What the fuck.
While I’m a big parental rights fan I actually tentatively am siding with the state on this one.
Patterson had driven her eldest son to a medical appointment. Her youngest son, 11-year-old Soren, intended to come along but wasn’t around when it was time to leave.
It’s one thing to intentionally raise your child in a free-range way, I think that should be allowed to a certain degree. It’s a completely different thing to neglect your child by driving away from your home after you can’t find him at the house and you don’t know where he is.
Lmao. Less than 1 mile? I walked twice that every day to school since I was 7
My parents brag about how they had no car seats and THEY survived. So I guess I should have listened to my dad’s impatience and not put it in the car before going somewhere with our newborn?
Yes but it’s not like your parents had no idea where you were and took no action to find you. This is textbook neglect, not intentional parenting.
Trump voter believes in small government. Also that the state should be able to legally compel you to electronically track your children and that 11-year-olds shouldn’t be able to walk around outside without constant surveillance and sides with parents being arrested for allowing it. Believes “some” parental freedom should be “allowed.”
I just rolled my eyes so hard I gave myself a headache.
You think this sort of government abuse is championed by conservatives?! How the fuck do you conclude that?!
If a kid is old enough to go to school its old enough to walk to places or stay home alone
I actually get where you’re coming from here regarding not knowing where the kid is and then leaving to go somewhere else. I am a parent of a 10 year old.
I disagree with the state getting involved at all beyond giving the kid a ride to the appointment or back home and talking to the mom with a warning.
The kid should’ve just stayed home and waited instead of going off on his own to where they were because they might’ve gotten done and gone home and missed each other.
Edit: And read the story in full. Less than a mile away? Oof, yeah, that’s nothing. My kid rides his bike or walks around our neighborhood, a suburb of Chicago, and has gone that far or further without my wife and I worrying.
I don’t know if I’m instantly ready to side with the state, but none of the signs are there to think this is some intentional abuse of power. She’s a white realtor in a bright red rural county. Unless the cop was some sitcom import straight from “The People’s Gaypublic of California” I have to think they saw something that hit them wrong to drill down through the various layers of privilege. I admit I have a sort of reflexive concern about reason.com as a source, as well. Sometimes it’s sensible, but often it’s just a wankfest for so-called libertarians who have read Ayn Rand and a couple of Austrian-school economics articles.
For Brittany here, I would want to know what she actually told the cop, what her older son said in his interview, what the state of the road is (possibly no sidewalks?), and just generally if there’s a pattern of neglect. They haven’t even decided if they’ll press charges yet, while they play chicken over the signature thing. If they do, here’s the statute:
A person who causes bodily harm to or endangers the bodily safety of another person by consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that his or her act or omission will cause harm or endanger the safety of the other person and the disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care which a reasonable person would exercise in the situation is guilty of a misdemeanor.
A woman who saw him walking alongside the road—speed limit: 25 in some places, 35 in others—asked him if he was OK. He said yes.
Nevertheless, she called the police.
So it was all that Karen’s fault…
A family friend got a police visit because she lets her kids ride their bikes out of view of home. Like they go a couple streets over and ride around but apparently that’s neglect now
I grew up on the southeast side of Portland. When I was 10, I rode my bike to Multnomah Falls and across the river into Washington State. I moved away just before my 11th birthday so I’m very confident about my age. I also rode all around Portland. Into downtown, down to Lake Oswego, over to my aunt’s in Gresham…
The worst thing that ever happened was an older kid on a bike came up next to me and tried to push me off of my bike, but it didn’t work and I took off and he was chasing me. I wove thru traffic and parked cars at a shopping center and he ended up slamming into a parked car at full speed. :)
No. It was liberal busybodies who enabled this sort of thing to happen in the first place.
And if that statement pisses anyone off, ask yourself this: Do you think this sort of thing was championed by conservative people?
I’m liberal as hell in most opinions, but this is exactly the sort of government overreach conservatives despise.
Yes I do think it was championed by conservative people. And if that statement pisses anyone off, my evidence is that Fannin County GA, where this took place, voted 82% for Trump.
