children in a non-emergency situation without a warrant. The 9th circuit ruled it is a violation of the 14th amendment see ROGERS v. COUNTY OF SAN JOAQUIN.
Yes, but much like the secret courts that approval NSA/FBI/CIA spying on citizens the court is a rubber stamp. The CPS worker simply appears in front of a judge (which they can get done outside of court hours) and makes the recommendation to remove your child and the judge follows that recommendation. You don't get to be there or even have a representative. In a few short hours your family is destroyed and will never be the same again even if it does eventually get to be whole again.
To play devil's advocate:
A number of people have stated that the "world" is much safer today than it was in the 80's (and yes, urban North America is significantly safer today than it was then), that fails to account for the fact that children out by themselves are a much rarer sight now, and are seen as an oddity, not commonplace.
Where I'm going with this is that the "world" is in part "safer" because we don't have young children traveling distances unsupervised. We might discover that the kidnapping and abuse rates went up if everyone stopped accompanying their children everywhere they want to go.
Then again, we might not. But as you can see, the argument by itself has some serious flaws.
As for personal recountings:
My grandparents used to spend the entire day unsupervised during the summer, playing on railway tracks/bridges, biking out to the country to go fishing, walking around with friends in the seedier parts of town. My parents used to travel unsupervised between urban areas for extra-curricular lessons, bike/take transit by themselves to friends' places and parks, but have more structured days and more general supervision when not in transit. I had 30 acres of wilderness to spend my time in, so spent much of my youth unsupervised, but checking in with a parent (mine or someone else's) fairly regularly; supervision in a rural setting is pretty silly for the most part. Kids learn how to avoid animals that may attack them, and you know who/where all the people around are -- some stranger wouldn't last very long sitting waiting in the middle of nowhere for a victim to come along. They'd be reported by the kids in the area and an adult would soon find them and ask them what they're up to, and get them to move along.
My kids? They don't really have the time to be unsupervised; there's always an adult accompanying them to wherever they go. This will change as they get older of course -- when they're old enough to babysit, they're old enough to have some independence too.
One other point to bring up: for the most part, abuse and kidnapping is done by someone you know/trust. This usually means that trusting your kids' care to a responsible adult won't decrease the risk of something bad happening all that much.
Uh huh. CPS intervened because you were on a different level of the house. They just happened to by spying on you?
These stories you guys always bring up in these articles are ridiculous. CPS isn't out to "get you". They are understaffed. TAKE CARE OF YOUR CHILDREN.
My guess is that they busted you for something.
I don't know about tompaulco's assertions since they didn't include the state in question, but it's not specifically about them being "out to get you". It's about them taking the view that Mandatory Reporters are always correct and that the parents can't be trusted. Then you throw in the valid cases that they deal with which have to eat at them and understaffing. Finally you add in judges that should be involved to question the claims and decide if removing the child is really in the best interests of said child, but they too frequently see the worst of the worst and just go with what they are told without really questioning.
In my case my wife wanted to have a natural birth and didn't want to do it in a hospital, but at 2 weeks late and a 14.5" head the likelihood of a good outcome outside a hospital would have been low. She was finally convinced about a month before the due date to deliver in the hospital, but then she had to be induced after he was 2 weeks late. Unfortunately she was an unlucky one and got the rare side effect from the induction drugs that actually make the contractions much worse to deal with. In the middle of all that she started demanding to go home and screaming about how "she didn't want this" (how the delivery was happening). I argued with her about the stupidity of trying to leave in that situation. Explicatives were used judiciously. Ultimately we did stay and she had to have a c-section which she really didn't want.
The Nurse reported it to CPS as "the mother said she does not want the child and the father supports her".
4 hours later CPS from the county the hospital was in showed up and started asking questions. She actually seemed pretty decent from what I recall. 2 hours after that the bitch from the county we live in showed up and the 3rd sentence out of her mouth was "I'm here to review if we should take custody of your son". We had a 30 minute conversation where it was obvious that she didn't give a damn what I had to say and ended with "your son will not be allowed to leave the hospital without my approval". I was lucky that my parents had that friend who guided us through getting through that weekend so we could actually take our son home when my wife was discharged. We also got the "sign this action plan or we'll take your son" line as well.
Fast forward to his 2nd week when we are scheduled to have our home inspection. At the advise of our lawyer we had a 3rd party scheduled to be present as a witness. The visit is scheduled for 11am. Our witness gave up and went back to work at 1pm when she had still not showed up or returned any of my phone calls. At 1:30 just after my wife gets in the shower and my son has fallen asleep she finally shows up and bangs on my door until I answer it to find she has a Sheriff in tow. I explain that she is 2.5 hours late, my wife is in the shower, and our witness has already left due to her tardiness so we need to reschedule it. I also stated that the Sheriff was not part of the planned interview and I didn't not wish to have him in my home. Her response was that I either let them in now or she would call the judge to get an order to remove my son. She also refused to let me film the visit and said if I continued with these "delaying tactics" she would have my son removed from the home. To the Sheriff's credit I could see how appalling he found her actions written all over his face.
Ultimately I had no choice but to let them in and walk around.
I count us lucky that she ultimately decided to drop the case a month later. The whole experience was ridiculous and overly antagonistic because she was young and over zealous.
I think the Nurse that started this
Contrary to all the hype on the news whenever it happens, the odds of your child being abducted by a non-family member are exceedingly slim. It happens about 58,000 times a year, which on a per child basis is 0.08% (72 million children in 1999 when the study took place). 99.9% of abductions end with the child being recovered or returned, 90% of them within 24 hours.
Only 115 of those cases were classified as a stereotypical kidnapping (child moved more than 50 miles, held at least one night, held for ransom or intent to permanently keep the child, or the child killed). 57% of kidnappings end with the child recovered, 40% end in the child's death, 3% with the child never found. So as a cause of death, your child is roughly 3x more likely to be killed in a firearms accident, 8x more likely to be killed in a fire, 18x more likely to be poisoned, 22x more likely to drown, and nearly 100x more likely to die in a car accident.
If you ever wanted an example of the stereotype of a government agency preying on people's fears about their safety to amass more power for itself, CPS is it.