Police Investigate Family for Letting Their Kids Walk Home Alone. Parents, We All Need to Fight Back

[Luminous Animal]

I have a couple of problems with the article but, overall, it is worthy to post. Myself, I raised a free range child in the 90s before there was movement. Many of the homeschooling parents in our group did. Nobody talked about it as a social movement, though. We just did. And, millions of parents who don't have resources to "helicopter" their children raise free range children.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/01/16/maryland_parents_investigated_by_the_police_for_letting_their_kids_walk.html

On a recent Saturday afternoon, a 10-year old Maryland boy named Rafi and his 6-year old sister, Dvora, walked home by themselves from a playground about a mile away from their suburban house. They made it about halfway home when the police picked them up. You’ve heard these stories before, about what happens when kids in paranoid, hyperprotective America go to and from playgrounds alone. I bet you can guess the sequence of events preceding and after: Someone saw the kids walking without an adult and called the police. The police tracked down the kids and drove them home. The hitch this time is, when the police got there, they discovered that they were meddling with the wrong family.

Danielle and Alexander Meitiv explicitly ally themselves with the “free range” parenting movement, which believes that children have to take calculated risks in order to learn to be self-reliant. Their kids usually even carry a card that says: “I am not lost. I am a free-range kid,” although they didn’t happen to have it that day. They had carefully prepared their kids for that walk, letting them go first just around the block, then to a library a little farther away, and then the full mile. When the police came to the door, they did not present as hassled overworked parents who leave their children alone at a playground by necessity, or laissez-faire parents who let their children roam wherever, but as an ideological counterpoint to all that’s wrong with child-rearing in America today. If we are lucky, the Meitivs will end up on every morning talk show and help convince American parents that it’s perfectly OK to let children walk without an adult to the neighborhood playground.

Perhaps if they had been black and lived in South Carolina, they would have been arrested like Debra Harrell, the single mother who let her daughter go to the playground while she was working at McDonald’s. As white suburban professionals, the Meitivs experienced a lower level of intrusion, but still one that would make any parent bristle. The police asked for the father’s ID, and when he refused, called six patrol cars as backup. Alexander went upstairs, and the police called out that if he came down with anything else in his hand “shots would be fired,” according to Alexander. (They said this in front of the children, Alexander says.) Soon after, a representative from Montgomery County Child Welfare Services came by and required that the couple sign a “safety plan” promising not to let the children go unsupervised until the following week, when another CPS worker would talk to them. At first, the dad refused, but then the workers told him they would take the kids away if he did not sign.

[Wella]

1. The real problem is that CPS is so inconsistent: they ignore some violence and brutality to the

point where children die at the hands of parents (or their partners), but they obsess over something that is not a crime but a legitimate parental judgement. If it weren't for the fact that they do save some children, I'd be for suspending funding until they get their act together.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/06/local/la-me-adv-child-fatality-20110606
http://www.theawl.com/2014/02/meet-some-of-the-children-who-died-in-los-angeles-because-the-citys-child-protection-system-is-broken

[kelliekat44]

60. You beat me to it. nt

[pnwmom]

2. Unmentioned in most of these reports is the irony that in Silver Springs,

the school district expects even its 5 and 6 year olds to walk to school -- whether or not they're with a 10 year old sibling. Elementary age children don't qualify for a bus unless they live more than a mile away.

Someone should be investigating the Montgomery County School district.

[Luminous Animal]

3. Interesting! Thanks for your post.

[elleng]

9. The Montgomery County school district is one of the best in the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_County_Public_Schools

[joeglow3]

14. Did you even read their post?

It had NOTHING to do with the academics of the school district.

[elleng]

20. 'Someone should be investigating the Montgomery County School district.'

Schools are NOT located here, where it's alleged the children were met by the police.

[pnwmom]

39. This is not the precise location, as you know. The description of the path as being

"near" the Discover building tells us nothing.

But there is also nothing about a parking lot that is so scary, nor streets with stop lights.

Here's another view of Discovery Place. From this ground level angle, it doesn't look nearly as scary as that big bad parking lot. (Click on "street view.&quot

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Discovery+Pl,+Silver+Spring,+MD+20910/@38.994503,-77.027983,3a,52.5y,354h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sGdBIeFfhlL_dtObwUskFhw!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c8b97b5f350f:0x6bb02f4a5b370bee!6m1!1e1

[pnwmom]

44. Yup. And one of the best districts in the country thinks its A-OK

if 5 and 6 year olds walk a mile to school, so the buses are reserved for kids who walk farther. Who are we to argue with the illustrious Montgomery School district?

[blue neen]

4. I have to disagree with Danielle Meitiv.

The world is not safer than when I was a kid.

[elleng]

6. Thanks.

[HERVEPA]

10. Yes. Absolutely is not.

[jberryhill]

13. Why do you believe that?

[blue neen]

16. In reference to this story in particular,

the increase in the number of vehicles on the roads coupled with a decrease in the number of sidewalks.

Another reason would probably be the number of people traveling with guns in their vehicles or on themselves.

I am a Baby Boomer---the sheer number of us was a type of protection when we were out and about.

[jberryhill]

18. More people carry guns there?

What makes you believe that?

[blue neen]

21. I'm making a general guesstimate.

It is true where I live and probably where many Americans live.

