Agree with this! On a day off from school my kids asked if they could walk (less than a mile) to get a smoothie together. I had to say no because I knew I could get the cops called if I let my 11 year old, 8 year old, and 6 year old walk together. They were perfectly capable though.
Melissa Amaya @MelissaAmaya32I have so many thoughts and opinions on this. I do not know this mother. I do not know any details about the family other than what has already been shared. I could have been the one out in cuffs - many times. I’ve been a single mom for the past 15 years (since my youngest was 4 mths old). Not by choice. I too have four kids. Oldest is 20. In an effort to survived and support them, I have left my kids home alone (even over night while on work trips). I have left them in the car while I ran into a store. I have let them roam the neighborhood together, without me. Things that would be totally normal for my childhood are now arrest-able events. I had a cop on my doorstep about 6 years ago because I let one of my sons ride his bike, helmet on, to Target, a straight shot from our house, sidewalks the entire way. (By all accounts, the cop who initially called it in was in the wrong, almost hit my son when he had the right of was crossing at a light. His solution was to follow my son into the parking lot, interrogate him, detain him, tell him, “you did nothing wrong. Your mom was in the wrong here” — words I heard directly from his mouth to my son’s ears. Then stole (took without paying) a Lego set and gave it to my son…to what? Make it all better? No, we didn’t keep the Lego set) That cop at my door step then called CPS when I didn’t agree that it was a negligent decision. A “judgement call” because there is no law to explicitly support his claim. My kids were interviewed by a stranger (twice, because they messed up the paperwork), asking very personal details about family life. How likely are they to enlist a police officer in the future? How likely are they to trust “the professionals” after being threatened with foster care by an adult who was supposedly there to protect them? This crap has to stop. It’s utterly insane. Being a parent is hard enough. Society makes it so much harder. You can’t just do what’s best for your kids. You have to factor in the likelihood of have a nosey neighbor call the cops on you because Susan down the street doesn’t think it’s safe for your 6th grader to bike to the nearby park along.
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