A Virginia Mom Is Found ‘Guilty’ of Letting Her Son Walk Outside

In a quiet gated community in Virginia, Karyann Parkinson took a little bike ride with her 5-year-old son one morning this summer. They passed the grassy area where the boy loves to pick up goose feathers, next to a pond.When they got home, the boy asked if he could walk back to get some more feathers. Ms. Parkinson, eight months pregnant, said yes.The pond is half a mile away. The sidewalks are separated from the street by 10 feet of grass. The two streets he’d have to cross he had crossed hundreds of times before. Off he happily went.A security guard brought him home. Someone had called to report a child unsupervised. And here we must pause.An unsupervised 5-year-old is in danger … if there’s a real danger. If, say, they’re walking along a highway. Or if they are neurodivergent and apt to run into traffic. Or if they are the type who might jump into a pond willy-nilly.Parents know their child and their neighborhood — as my mom did. She let me walk to school at age 5 because back then we still thought of children as people, not puppies. No one accused my mom of endangering me.Yet that is what happened to Karyann. As the guard brought her son home, he told the boy his mom had done something very bad, and he could have been snatched.True, the boy COULD have been snatched, just as he COULD have been gored by an ox or hit by an arrow. Yet those possibilities are so remote, they shouldn’t have to factor into anyone’s decision. Stranger kidnappings are rarer than lightning strikes. Throw in the fact that this was a gated community, filled with at least enough guards to respond instantly to “boy sighted outside,” and they drop to near zero. Far lower than the odds of, say, mom driving her son to the dentist and their car getting hit by a truck.A car accident like that would be tragic. Yet we don’t berate moms for chauffeuring their tots because something terrible COULD happen.As for the pond: The boy didn’t jump in, because he’s not a pond jumper, something his mom knows about him.Street crossings? Again, 5-year-olds used to routinely walk to kindergarten. Presumably they crossed some streets.So the guard brings the boy home. The mom asks where in the homeowner association rules it says a tot can’t walk in his own neighborhood. And that’s when the guard calls the cops.The cops arrive. They call child protective services.Everything escalates, and pretty soon there are three cop cars, three cops, two CPS workers and … the security guard.The cops charge the mom with “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” The CPS workers put her on the child abuse and neglect registry. And a judge finds her guilty and sentences her to six months.In jail.He immediately suspends the sentence, so she can stay out if she abides by all the CPS conditions. Yet what does all this mean?Even if you don’t want to send your child outside at age 5, 10, or 53, that decision should be up to you, not the state, so long as you are not putting your child in obvious, serious danger.A quiet walk to pick up feathers does not rise to that level. And pretending that a decent, loving mom did something wrong is no way to make children safer. It’s a way to make parents too scared to let their tots do anything on their own, for fear of crossing some invisible and arbitrary line.If we want to keep children safe, gradually giving them independence makes sense. Yet if we want to keep them inside their whole childhoods, arresting moms is an excellent strategy.Creators.com

A Virginia Mom Is Found ‘Guilty’ of Letting Her Son Walk Outside

A Virginia Mom Is Found ‘Guilty’ of Letting Her Son Walk Outside

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