A mother is arrested for giving her daughter a cell phone and letting her play in the park.
This week, a woman was arrested for letting her nine-year-old daughter (armed with a cell phone) go to a playground unsupervised. Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids explained this wacky story over at Reason:
Here are the facts: Debra Harrell works at McDonald’s in North Augusta, South Carolina. For most of the summer, her daughter had stayed there with her, playing on a laptop that Harrell had scrounged up the money to purchase. (McDonald’s has free WiFi.) Sadly, the Harrell home was robbed and the laptop stolen, so the girl asked her mother if she could be dropped off at the park to play instead.
Harrell said yes. She gave her daughter a cell phone. The girl went to the park — a place so popular that at any given time there are about 40 kids frolicking — two days in a row. There were swings, a “splash pad,” and shade. On her third day at the park, an adult asked the girl where her mother was. At work, the daughter replied.
The shocked adult called the cops. Authorities declared the girl “abandoned” and proceeded to arrest the mother.
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I have a ten year old daughter, and I would NEVER leave her alone somewhere like this unsupervised. Cell phone or no cell phone.
ReplyDeleteHoly crap! When I was a kid, we roamed the neighborhood from dawn til dark and never saw home except for 3 times a day until bed time! And sometimes lunch got skipped or was at our friends house. Mom and Dad were doing their jobs, and if they weren't home, the phone rang and nobody answered, not even a machine!
ReplyDeleteAnd don't chide me with things are different nowadays. Yes, they are, mainly because more fear is taught than young kids care to think about! Left to be themselves, with a good upbringing, today's kids like we were back then can be a powerful force.
Why the he** does the Government want these kids to sign up, after all!
No, I'll trust my youths to a point, and carefully vet them as they mature.
I see no difference in this cellphone/ text world that a mom at work who is in touch with her kid 24/7 wherever they are is today's norm.
I'm not saying that I agree with today's norm, as Mom being at home is now different with Mom being at work (by necessity, thanks, IRS) but we all have to deal with the times, and calling a necessity of 2 parents working a social crime is kind of ignorant.
The laws in place were made for a reason, and I am all in favor of having an economy that made these laws where Dad was the breadwinner, and Mom stayed home sewing, ironing, making clothes, raising kids, teaching them to grow a garden and cook dinner from it, ans helping with the family pets.
But, unfortunately, because of the new Communist regime where all have to work for pissant wages, well that's where we are here.
Maybe some day, a majority of people who are not too fond of this "arrest you for being poor" State will read the
hold on,
wait for it....
Declaration of Independence.
It will surprise most how close we are to the situation back then before the Revolutionary war.
I would rather you people would read this now than have to go through another Revolution here, and I would think you all would think so, too.
Probably not the best of ideas in todays world.
ReplyDeleteFear. FEAR!! They (our "leaders"), teach it, promote it, instigate it, and whip it up.
ReplyDeleteAnd you "it's for the children, for God's sake!!!!!!!!!!!) do-gooders, who know what's best for everyone --- all the time --- can't wait for the next announced boogeyman to be afraid of....
The mother who called police should take an ace-whipping from the kid's mom and the police, who HAD to know the child was not "abandoned", yet still made an arrest, should be publicly whipped.