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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
I’m a tad confused here; I thought the adjective “free-range” applied to the chicken breasts I buy at the grocery store.
I think that there may be something else happening here. Back some years ago there may have been more of a general feeling that someone harming a random child would be criminally punished severely. Now the feeling is more that any such person would likely escape much justice (the actual facts may be different, but the feeling). This makes us more inclined to avoid what we can not be protected from.
Drew and Basil,
Not that your answer will disqualify or detract from the validity of your points, but I’m curious if either of you have raised children.
“None of your business” is an acceptable answer.
My mother told me to be home by dinner. “Oh…and here’s a note. Get me a coupla packs of Larks on your way home.”
I am raising two: 9 and 11.
Ok Drew. I was wondering if perhaps my own status as a parent had skewered me towards being more protective than I was before parenting.
Capture the Flag and softball games until sunset; walking 10 blocks to school unaccompanied, hanging out with unsavory classmates after school at the local Burger King, breaking curfew in high school 90% of the time. I survived.
I work in Maryland, right outside Silver Spring. I live maybe 10 miles away in Virginia. What this family has been put through is horrifying. It has caught the attention of both the Post and USAToday, as well as local listservs and papers. In summary, neighbors saw the children walking alone and called the police. This is the third time the children have been reported.
These kids have been forcibly removed from their house at night by police and CPS. Most recently, the police picked them up at the park and they were held in the cruiser for two hours, prior to being turned over to CPS without their parents being notified until hours later that evening.
CPS has examined the case and classified it as “unsubstantiated neglect” which means the case file remains open for 5 years.
This stuff flies all over me because of my experiences with child protective services in multiple states as a reporting professional and when conducting their continuing education training sessions.
I remain firmly convinced that any trauma and distress these kids experience is happening at the hands of the system, not their parents.
Not only other moms, but old ladies sitting on the front stoop listening to the ball game on the radio. And other kids. Tons of other kids. No block in my neighborhood was completely empty until night time. While it wasn’t my parents, there was still somewhat trustworthy adult supervision and there was the limited protection of the large herd. Now? I still live in a blue collar, ethnic Catholic neighborhood in Chicago, just like when I grew up, except that very often there’s not a soul to be seen for blocks. No retirees, no moms, no kids, nobody.
I don’t think Tommy is championing the state taking over all parental duties, but things are different now. I don’t think a situational approach is out of line. I have no idea if the agency was out of line in this case; just like any news story I’d bet there’s a competing narrative.
Sorry, I got carried away.
I have a dear dear friend a little younger than me (I was born in 1958) who was raised by a father determined to keep his three daughters safe.
A family friend had a child killed in the front yard by an out of control car, therefore my friend and her sisters were never allowed to play in the front yard. Stories of child abductions were rampant. Her mother had to get her driver license and never had a job or a lunch that ran late so that her daughters, Til their senior year in high school, were never unescorted on their way home from school. You get the picture.
I can not exaggerate the toll it took on these girls. All of them highly educated and very very bright but paranoid to the point of paralysis and extreme lack of confidence.
My friend did not make the same mistake with her own five, they were homeschooled and enjoyed a lot of freedom. And they are five outstanding young adults.
As for me? I had a brother who died on a bicycle when he was 8. A few years later santa brought my sister and me bikes for Christmas. No one would have blamed my parents for never buying any of their children a bike, yet they knew what so few do now: you can try to avoid every danger, but you never will. You can never 100 percent avoid danger, but it’s 100 percent guaranteed you will screw up your kid by trying.
I never had CPS called on me, surprising with the amount of trips I made to emergency rooms.
But I have a lot of friends and a sister who have gotten the knock on the door. I think it’s real easy for CPS to go for the low hanging fruit and harass nice people in nice neighborhoods and make it look like they are doing their job. I’ve heard one too many stories of children found living in horrible conditions after multiple reports of neglect.
Mine has. But at the same time… maybe also less protective. I have a 3.5 y/o, and I think he sometimes acts a bit older than he is (he often acts much younger!) He’ll get up in the morning and just walk around the house before he finds one of us… this morning, we noticed a little pile of hair on the bathroom floor where he had discovered some nail scissors and did a bit of self-grooming. Some of that stuff worries me – we’re baby-safe, but not necessarily kid-safe. It does change my way of thinking a little bit, since I’ve got booze, sharp items, firearms, etc… in my house. But on the other hand, we have serious talks as well. I had some coals on the grill out back and he won’t go near it because we talked about how it would burn. I felt comfortable letting him play outside while I was in the kitchen looking out the window, and no I didn’t expect him to touch the grill and burn himself. On the other hand, it’s hard not to be paranoid.
On a related note – I don’t have facebook, but I spent about 30 minutes this evening looking at my wife’s page. It was kind of unbelievable, and probably news to nobody but me. There are pages upon pages of articles .. or whatever you’d call them, click bait, I guess. Virtually every one is playing up some fear or paranoia – “you’ll never believe what horror awaited these parents after their 10 month old took a routine fall,” and so on and so on ad infinitum. Really, when we live in a cyber age where we get detailed reports about literally every freak accident or illness or whatever else, is it so terribly surprising that we live in paranoia or in a bubble? Or maybe we disconnect the cable and facebook…
Screwtape Letters – which I referenced earlier (chap 29): “By building up a series of imaginary expedients to prevent ‘the worst coming to the worst’ you may produce, at that level of his will which he is not aware of, a determination that the worst shall not come to the worst.”