[jberryhill]

23. What percentage increase in number of people carrying guns has there been?

The trend has been that fewer people own guns than historically.

More guns are owned by fewer people.

[blue neen]

24. I told you that I made a general guesstimate.

Nowhere does it say that it was iron-clad or make mention of percentages.

It's my opinion and personal experience. The numbers and types of guns probably depends a lot on where one lives.

[jberryhill]

26. Whether "more people carry guns" is not s matter of opinion

It is a numerical fact whether that is true.

I cannot be of the "opinion" that, say, people eat more hot dogs than they did 20 years ago. Additionally whether one person believes it is so based on their own impression of hot dog eating behavior of those known to them is a wholly inappropriate basis for asserting it as a fact.

[blue neen]

29. Have a nice evening.

I'm not interested in arguing with you.

[lunasun]

115. Thank you !

[ND-Dem]

42. your guesstimate is wrong.

[blue neen]

83. Um, your chart only goes to 2008, so it's not really relevant.

Based on personal experience, my perception is that more people probably carry guns in their vehicles and on themselves. Also, your chart only goes to 2008, which was 7 years ago. A lot has transpired in seven years. Remember the NRA and Republicans in Congress declared when President Obama was elected in 2008 that he "was going to take your guns" and gun sales increased dramatically. If that's not true in the area where you live, that's great.

I may be right and I may be wrong. It doesn't matter. Someone asked my opinion, and I gave it. So, if I'm wrong and people are not carrying more guns--well, that's a good thing, and I will be glad.

I never said anything was absolute. I used the terms "probably" and "guesstimate". That's the meaning, a guess. The next time you post stats, though, please use current ones. Thanks.

[ND-Dem]

100. Check again. It goes to 2012. The space between lines represents 4 years and the chart, and line,

carries on after 2008.

Even if it didn't the trend line is clear and it's a pretty well-known fact that the percent of gun ownership is down, even though there's a subset of people who have more guns than ever.

But most people have fewer.

Share of Homes With Guns Shows 4-Decade Decline

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/us/rate-of-gun-ownership-is-down-survey-shows.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Analysis: Fewer U.S. gun owners own more guns

A decreasing number of American gun owners own two-thirds of the nation's guns and as many as one-third of the guns on the planet -- even though they account for less than 1% of the world's population...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/31/politics/gun-ownership-declining/

[jtuck004]

27. Our representative pulled a gun on an unarmed man in a road rage incident. It's not the number

of guns, it's the children and murdering thugs, folks like that who can't seem to be adults with them

Btw, up here around North Idaho and Eastern WA I suspect there has been no increase, because the place is freakin' saturated with weapons in cars and homes.

[jberryhill]

31. Violent crimes are far below what they used to be.

[jtuck004]

32. You should have been there to tell that guy with the gun shoved in his nose.

I'm sure his family would have been comforted at the burial with such news.

[jberryhill]

34. That is a completely irrational response

So, one person getting shot means crime is more frequent than it used to be?

Wait wait don't tell me... It is safer to be traveling in a car than an airplane, because the Air Asia flight went down, right?

[jtuck004]

36. I didn't disagree that the stats are reporting crime is down, and it's disingenuous of you to say so

Typical, it seems.

If you cared about a solution to the problem you would recognize that the irrational response is by people who pull guns on innocent and unarmed people, those who carry them because of a deficiency in their sexual ability, and their owned-lapdog apologists, those who are more concerned about the Master's house burning down than their own.

bye.

[jberryhill]

37. ...and therefore, streets are not safer than they used to be.

Okay.

[pnwmom]

40. Children are more likely to be injured or killed driving in a car

than abducted by a stranger while walking outside. And these parents are well aware of that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/why-are-we-criminalizing-childhood-independence/2015/01/15/bf9da446-9ccb-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html

[Luminous Animal]

15. I believe she is speaking specifically to the stranger danger threat to lives of children living in the U.S.

And yes, as I noted in the OP, there are some issues that I have with the article one of those being the myopia of the parents towards people outside of the economic sphere… both globally and domestically.

She is absolutely spot on about the threat to life and limb in regards to children and cars vs stranger abduction. And yet, people put their children in cars near every day.

[blue neen]

17. It was an interesting article.

Definitely thought-provoking.

[pnwmom]

68. Violent crime is down. It just doesn't appear that way because of media coverage today. n/t

[blue neen]

85. Thanks for the many responses.

You have your opinion, and I have mine. I'm not going to argue with you. Have a good evening, pnwmom.

[pnwmom]

86. Thanks for your many posts. n/t

[NutmegYankee]

87. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. nt

[blue neen]

95. You're quite welcome, even though I didn't post, or pretend to post, any facts.

Merely my opinions. Adios.

[NutmegYankee]

96. You rejected an obvious and true fact as opinion.

That's highly disturbing considering that is the modus operandi of our opponents on the right when discussing science.

[blue neen]

97. What is highly disturbing is that you are trying to insinuate that I agree with people on the right.

Why don't you just go ahead and say exactly what you think, instead of making a thinly veiled insinuation?

[NutmegYankee]

103. Why do you dismiss facts as opinions?

[elleng]

5. This is the intersection near where,

according to the story, the children were met by the police.



I live near it, and am glad they were taken home from there. It is a very busy intersection, and in my opinion is not safe, traffic-wise, for young children to navigate.

