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Free-range Parenting vs. the Nanny State
Image source: CNN
Danielle and Alexander Meitiv want to teach their kids self-reliance and responsibility the same way parents have for millennia. By giving them a little space.
Their kids, ages 6 and 10, are regularly allowed to walk to and from a nearby park without mommy and daddy there to hand them fresh juice boxes, smother them in hand sanitizer, and re-adjust their safety helmets every five minutes. You know, the same way we were all raised.
But this won’t do in Silver Spring, Md. A “concerned citizen” witnessed the shocking sight of two children strolling through a neighborhood and called the police. The cops drove the kids home and notified Child Protective Services of what would have been called “parenting” in every generation but our own. That was four months ago but the local government upped the ante Sunday.
Once again, a neighborhood busybody called 911 because kids were caught walking without a permit. The police swung by, but instead of bringing the kids home, they turned them over to CPS. The parents weren’t able to bring their kids home until 10:30 that night and only then after they signed “a temporary safety plan saying their children would be supervised at all times until a follow-up visit.”
“This morning my daughter wanted to go play in the yard and I couldn’t let her out because I was making breakfast,” Danielle Meitiv said. “Are they prisoners? She’s 6 and she’s not allowed to play in the yard?”
“It’s beyond ridiculous,” Danielle Meitiv said Monday. “The world is safer today, and yet we imprison our children inside and wonder why they’re obese and have no focus.”
The Meitivs were notified in a February letter that they had been found responsible for “unsubstantiated neglect,” a ruling that’s made when there’s some information supporting child neglect, seemingly credible reports disagree or there isn’t enough information for a conclusion.
Capt. Paul Stark, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Police Department, said the agency and Child Protective Services are conducting a joint investigation of the Meitivs. Once that is finished, a decision will be made about whether any charges will be filed against the couple, he said.
“Child Protective Services has succeeded in making me terrified of letting my children out,” she said. “Nothing that has happened so far has convinced me that children don’t need independence and freedom, except that they’ll be harassed by police and CPS.”
I think these parents should be given a medal, not a citation. What say you, Ricochetti?
Published in General
Hey! Grampa was a Cubs fan! Which made not a whit of geographical sense whatsoever, because he raised his family on the South Side.
Yeah…ok.
“In Silver Springs, for children under 12, the womb is the most dangerous place.”
Please. Silver Spring. It’s a local hangup. I do, however, agree with the sentiment.
Yeah, but maybe kids are much safer because we are much more careful with them.
Only one of my kids is grown, and he’s a Marine with a superhuman level of confidence, so my “helicopter parenting” didn’t seem to hurt him. He’d take out a whole platoon of Morlocks. Maybe just with his K Bar.
The trick, I think, is giving our kids greater freedom and responsibility as they grow older. It’s a balancing act, which will vary from kid to kid and from neighborhood to neighborhood. My oldest pretty much had the run of the city when he reached 15 or 16 years old.
We didn’t let him get his driver’s license until he was 18, but he could had a license earlier have by either: (1) keeping his grades above a certain level, or (2) getting a summer job. He didn’t, so we made him wait.
@percival
“I was about twelve the first time I took the train to the LaSalle St. station, walked over to the Red Line, and rode on up to Wrigley Field.”
While we were still in grade school, my brother and I used to take what was then known as the Lake Street el to the Loop, and wander to our heart’s content.
I’d say missed in your point rather than immaterial to it.
Socialism comes from not walking home from the park? You’re over-reacting.
Humor me – who cries most if these kids get taken.
That’s the consequence?
The country’s gone flat nuts. No sense of proportion, risk, or consequence.
This is what happens in the wealthiest country in history: we become so spoiled we’re cut off from the facts of life.
It’s the Green Line, now – except people still call it Lake Street. Just like Northwest Station is now “the Ogilvie Transportation Center” but people still call it Northwest Station.
Parenting has changed more than the “times” have changed. I think the hysteria of the 80’s bears most of the blame. Kevin Williamson has a great rundown of that hysteria, with an interesting comparison to today’s campus rape epidemic:
Campus Rape and the ‘Emergency’: It’s Always an Excuse for Authoritarianism
Tommy demanding a foil – when he never plays one.
The implication behind your rhetorical question is that the parents will blame the police for not protecting their children from wandering predators.
Why does that matter?
Tommy De Seno
Basil Fawlty:“Who cries the most if these kids get taken?”
Who cries the most if these kids never have the confidence to walk home alone?
“That’s the consequence?”
Well, perhaps the consequence is a generation of young people who require trigger warnings and safe spaces before they can deal with an experience outside their comfort zone.
Remember, it’s not too great a step from “You shouldn’t let your children walk to the park on their own” to “You can’t . . .” Especially not for a bureaucrat.
