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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."
Not who or what you think they are.
All power to the Meitivs.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
The "child protection" services have all the apparent responsibilities of caring, without having to pay the price for the efforts they demand. That's why they are intrinsically biased in favor of perpertually inflating the needs of childs and the duties of caretakers... to the point of ridiculous extremes.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
... to the long list of reasons i don't consider the US a good place to live in.
With rules like this, no wonder you have 40 year old virgins living in their parents' basements.
I remember back in the day playing miles from home in the hills up past the artillery range.
I also remember breaking my arm on such a trip, and having to push my bike home one-handed.
Not something I think Maryland CPS would have approved of, I suspect.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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.
Yeah, there are cops out there who shoot children. They might think the kid's backpack is a thermal nuclear device or assault rifle and shoot him on site.
This is the kind of story I think of when I hear that these agencies need more money. It seems to me they are overstaffed and overfunded if they have time for activities like this.
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By the time I was 10, not only did I have a paper route that took me a few miles from home, I had a bike that gave me greater range. This was the late 70's to early 80's. Was normal. Today we have cellphones, gps and people are tripping because a 6 & 10 year old was walking home together?
I don't believe the USA is more violent then it was before, I believe that people are just more aware of bad shit that happens because you have a non stop stream of information, pictures and videos coming from various sources. Bad shit happens, yes, but it doesn't mean you need to lock your kids in your house and never let them out of your sight.
Be seeing you...
well our bus stop was 7km away. And there was a lot of broken glass, and of course bare feet and snow and stuff.
On a more seruous note. The city must be very safe if the police don't have anything better to do than be a Chief Wiggum level dumb arse.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
The sad thing is that this probably happened in a mid-level neighborhood. If it was a poor slum the police wouldn't care if the kids walked 5 miles under snow and surrounded by gang members.
In the absence of obvious abuse, the simple test should be: is the child fed, clothed, sheltered, and schooled?
The sadder state of affairs is that a child justifiably separated from his/her parents by the State is unlikely to do much better in the foster parent system.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Go in any of those "evil socialist" countries that have all those things, and see if parents get in trouble for letting a kid walk a mile. It has nothing to do with it.
This is a state of black/white strong opinion. Thats where the problem lies and why shit like this happens.
I spent a few years of my childhood in Mass. and regularly walked to school since 1st grade - that was just under two miles each way. (Yeah, in the cold, waist-deep in snow, uphill both ways....) This is pathetic. After school many of us kids ranged all over the town playing in streams, walking the residential streets, etc. Times have changed, but I don't think this is for the better.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
The police in the DC area appear to have very strong beliefs that children should be accompanied very closely by parents at all times. About a year ago, my wife and I were walking to the air and space museum with our 8 year old daughter and her 8 year old cousin in DC. We walked by a park and the children thought it would be fun to walk through the park and meet us on the other side. They were stopped in the middle of the park by a police officer who demanded to know where their parents were. They pointed at us, about 50 feet away. The police officer first demanded that we come meet him in the middle of the park to pick up the children and, after we refused, settled for escorting them the 50 feet to meet us.
We felt like the officer was acting ludicrously and a royal jerk. It's discomforting to see that this problem is more wide spread, so I hope these parents are able to get the police and CPS to back down. I completely agree that children do not magically become grownups on their 18th birthday, they need to slowly expand their boundaries and comfort zone over time as they grow into adults.
There's a neighborhood "liveability" metric called the Popsicle Test: can a kid get to a store on her own, buy a popsicle, and get home again before it melts?
Today, unlike before WWII, most residential neighborhoods in the USA probably won't pass this liveability test. What's worse is we simply aren't allowed to build neighborhoods like that anymore because small neighborhood corner stores violate single-use zoning laws, and because we've decided that moving auto traffic quickly is more important than pedestrian safety. (In fact, they removed roadside trees because motorists kept hitting them. Now motorists hit pedestrians instead. How's that for progress?) So we've legislated our own independence away.
"So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause."
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.