[blue neen]

8. Mrs. Meitiv says this:

"She added: “Abductions are extremely rare. Car accidents are not. The number one cause of death for children of their age is a car accident.”

The picture you posted shows why she is contradicting herself. The possibility for accidents at that intersection is astounding. It's no place for pedestrians at all, let alone children who are walking unsupervised.

[elleng]

11. Exactly my point, blue neen.

Thanks.

[blue neen]

12. .

[hfojvt]

25. when I was a young lad

my sister and I went walking around my grandparents house. In the fairly big city of Madison, Wisconsin. Grandparents lived on Mifflin street, just one block from the very busy Washington Avenue. We were small town kids, although we had done some camping and travel too, my mom's family being in New York, we'd been there a few times. I was perhaps seven or eight, my sister nine or ten. It seems like I had only recently learned to read, because I was reading every sign I saw - out loud.

So finally we were standing there waiting to cross the busy Washington Avenue, and the light was not changing, and not changing. I am standing there reading signs, and sign, sign everywhere there was a sign. Blocking all the scenery, breaking my mind. Finally my sister had had enough, and she snaps at me "will you quit reading all the stupid signs" just as I happened to read a sign that said "push button for walk signal".

So she was "wait a minute, what did you just say?" I repeated "push button for walk signal". She asked "where did you see that?" So I pointed to the sign I had just read. For some reason, it did not occur to me to press the button myself. Big sister, after all, was leading this expotition. I was just there to read signs.

This was in 1969 or so. Two kids wandering around a big city, a city where they did not even live.

Then again, I remember the first time I went around the block across the street in my hometown. Got to the other side of the block and ran into some kid who threatened to beat me up. I was maybe six.

There also was the time when I was perhaps thirteen, leading my 11 and 10 year old siblings home from the circus, across from the junior high that we all eventually walked to and from, about a mile away. A strange lady stopped and asked if we wanted a ride. I said no, that we would walk. Turns out the lady was our next door neighbor, and I, doofus that I am, did not recognize her. I had been walking from that place since the 5th grade when once I missed my car pool ride after band practice and had to run to the grade school about a mile and a half away, hauling a trumpet.

If it was good enough for me, it's good enough for today's kids.

[blue neen]

28. Sounds like you had a great childhood.

Ah, the 60's....always loved that song, "Signs"!

[Divernan]

47. Walking to the high school for Friday night football games every fall.

1959 - Small town America/county seat of a farming community - back when families were one car and parents were not chauffeurs to teenage kids. So my friends and I - walking 2 miles on crisp fall evenings, with the smell of burning leaves in the air - to see Friday night games. Saturday nights, weather permitting, we'd walk about the same distance back and forth to the local CYO to dance to the juke box. And we didn't lock our doors back then either. Very, very good times. Now? That farming community became a distant suburb to Chicago - crime rates are up, and the local cops dress and arm themselves like they're in Kandahar Province. Nobody walks anywhere at night.

Lost in the Fifties Tonight
RONNIE MILSAP
"Lost In The Fifties Tonight"

Close your eyes, baby
Follow my heart
Call on the memories
Here in the dark
We'll let the magic
Take us away
Back to the feelings
We shared when they played

In the still of the night
Hold me darlin', hold me tight
So real, so right
Lost in the fifties tonight

These precious hours
We know can't survive
But loves all that matters
While the past is alive
Now and for always
Till time disappears
We'll hold each other
Whenever we hear

In the still of the night
Hold me darlin', hold me tight
So real, so right
Lost in the fifties tonight

[Silent3]

57. Looking at a scene and imagining all the possibilities for accidents...

...does not constitute a valid risk assessment.

What you really seem to be saying is "I have irrational fears and dammit, I'm entitled to them!"

[blue neen]

84. I gave my opinion.

I'm not really sure why you felt the need to be rude in your response.

I'm sorry we can't chat further. I have to get back to my studies at the Insurance Underwriters Academy.

[elleng]

89. I agree with you 100%.

Thanks again.

[Silent3]

92. I said what I said precisely because "I gave my opinion"...

...is also an incredibly poor method of risk assessment, and you were sounding just like someone who has this all too common, and all too wrong, attitude that claiming you have an opinion is, in and of itself, supposed to elevate the importance of what you're saying, or grant it some special place of respect and significance.

The truth is that people in general, not just you, but all humans, are TERRIBLE at off-the-cuff risk assessment. It's much smarter to doubt your feelings about imagined risk and look to more objective measures.

[blue neen]

94. Oh, the irony:

"you were sounding just like someone who has this all too common, and all too wrong, attitude that claiming you have an opinion is, in and of itself, supposed to elevate the importance of what you're saying, or grant it some special place of respect and significance."

Priceless.

[Silent3]

99. What, it's "ironic" because that's my opinion about an opinion?

That humans are terrible at off-the-cuff risk assessment is a well-documented fact, not a mere opinion.

[pnwmom]

67. We don't know that the kids had to walk through that intersection.

The definition of being "near" Discovery Place is rather broad -- the poster just chose to show you a scary photo, though if you look, most of the cars are in a parking lot. But we don't know the kids were walking on that side of Discovery Place.