Going to be a little snarky here, but I can’t help wonder how these folks vote.
No. I was going for the more obvious answer – the children themselves will cry the most.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and we don’t have to read enormous social implications into every little thing.
The paramount issue here is protection of those too young to protect themselves.
In loco parentis has its place despite the ability of some to take it too far.
Do a risk/utility analysis.
The risk of kids getting swiped is real and the consequences are some of the worst imaginable.
What utility is on the other side? Independence can only be learned on the streets at 6 years old? There is no way to teach lessons in a manner that doesn’t risk them as bait?
And all from being deprived the invaluable opportunity of making your way home from the park at 6 years old.
Thank you doctor. What do I owe?
Tommy, I honestly don’t know if it’s the kids or the parents who cry more. I’m certain it isn’t CPS, the cops, or the neighbor.
So my nine-year-old has the run of the neighborhood, out to roughly five blocks. She’s expected to stop back and “check-in” every hour or so. My five-year-old is confined to the yard unless accompanied by an adult. That seems reasonable to me given that maybe 2/3 of the kids her age walk to and from school, which is five blocks away.
Does this mean I’m a helicopter parent, neglectful, or both?
“What utility is on the other side? Independence can only be learned on the streets at 6 years old? There is no way to teach lessons in a manner that doesn’t risk them as bait?”
How about placing him in the care of his 10 year old brother?
None of the above. I related in my first comment that much of this decision is going to be situational, the variables being not only neighborhood conditions but the kids themselves.
You having multiple kids know more than anyone how different they can be.
What I’m having a problem with is Drew and Basil committing random acts of sociology on the consequences for society here (as if there are any) without even knowing any of the variables.
I couldn’t tell you (and neither can Drew or Basil) whether these parents are out of line without knowing the neighborhood or these kids.
If it’s where I grew up – they are awful parents.
If it’s where I live now – I might be inclined to agree with them (but would need to know the maturity of the kids first).
That would depend on the brother wouldn’t it? We don’t know that variable. I’ve seen 10 year olds as mature as 14 year olds and 10 year olds as immature as 6 year olds.
“And all from being deprived the invaluable opportunity of making your way home from the park at 6 years old.
Thank you doctor. What do I owe?”
At the minimum, you owe your readers the courtesy of noting that the six year old was accompanied in this perilous enterprise by his 10 year old brother.
“That would depend on the brother wouldn’t it? We don’t know that variable. I’ve seen 10 year olds as mature as 14 year olds and 10 year olds as immature as 6 year olds”
Perhaps the parents are best qualified to make this judgment about their own kid?
I grew up in the 60s/70s and have plenty of stories about walking to school, playing in the neighborhood/woods, walking to the pool miles away. Never thought twice about it and neither did my parents.
That said, my son wasn’t allowed to do any of the above things until he was 12. We live in the city and while we are in the suburbs, we just don’t consider it as safe as it was when we were kids.
I think one of the big differences from my youth to today is the lack of Mom’s at home during the day/after school. There were plenty of Mom’s at home in my day so someone would always know what was going on in the neighborhood and they knew all the families for several blocks around. I knew I could always go to someone’s house in the neighborhood if I needed help.
Not so much now. Not only that but now you have to worry about people calling children’s services for just about anything. Who wants to worry about that?
But aren’t you just making a raw emotional appeal? You know, kind of like the 24-hour news cycle that keeps us pumped up by imagined fears?
The consequences are terrible. But how real is the risk? How likely is it to actually happen? People have done risk analysis, and have come to the conclusion that the risk of kids getting swiped is extremely unlikely.
I agree with you. That is the heart of the issue. It’s likely impossible to come up with an objective basis to measure this because of the variable that is the maturity of the child.
While we rightfully defer to the parents, there are some bad ones out there. At what point does in loco parentis obligations of the state kick in? So hard to know that.
I suppose there is some objective ways to try to (try to) judge this, starting with the neighborhood.
If this is a high crime, high traffic area with 3 guys on the published sex offenders list, then perhaps the state has cause to sniff around here.
If it’s 90210, then maybe not.
How about run over?
I like the compromise. Give the kids guns.
Yes, terrible things might happen. At any time. Randomly. There’s no way to keep your children 100% safe.
But a kid who’s learned a little self-sufficiency has a better chance at survival.
But can’t we at least agree that if you see two children walking home from the park, you don’t call the cops? Or if you are the cops, and the kids tell you they’re walking to their home two blocks away, you don’t detain them for six hours without contacting their parents?
I mean, if you’re looking for an objective measure, what happened here seems objectively wrong.
“How about run over?”
Or, more likely, killed in a car crash while riding with Mom and/or Dad.