The government stopping doctors from practicing medicine is overreach every “conservative” votes for. Stopping a person from growing a plant and then consuming it is government overreach that every “conservative” votes for. Unconstitutional seizure of money without a fair trial is government overreach that every “conservative” votes for. Forcing shariachristian indoctrination into school curriculums is government overreach that every “conservative” votes for.
These days “conservatives” despise anything that has a hint of government smell on it. Not because of anything meaningful or anything, of course, just that “government bad”.
Do they? Cuz I just read an article about Donald Trump starting a whole new government agency.
I still see children walking alone where I live, but I’ll admit that I can’t compare it to when I was young because I don’t pass by elementary schools before/after school to be able to see them.
I could definitely see it championed by some conservative people. Both ends of the political spectrum can have tendencies towards government control, depending on the topic.
Conservatism is often built upon fear. Also consider all of the studies linking right-wing political views to physiological differences like bigger amygdalas (which play a role in fear).
Some people will be fearful that children need to be protected at all costs, so they’ll do things like this.
Just remember which side is doing things “for the children” as a scapegoat…hide the gays for the children, no drag story time to protect the children, no sex education (even books) to keep the children innocent. No walking alone outside to protect the children.
I’m not saying this particular Karen was Conservative, but I’m saying that she could be. I’m not sure why you’re blaming Liberal people, but I’m sure you have explanations like I do (and I’d be curious to hear them), but I’d wager that the problem is not exclusively tied to either side of the political spectrum.
Why aren’t the kids going outside anymore lol
I grew up in the 90s.
When we got to 2nd grade, we became eligible to take a road-sign test. (Left, right, stop). If you could demonstrate that you knew what that meant, and show them you owned a helmet, you could then ride your bicycle to and from school.
I was 7.
This was more than a decade after the term “stranger danger” had been seared into the American psyche.
I worry of the future.
People think kids can do less and less. I was ten when I was allowed out in a rowboat by myself on the lake my grandparents had a cottage on in the 90’s. Walk a mile? We went all fucking over. I don’t get it. Shit the rule at school was if you lived within half a mile you walked to school.
Shit, my bus stop was at least a half mile away without so much as a sidewalk anywhere, just a dirt road and a canal. You didn’t even get a bus stop if you were less than 2 miles from school. We regularly rode our bikes like 12 miles away from home to the movie theater, I think we were pre-teens. Technically I could have ridden my bike to grade 6 (it was on the way to the movie theater), but who wants to show up to 6th grade everyday drenched in sweat or rain (it would always have been one or the other).
In my school in Sweden the blanket rule was that once you were ten you got to bike to school.
Now this was in the suburbs north of Stockholm and the streets were calm, but we did have to pass a rail crossing.
I remember the day before school school was starting, my mom walked me and my sister to school to show the way we should walk to school, and then we walked to and from school unsupervised from when I was six.
As a middle aged father of two grown boys, one of the things I wish I had done better was encourage them to go out on their own more. Their mother would always be so worried, and knowing she has the best intention for them I would give in.
Also there was a couple of years when they were young I would try to force them to go outside and play, but they would quickly become bored and come back in the house. This was so frustrating at the time and then I realized that there were no other kids playing outside either. When I was growing up in the 80s and early 90s, I practically lived outside with my friends.
My boys are significantly more dependent on us, much less capable and their development seems stunted or slowed, which I am sure is partly due to the pandemic, but also due to the sheltering that has become normalized in our culture. Allowing this to happen is one of my biggest regrets as a father, which all things considered I guess isn’t that bad while keeping things in perspective.
I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the abundance of information has a side effect of over protectiveness. This makes some sense as it would be evolutionarily beneficial to protect against potential threats, however media is tricking our brains to believe that these threats are both abundant and persistent.
Children need unsupervised freedom as part of their development, it allows them to learn how to navigate the world in a healthy regulated way, and how to deal with challenges, like problem solving or social interaction. The perception that the world is a dangerous place that children need constant protection from is flawed. If that were true, we would have never have survived as a species.