And there are other shots "near" Discovery Place that look very different. Such as this one:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Discovery+Pl,+Silver+Spring,+MD+20910/@38.9948097,-77.0280221,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c8b97b5f350f:0x6bb02f4a5b370bee

[pnwmom]

74. We don't know the route the children took. Discovery Place can be approached

from the North, South, East, and West, and each angle would show a different view. You think the parking lot view is scary. Do you think it looks so scary from the angle below?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Discovery+Pl,+Silver+Spring,+MD+20910/@38.9948097,-77.0280221,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c8b97b5f350f:0x6bb02f4a5b370bee

Do you think a 10 year old can't walk safely here, either?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Discovery+Pl,+Silver+Spring,+MD+20910/@38.9945571,-77.0280446,3a,75y,180h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s5WkJv-V6B6Dk2aMgEmYq1A!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c8b97b5f350f:0x6bb02f4a5b370bee!6m1!1e1

[kcr]

98. The children were driving a car? n/t

[rpannier]

33. Looks like several areas in downtown Gwangju (South Korea)

Children in this country seem to 'navigate' it just fine without the police getting involved
Just because something doesn't look safe does not mean children cannot navigate it quite safely

[pnwmom]

72. It looks like mostly a parking lot from that angle.

And from this angle it doesn't look too scary:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Discovery+Pl,+Silver+Spring,+MD+20910/@38.9948097,-77.0280221,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c8b97b5f350f:0x6bb02f4a5b370bee

[pnwmom]

41. "Near" means nothing much -- assuming a parking lot is so scary.

They could just as easily have been "near" Discovery Place if they were here:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Discovery+Pl,+Silver+Spring,+MD+20910/@38.994503,-77.027983,3a,52.5y,354h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sGdBIeFfhlL_dtObwUskFhw!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c8b97b5f350f:0x6bb02f4a5b370bee!6m1!1e1

[Luminous Animal]

46. So sad. My daughter knew at the age of two to stop until the walk signal came on and

even then, to look both ways to ensure the cars were stopped. We taught her this lesson while holding her hand and only moved forward (while still holding her hand) when we gave the say so. We gradually worked up to her giving the say so. By age 4, she had it down and was adorable doing so. Until age 15 or 16, she never ever saw us jaywalk no matter how empty the street and how safe the crossing.

[Ilsa]

55. Wow...not a quaint family neighborhood,

but a multiple zoned area with all kinds of truck traffic. No way would I let my kids wander and try to judge traffic here.

[pnwmom]

70. We don't know where the kids were walking except if was "near" Discovery Place.

Here is a photo of Discovery Place. It would all depend on exactly where they were walking; which direction they were walking to and from, and whether the busy streets they had to cross had lights.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Discovery+Pl,+Silver+Spring,+MD+20910/@38.9948097,-77.0280221,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c8b97b5f350f:0x6bb02f4a5b370bee

[gollygee]

78. The older kid was 10, so not a young child

and I assume any intersection there has lights for crossing at. A 6-year-old alone would be too young but a 10-year-old could handle that and handle getting a 6-year-old sibling back too.

[unrepentant progress]

7. Every time one of these stories comes out (and there are so many of them now)...

I share this essay from Michael Chabon.

The Wilderness of Childhood

When I was growing up, our house backed onto woods, a thin two-acre remnant of a once-mighty wilderness. This was in a Maryland city where the enlightened planners had provided a number of such lingering swaths of green. They were tame as can be, our woods, and yet at night they still filled with unfathomable shadows. In the winter they lay deep in snow and seemed to absorb, to swallow whole, all the ordinary noises of your body and your world. Scary things could still be imagined to take place in those woods. It was the place into which the bad boys fled after they egged your windows on Halloween and left your pumpkins pulped in the driveway. There were no Indians in those woods, but there had been once. We learned about them in school. Patuxent Indians, they’d been called. Swift, straight-shooting, silent as deer. Gone but for their lovely place names: Patapsco, Wicomico, Patuxent.

A minor but undeniable aura of romance was attached to the history of Maryland, my home state: refugee Catholic Englishmen, cavaliers in ringlets and ruffs, pirates, battles, the sack of Washington, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Harriet Tubman, Antietam. And when you went out into those woods behind our house, you could feel all that history, those battles and dramas and romances, those stories. You could work it into your games, your imaginings, your lonely flights from the turmoil or torpor of your life at home. My friends and I spent hours there, braves, crusaders, commandos, blues and grays.

But the Wilderness of Childhood, as any kid could attest who grew up, like my father, on the streets of Flatbush in the Forties, had nothing to do with trees or nature. I could lose myself on vacant lots and playgrounds, in the alleyway behind the Wawa, in the neighbors’ yards, on the sidewalks. Anywhere, in short, I could reach on my bicycle, a 1970 Schwinn Typhoon, Coke-can red with a banana seat, a sissy bar, and ape-hanger handlebars. On it I covered the neighborhood in a regular route for half a mile in every direction. I knew the locations of all my classmates’ houses, the number of pets and siblings they had, the brand of popsicle they served, the potential dangerousness of their fathers.

Full essay: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jul/16/manhood-for-amateurs-the-wilderness-of-childhood

[Luminous Animal]

22. My daughter actually had an argument with Chabon with his "country" vs "city" freedom

to travel when she was 14. He romanticized something with which he was familiar and induced fear in something that he was not. I.e. he assumed that all urban experiences are equal to his father's Flatbush experience. And he assumed that city children cannot lose themselves in the history of the streets they travel on.

