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She didn't "let" her kid play at the park. She forced her to stay there all day with no where else to go. The difference is obvious.
I agree with you that the poster to whom you are responding misrepresented the situation.
But you are also doing that.
The child had the choice of staying on site with mom at work, or walking to a nearby site for the duration of the shift, and asked to go to the park. She had the option of staying with her mom, but chose to go to the nearby play area.
We might disagree about whether that's acceptable but she wasn't just forced to go to the park.
Did you miss the part about how the girl previously spent her entire day sitting in McDonalds using her laptop? When the laptop broke, she asked if she could go to the park instead of sitting in the McDonalds without a laptop. Since McDonalds was already like a second home to her, she had the freedom to come and go from the McDonalds as frequently as children do when playing at a park near their homes.
I didn't miss it, and the bit of information doesn't change my expectations.
I have no real issue with local authorities taking control of the situation based on facts on hand, and their intervention is within the law. I don't know all the details, but nothing makes this seem like it was okay. If the kid was allowed to stay at the playground "all day" obviously there was something wrong with that.
the ironic/funny thing is that if the headline was one of a girl being kidnapped, killed, raped, etc i'm sure you would be on the other side of the fence.
Where are there parks that are "supervised" and even if they exist, what makes you think you can drop you kid off like it's free babysitting?
I worked at a kids museum for a summer in college. A mom dropped her kids off at 9 and didn't come back until 5. The museum was "supervised" in that there were people like me to help kids at the exhibits. That does not = free babysitting. The security guard kept an eye on them all day and gave the mom an earful when she came back.
I hope someone helps this mom sign up for subsidized child care.
I'm pretty sure that if that happened today (of course, depending on the ages of the children) the museum staff would call the mother to pick up the kids or return to supervise them, and if they couldn't reach her call CPS.
Part of the problem is that there is a wide range of maturity among 9 year olds. A few could handle something like that for hours, some could handle it for a short time and many could have tremendous problems. Depending on what type of 9 year old the reader is familiar with they may respond differently.
My nephew (now a very responsible adult) couldn't be left alone after school until he was 12. He had ADD, was very impulsive & was constantly getting into mischief (cooking a snack & starting a kitchen fire and things like that). Just because 95% of all 11 and 12 year olds could safely stay by themselves for a couple of hours after school did not mean that my sister and her husband should let Little Mr. Curious do it. So they always arranged for after school supervision.
They didn't argue that since they didn't need a babysitter at that age they didn't need one for their son, they looked at his needs and planned appropriate supervision.
I didn't miss it, and the bit of information doesn't change my expectations.
I have no real issue with local authorities taking control of the situation based on facts on hand, and their intervention is within the law. I don't know all the details, but nothing makes this seem like it was okay. If the kid was allowed to stay at the playground "all day" obviously there was something wrong with that.
the ironic/funny thing is that if the headline was one of a girl being kidnapped, killed, raped, etc i'm sure you would be on the other side of the fence.
Do you honestly believe this child and her mother are better off today than they were a week ago?
I agree with the others who said that kids these days are being done a huge disservice by being so overly protected. They turn out to be scared little mice. Try saying hello to a young child nowadays- they quiver and shake and run back to their parents as if every person outside the family was a serial killer.
Agreed 100%. I swear if I see one more parent scream "no running!" to their kids at the park, I'm just about to the point of getting in their business in the very manner I criticize others doing and saying to them, in a very strong tone of voice, "for God's sake would you let that child have some fun, what are you, Queen Killjoy?"
I have no problem in saying that I had our children playing at home outside unsupervised by me (I would be inside) when they were 2 and 4 years old. I let them play in the sand at the lake on the shore free to explore the entire shoreline, about 150 yards long, totally without limit within the boundaries of the shoreline, while I was out in the water (no one else was present, it was October but the water was still swim-able). I had them jumping into a quarry filled with water probably 40 feet deep about 15 feet off a ledge, no lifeguards, when they were like 3 years old, although they had lifejackets on. In fact, my son at age 3 even swam across to the other side (again, wearing a lifejacket) and that was probably 150 yards across, and 40-60 feet deep, again no lifeguards.
By time our girl was 5½ and our son was 4, they were able to swim in 8 foot deep pools without a lifejacket, and were proudly demonstrating this while jumping off the diving boards. In fact they actually said to us "I don't need a lifejacket, watch" and then did this, we didn't shove them in kicking and screaming, they got there on their own living life in that context over the previous couple of years. Even so, we were always in the area while they did all of this, and even after they reached that level of accomplishment we still had them wear lifejackets at the lake etc, but one day even that's no longer being to be required of them.
At the risk of patting myself on the back, I FAR prefer that style of parenting to the "scared little mice" style I see so often nowadays. No "helicopter" parenting for me, thank you very much. My kids can run at the park all they want to--hello, it's a park. People have the right to parent their children to be like little scared mice if they wish, but I have the right to actually let my kids explore and have some fun. Safety isn't everything--yes, I said it, safety isn't everything. Taken to extremes, it's "hospital room sterile" and beyond boring, and just no way to live and no way to make your child have to live.
I agree with you that the poster to whom you are responding misrepresented the situation.
But you are also doing that.
The child had the choice of staying on site with mom at work, or walking to a nearby site for the duration of the shift, and asked to go to the park. She had the option of staying with her mom, but chose to go to the nearby play area.
We might disagree about whether that's acceptable but she wasn't just forced to go to the park.
Also, she was less than a five minute walk from the McD's, and had a cell phone in case she needed her mom (or for her mom to check on her or both).
I just don't understand why it was felt necessary to arrest her and take her child, when they could simply have gone to the mom at work and told her the kid couldn't be unsupervised that long. This was not an irresponsible mom.
Also, she was less than a five minute walk from the McD's, and had a cell phone in case she needed her mom (or for her mom to check on her or both).
I just don't understand why it was felt necessary to arrest her and take her child, when they could simply have gone to the mom at work and told her the kid couldn't be unsupervised that long. This was not an irresponsible mom.
She was definitely able to go back and forth between the park and her mother's work because the police report states that the daughter told police she walks to McDonalds at lunchtime.
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