I’ve raised a very independent-minded cat. Does that count?
In today’s America, the media are doing a better job at “terrorism” than the jihadies. We are afraid that were ever we go there is someone lurking in shadows to rape or kidnap. And we have over reacted even more than we have with the TSA/NSA.
Anyone have data on kidnapping rate per capita over time. I’ll bet lunch that the rate is the same or lower now. Just more media.
Silver SPRING. Silver SPRING. ;-)
Sorry, pet peeve having grown up somewhere in Mont Co with a Silver Spring zip code.
At least super soakers
I think you don’t think it is as safe as when you were a kid, is because as a kid you are not as aware. Both lack of reading the news and of fully comprehending it.
Well, we are raising a generation of chickens. Afraid of EVERYTHING.
Let’s not be self righteous and pretend that somehow we know better than mom and dad, in the main.
@Tommy –
You seem to be suggesting that you would come down on the side of the parents if the situation meets with your approval. If the situation doesn’t, and you yourself wouldn’t allow your own children to walk to the park unescorted, then you’d come down on the side of intervention.
Here’s my problem with that: we all are conservative until we find a cause we think rises above political ideology. Who’s going to argue with you and say that no, my conservative principals are more important than protecting those kids from being kidnapped?
I am. You and I don’t know the situation, and we don’t need to. Parents should be free to make parenting choices based on their own views and values. As you said, it’s none of our business. Is there risk that those kids might be taken? Not really. Busy body neighbor has an eye on them!
I’ve always thought you should be at least 50 before you’re let out alone in Jersey.
Spin,
I conceded earlier that objective standards are needed (not my subjective standard) but observed in a case like this that’s hard to define.
We all may get governed by a community standard we don’t like at some point.
I defer to the parents but we can’t on everything because there are some bad ones.
I’m maintaining its a tough issue and take issue with the definitive statements that may be given on the right or wrong of the situation involving these parents.
I don’t think this (bolded) is true in most places. There is a pretty rigorous screening process before you’ll ever get that person coming out to your door. There may be local municipalities where workers are not particularly good, but it would be unfair to describe CPS workers as picking low-hanging fruit to appear to be doing their jobs. You would be amazed – and absolutely disgusted – if you ever knew the details of what that job entails (if it wasn’t a blatant breach of confidentiality, I’d attach a few photos to this comment). DSHS has an amazingly high turnover rate for what is a decent-paying and secure job. Why do you think that is?
I am sorry but it is the Lawyers who are to blame for this stuff. If elected prosecutors would actually go after government officials and the elected judges back them on that, you would see a huge reduction in the tyranny of SS and police. Kind of what they get elected and swear under oath to do, protect our freedoms.
However if you start going after one branches tyranny they will start pointing out your own tyranny.We really need to start seeing police and Social service workers go to jail when they start kidnapping kids with-out a warrant. Until government officials start getting felony conventions against them for tyranny, you are going to keep seeing this.
This Missouri case is one of the worse and yet the prosecutors still decided to go after the parents for resetting arrest and not the police and SS worker.
While accepting your overall point there may be few scarier words than ” I defer to parents but we can’t on everything because there are some bad ones”. This line alone opens the doors for anything at all and leads to not actually deferring to parents.
Public schools ban home lunches, because while parents may know the healthiest lunch their kids will actually eat, there are some bad parents, so the school has the right and duty to ban all home lunches.
Other than walking to the park alone, what are the other parenting decisions would you be happy to have taken out of your own hands because other people may be bad parents?
Tommy,
That’s a fine statement to make, but can that not be used to justify nearly every action of the state? Getting back to the specifics, as we know them, were the kids put in harm’s way? Were they abused in any way? By your logic, I suppose when my kids ride their bikes without a helmet, the state ought to come have a talk with me, right? We can all agree to an objective standard: kids are safer on their bikes when they wear a helmet. The child is inherently less safe if they ride without one. Is that justification for CPS to involve themselves? I think not. This thinking is exactly the thinking of your average grass roots liberal. Since something bad might happen, we ought force everyone to take measure to ensure it doesn’t.
I know you aren’t a liberal, Tommy, but in this case you sound like one.
Exactly. Postman talks about this in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Bad things used to happen to people–even, and maybe especially, to children–but unless they happened to me or someone in my *town*, I never heard about them. Now something bad happens to a child in Bangladesh, and it’s my local news.
The other day I wanted to dope-slap a mom who wrote a blog post critical of Disney films because she has a little boy, you see–and he’s supposed to be the brave Disney prince who slays the dragon.* Well, gosh–what if he’s afraid of dragons? She wants him to know that it’s OK to be afraid of dragons. GROW UP, lady: Every single one of us would pee in our pants if confronted by a dragon! Courage is not the absence of fear but the willingness to confront the scary dragon anyway.
Now, if CPS and the police want to make work for themselves, why don’t they go bully the moms who are blithely raising a generation of know-nothing bubble children? Because THAT is non-visible child abuse, in my opinion.
And get off my lawn. ;)
* Edited to add: And when was the last time a Disney prince killed the dragon and rescued the princess anyway? These days they’re far more likely to be the rescuee. But I digress.
Quote of the day:
“We no longer need the terrorists. We’re now so good at terrorizing ourselves.”