[unrepentant progress]

30. Then she and you were both misunderstanding Chabon

Because he says exactly the opposite in the 4th paragraph of the essay.

[Luminous Animal]

38. Actually this was several years prior to his essay and in person and he was pretty belligerent.

She was in a writer's workshop in 2004 that he was leading he was waxing poetic what city children were missing as opposed to country children. She was also arguing with Stephen King, as well who was trying to make a similar argument. He had flown in for one day to join the 6 week workshop which was about fantasy and dark fiction and both were trying to present an argument that city children had less physical and mental capacity to explore the dark side because of their lack of freedom to explore on their own… that city children didn't live mystery… she has it all on audio tape (with their permission). She was badass and offered to take them both out and about in San Francisco.

[unrepentant progress]

54. Ah, well that's certainly possible.

King especially tends to idealize rural small town life in his novels, and you can definitely see his American Gothic influence on Chabon. It could be your daughter caught Chabon when his ideas on the topic were still forming. Plus Summerland had only came out two years prior.

[LWolf]

106. I was a free-range kid, and a latch-key kid,

an only child of a single parent.

I was playing outside by myself, and crossing the road to visit a friend's house by myself, and going down the block to visit other friends, and walking home alone from an after-school day care, by the time I was 6. I remember that being a problem only once: my mom fell asleep on the couch. I told her I was going outside. She mumbled something, and I assumed she was giving permission. I played out on the sidewalk for awhile, and then went down the block to a friend's. At which point there was a tornado warning, she woke up, and, of course, had no idea where I'd gone. She made the phone calls, found me, dragged me up the block, and told the watching neighbors not to worry if they heard me yelling. Then she spanked me. The first and last spanking she ever dished out.

I was in day care after school until 4th grade, when I was allowed to walk home alone and let myself in. I was to call her to tell her I made it, and leave a note if I decided to ride my bike, roller skate, or go to a neighbor's.

By the time I was 10, I was walking, riding my bike and taking buses to where ever I wanted to go. Alone. On long summer days, my friends and I were definitely "wilderness children," sometimes in the suburbs, sometimes taking buses to the rural farms, ranches, and public lands. I was often totally out of range of even public telephones. My mom set expectations about making sure she knew where to find me, and as long as I met her expectations, I went when and where I chose.

I often pity modern children.

[mopinko]

19. i was raised w benign neglect. i wouldnt trade it.

concussions, broken bones and all.
i was a free range kid, and raised mine the same way.

[BrotherIvan]

35. I saw the effects of helicopter parenting on students when I taught

I feel very bad for children who are not really let outside much anymore. I walked home from school with my neighbors of the same age since I was about 6. Everyone did it and the neighborhood I live in really hasn't changed much except for the very long line of cars picking up kids every day after school. Kids unfortunately are dealing with obesity and health issues because they are locked inside all day. Kids need to run and play for hours and hours until they fall down tired and then do it again tomorrow.

I was at a friend's who had his 13 year-old son and his friends over. They were playing video games and he went in and said, hey, why don't you go outside and play in the meadow (small, fenced in, right across the street)? The kids all looked at him blankly and one said, "We can't go outside without parent supervision." 13!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

43. Remember the talk from the media of "latchkey kids" in the 90s?

Some idiot making six or seven figures acting like they couldn't understand how ANYONE could expect their 12-year-old child to have a key to let themselves in at home for the few hours between school letting out and them getting home from work.

"Responsible parents" were supposed to hire a sitter to come in and watch those kids.

Not enough money?

What does THAT mean? That doesn't even compute!

Oh, and saying, "When I was a kid" means NOTHING to these idiots because they would claim the world is more dangerous now,...despite the fact that crime statistics prove things are actually SAFER today.

[Luminous Animal]

45. Indeed. I was one of those so called latchkey kids in the late 60s and 70s. My dad worked all day

and my mom was driving school bus when I got home from school. She left a note for me, my sister, and my brother on the kitchen table listing the chores we had to do before she came home.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

61. That was considered the norm even into the 80s....

In rural areas the kids had "feed the chickens" as a regular chore.

[Blue_In_AK]

66. My daughter was latchkey from about the time she was eight.

She'd get home from school, call me at work to let me know and then practice the piano and do her homework. She was mature, and I trusted her to do this. She knew to lock the doors and not open up for strangers, and she knew if she answered the phone to say that I was busy and couldn't come to the phone, not that I wasn't there.

Individual kids differ, of course, but parents generally know their own kids' maturity levels.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

73. Was that back before everyone had cell phones?

[Blue_In_AK]

80. It would have been in the mid-90s.

We never had a cell phone in those days. My older grandsons (15 and 12) have been carrying cell phones for a while.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

91. You can see how things are even safer now....

Beats running up to a random house to ask for help.

And maybe getting shot by the cowardly homeowner.

[BlueMTexpat]

48. Like you, I have a few problems with the article.

I was lucky to grow up in a small town in a rural area where labels such as "free range" and "helicopter" were totally unknown concepts with respect to children. We all knew each other and looked out for each other, taking those responsibilities seriously and as a matter of fact. The adults saw us all as their collective charges. Sometimes we actually dreamed of blessed anonymity, not realizing then how fortunate we were to be surrounded by people who cared.

When I raised my own two children in the 70s in a larger city in the same rural state, I did worry about letting them walk alone when they were very young, simply because we did not know everyone. By the time they were about eight, however, I didn't worry because they knew the area, so long as I knew that they were either with each other or with friends and I knew where they were. Those were the rules. Because I was a working mother, technically a single parent, although not always actually because I was still married when they were little, they were also "latchkey" kids. (In fact, we never locked our doors.) But I taught at a school four blocks away. Their own school was two and a half blocks away - in the same direction and on the same street as my own, so we were rarely at huge physical distances from each other. They also knew basics about getting around, crossing streets, watching for cars and not talking to strangers.

During all summers, even when they were very young, they were able to spend at least a month with their grandparents in the small town where I was raised, where they were able to have the same freedoms I had and they flourished, firmly believing - at least until they were teenagers - that the small town was literally heaven on earth. Now in their forties, they remember both experiences as halcyon times.

What is different from those times today, however, is that too many people - even those who live near each other - do not really know each other or even take the time to know each other and they often don't seem to like each other. For a society that so glorifies children as consumers or potential consumers rather than citizens, we don't actually seem to like them either. We don't see children as our collective responsibility. Life is also more impersonal and people are judgmental to an extreme. Children need to explore for themselves; it is a vital part of growing up. But individual circumstances and environments also need to be taken into consideration. Parents also should know their children well enough to know whether they are ready for certain milestones. It is an individual thing.

I know Silver Spring, MD and I know the area in question. While I would be nervous about letting a six-year-old - or literally anyone else who didn't know the area - walk alone there because it is quite traffic heavy; if this was an area she was otherwise familiar with and she was there with her ten-year-old brother who also knew the area and I knew where they were and had given them permission to be there, I would likely take as much offense as Danielle and Alexander, not so much by having the police called - in a way, that's reassuring - but by being threatened by any third party who didn't know the circumstances to have them taken away from me, based on such an incident. That is outrageous and hardly a way to show support either to children or to parents.

But I also don't like the idea of a "free range" parenting movement. It sounds somewhat cultish to me and is just another way of creating division when we are all supposed to be in the business of caring not only for each other, but especially for those most vulnerable.

[Paladin]

51. I agree with you. From what I saw on MSNBC last night, we're talking a cult, here.

That road that those two kids were walking along was full of fast-moving traffic. Sure, the odds are against a car crash or a kidnapping, but why would people put their kids at needless risk? Just to write a book about it or get a few TV appearances? Children are entitled to a certain amount of autonomy, but only when it's based on solid parental training. I didn't get the feeling that these parents were up to that task.

[BlueMTexpat]

53. Even from just reading this story, I got the idea that

the parents were more interested in proving a point than in anything else and that at least some confrontation could have been avoided by a more reasonable response on their part. "Explicitly allying" themselves with a "movement" and flaunting it in a way that does not seem reasonable is evidence of a mentality that is troubling, IMO.

Like you, I am not sure that "solid parental training" was involved. If there was a park that was closer to home and - especially - did not involve being near as much traffic, I can't really see understand why the parents wouldn't have preferred that alternative. Their idea of a "calculated risk" is much different from my own. Some "calculated risks" are more risky than calculated and this one is certainly closer to risky, IMO. I know that it would not have been one that I would knowingly have risked my own children's lives for and, believe me, I was still just about 180 degrees away from being a "helicopter parent."

In my experience, it was more often children who had the 70s equivalent of "helicopter parents" who either acted out more or who literally never left the parental home. Either way, they have since often been among the most unhappy and/or literally incapable of doing things for themselves. There has to be a happy medium somewhere. But extremes seem to be the norm in many parts of US society today, no matter what the topic.

[Paladin]

58. Very well stated. Thank you. (nt)

[pnwmom]

75. The kids were walking on a sidewalk, not on a road. And there were stoplights

that work the same everywhere.

And the scary parking lot photo that has been posted here is just one view of the area. We don't know exactly where they were walking except it was somewhere "near" Discovery Place. It could just as well have been on a road that looked like this, which is adjoining Discovery Place.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Discovery+Pl,+Silver+Spring,+MD+20910/@38.9945571,-77.0280446,3a,75y,180h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s5WkJv-V6B6Dk2aMgEmYq1A!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c8b97b5f350f:0x6bb02f4a5b370bee!6m1!1e1

[Paladin]

88. I'm not going to argue the point with you. (nt)

[Luminous Animal]

109. OMG! It is a support network to help with parenting skills and provides

discussion and tools to aid them to get over years of fear indoctrination.

It is extremely easy to teach a child how to navigate the streets on her own. It is a matter of repetition each and every time you walk with her from the moment she starts to walk… gradually letting her take the lead but still holding her hand lest a mishap. Always step back from the curb and never ever ever let her see you step off the curb before the light changes, jaywalk, or cross against the light. And don't rely on the light or the walk signal. Always look both ways before crossing.

[gollygee]

114. The older kid was 10, and they were on a sidewalk, not in the street

Odds of a car crash on the sidewalk are about the same as the odds of a kidnapping.

[HockeyMom]

49. NYC kid here

I walked with a friend to and from school in Manhattan at 10. Roller skated on my street with my friends. We walked by ourselves to parks, RODE ON THE SUBWAY by ourselves, at that age. I am sure City kids today still do this. This was in the 50s.

My older daughter at 6 walked with an 11 year old girl from down the street to school in Queens in the 80s. Her sister was an infant then and I did not drive. We lived just under the mile limit for her to get a bus to school. I even paid the older girl to walk with my daughter. Lenore thought that was really cool! Her first "job". lol

I babysat my 4 cousins at the age of 10. My older daughter babysat her younger sister (and other kids) at the age of 11.

[Vattel]

50. Idk, I would err on the side of safety.

Not long ago, I stopped my 9-year-old from walking right in front of a speeding car in Baltimore. The pedestrian crossing sign wasn't working (typical Baltimore) and the sunlight made it look like the white walking man was lit. Glad I was there to keep her safe.

[Luminous Animal]

62. I'd advise that you teach her not to trust the "walking man" and to look both ways regardless

of what the crossing sign indicates. It is a good lesson for both children and adults.

[Vattel]

69. Good advice!

[Brickbat]

52. I fully support the cops checking in with the kids on the street to make sure they're OK.

Investigating the family? Straight-up bullshit.

[MoonRiver]

56. A mile would have been way too far for me to allow my kids to walk.

But investigating the parents, pfffft

[pnwmom]

71. The school district there expects 5 and 6 year olds to walk unless they live

more than a mile from school.

So it seems reasonable for a parent to let his 10 and 6 year old walk a mile on a familiar route from park to home.

[MoonRiver]

76. I understand what you're saying, but I, personally, couldn't have done it.

I am probably very over protective though.

[pnwmom]

82. Both the parents are scientists and analyzed the benefit/risk calculation

the way scientists do. Also, the mother grew up being able to walk around NYC ,so she knew what that was like.

So, yes, not every parent would make their decision. But that doesn't mean they were wrong. Having seen their 10 year old on video, I think he was able to handle it. I remember hiring a 15 year old babysitter when my oldest was 12. My daughter not only was towering over the 15 year old, she was clearly just as capable.

Some ten year olds, like this boy, are extremely capable. Some 13 year olds are not. It should be up to the parents to judge, not some busybody neighbors.

[MoonRiver]

90. I'm not judging them!

Let me put it this way. My oldest daughter, now a mother herself, calls me paranoid. When I babysit the little grands, I am just the same as when she was a kid!

[pnwmom]

93. I know you're not, MoonRiver!

And it doesn't hurt the grandkids that you're a worrier, either. Every personality comes with its pluses and minuses, and I'm sure your daughter and grandchildren know that everything you do is out of love.

[MoonRiver]

102. Yes they do pnwmom!

[ileus]

59. Welcome to the not so good "we know best" nanny state.

Once the kids were dropped off and the officer realized the kids were intended to be walking home he should have left. Period.

[Trillo]

63. Most of the kids walked home from school when I went in the 60s.

We also did a lot of things on our own after school, ride bikes, go to the rec center, blah blah. I suspect the cops are just trying to justify their harassment of the kids with harassment of the parents. Then they wonder why they get no support if they go on strike.

They've become little more than bullies, but dangerous ones carrying guns.

[Blue_In_AK]

64. The boy was 10 YEARS OLD, for heaven's sake!

Certainly old enough to be responsible. This story really pisses me off.

[Gormy Cuss]

112. At ten, I did far lengthier and complex jaunts alone or with other kids.

Now I had worked up to it, having been trusted to walk alone the three blocks to the neighborhood store at age 6, allowed to walk the half mile to school by myself at age 7. By age 10 I was bicycling to parks two - three miles away and walking through a busy business district to school without the aid of crossing guards (the school department said we were old enough to understand traffic lights.) So if these children were properly prepared for it, I can't see why CPS would be involved. I do understand why cops might intervene to check on their safety, but why that wasn't the end of it is puzzling.

[Taitertots]

65. "Investigate"? They threatened to murder them and kidnap their children

And some people still think we don't live in a police state.

[TheKentuckian]

77. I took the city bus to a downtown school and we had a permanent walking field trip permission form

meaning we could be on a downtown walk about at anytime.

By 10 at home, I could jump on my bike and be gone till sundown, often way past any mile and my mother was relatively over protective.

Late boomers and early X'ers decided to be hugely cowardly and obsessive parents and poor beat down little people are never allowed to be child or adult.

It is borderline hilarious when some of them whine about their kid either never moving out or move out and are still dependent.
Why? Probably in no small part because that is how they were reared.

When the term "playdate" entered the common vernacular we should have broke the glass and pulled the emergency cord.

[Politicalboi]

79. This was my playground as a child of 7

<a href="http://imgur.com/WRr9jS3"><img src="" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>


<a href="http://imgur.com/JOdLgzk"><img src="" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

Those houses weren't there, just the hills and cattle, that would leave land mines around the Elephant Rock. Ruined a few pair of pants too sliding down the side

[Blue_In_AK]

81. That's similar to where I lived when I was around 10

We lived on what was then the north edge of Colorado Springs by the bluffs. I used to wander around in those hills by myself all the time when I was 10-14, rattlesnakes and all.

[Avalux]

101. This was mine from the same age.

I spent hours and hours roaming the mountain during my childhood summers; checking in at home when I'd get hungry and at night. Sometimes I'd pack a lunch so I didn't have to come home and spend the entire day out there. THAT was fun when my mom let me do that, and it was completely normal. That's just what us kids did back then. I guess all of our parents would have been thrown in jail and we'd have been fostered.

[Chemisse]

104. I lived in the country, on a dirt road

but I always let my kids go off and explore, and insisted they walk to school, although usually had a buddy system in place (as did this family).

I would've done the same in the city, perhaps with different rules to guide them. I totally support this.

If substance abuse and mental illness are not in the picture, then just trust the parents. Parenting decisions are usually the best ones. Nobody loves these children more.

[cwydro]

105. Holy crap.

I grew up in the sixties. My younger sister and I roamed everywhere on our bikes and on foot.

Seriously? Cards that state you're a "free range" kid?

Please tell me this is not true.

[Luminous Animal]

107. Our society is saturated with fear. So much so, that 2 children walking down the

street provoke phone calls to the police (this report is not the first call - it happened before when the kids were walking home from a park 2 blocks away.) Any way the card has a simple statement that the child is allowed to be on their own and knows what they are doing; and it includes the name and phone number of a parent.

[cwydro]

108. Very glad

I was a child back in the day.

I hope these parents do not have to deal with any more shit.

Meanwhile, I plan to ask my 88 year old mother why we were not provided with these cards!

[Luminous Animal]

110. I'd love hear her reaction! It's a whole new alien world for many folks.

[cwydro]

111. I already know that

she will look at me incredulously and say "What?!"

[DebJ]

113. I find it interesting that all the replies so far in this thread, except one, seem to address only

whether or not the parents were making the right decision with their children.

My concern is that the police are poking their nose into a situation that wasn't even a problem.
I believe Montgomery County should have enough disturbances to keep them quite busy without
telling parents how to raise their children. If the children were causing trouble, that would be
different.

I'm appalled. And I am not an anti-police person.

What's next: telling parents they shouldn't let Suzy date so-and-so?

[OrwellwasRight]

116. And people wonder why

so many millennials can't function in the workplace with having their hand held the entire time. No one ever lets them figure anything out on their own. And if the parents do, it's child endangerment? This is pure BS.

Not only did we play outside, ride bikes, and walk around alone, at 9 and 10, my sister and I came home alone after school and took care of ourselves until mom and dad got home from work. And look at me now, alive, a college grad, and a successful taxpayer. Heaven forbid.

And no, it wasn't safer back in the day. We all think it was because "the news" is different today. But child molesters and kidnappers existed back then too. My mother told us about them several times a week.

[brooklynite]

117. I started riding the subway alone - citywide - when I was 8.

I can't imagine what kind of grief my parents would get if this happened today.

[OrwellwasRight]

118. I don't understand people.

Do they honestly think kids are safer if they have never had to figure situations out or interacted with weirdos? To me, the more people you come across in life, the better you are at reading them. Then you can figure out who is really a risk to you and who you can ask for help if you are in need. I don't think protecting children from outsiders and from having to make decisions is good for them. I think my mom was a fantastic mom--and I definitely thought she was overprotective, but she let me do all kinds of things without her watching me every single second. Including playing out of her view for a little while at age 8. The helicopter parents are the ones that should get grief.

[kiva]

119. A few years ago I was watching a WWII era movie,

and the female lead had custody of a nephew who was maybe 5 or 6. The woman worked nights as a singer in a nightclub and childcare consisted of her putting the boy to bed before she left for work and a next door neighbor (houses, not apartments) 'checking in' on the child. At no point in the movie did anyone express horror about this setup...I sort of went 'huh?' then continued watching.

There are a plethora of studies that show dangers to children are generally the same or less than previous generations, that young people need to learn to judge dangers for themselves to better protect themselves as adults, and that most of us are sick and tired of helicopter parents who go to graduate school and to job interviews with their children (OK, I made the last part up, I haven't seen studies but am heartily exhausted with 'helicopter' and 'snowplow' parents and their underachieving kids).

[MisterP]

120. you can even see the change in the geography of the suburbs:

40s-70s they were definitely tract housing that promised you access to nature while gobbling it up, that planted lawns and chimneys in near-desert regions; they were very white for all their "a home for every G.I. and blue collar" slogans and were full of race covenants and nosy neighbors

nevertheless there was space--front lawns and convenient parks; even the picture windows invited the eye inwards to the living room or outwards to the deck and yards; by the 90s and 00s the suburbs were financialized more than ever--the sprawl-dependency of counties and portfolios had run out of control: houses were bought to be flipped as much as lived in; rancher and Googie had been chosen because they were simple (to build) and "all-American" (inoffensive): Fauxtalian and "neo-eclectic" styles were chosen to provided maximum ostentation with minimum cost; the bland 'burb, decried for boiling life down to its basic eating-sleeping-lounging-childrearing functions, became massed ranks of McMansions or enlarged rabbit-hutches 7 feet from the street and 7 feet from each other; five different types of house, mirrored to provide ten styles, became five indistinguishable styles; sprawl became the planned community, sidewalks went out and gates came in; average Walkscores went from 45% to 28% and the lawn's share of the lot was almost halved

think Edward Scissorhands vs. The Sopranos

edit: and the media was just as sensationalist then, and could be open about its racism; heck, they had to deal with Sid Davis