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We have a busybody neighbor as well. They are a pain in the butt, no doubt about it.
We just roll our eyes and go on.
Your situation, you may want to have a conversation with her about minding her own business.
If she turned you into social services, that's another matter.
However, if you lived in Utah, you can now tell her that you were raising a ""free range" child and to butt out.
That is why it is ok to have a law. The law does the opposite of restricting, and protects parents. Some parents do not seem to know they can let their kid out alone. I can't believe how paranoid some of them are. It's like the poor kids are grounded 24/7.
You want "free range," move to Alaska. You don't even have to educate your kids there. You can raise them any way you want.
You can leave a baby and a toddler home with 6 and 8 year old sisters for 14+ hours a day while you work and go drinking after work with your friends. Oh, they'll send a social worker to the house with a list of options. But there are no consequences. Or at least weren't to the neighbor who lived down the road from us.
Quite the place.
"Free range" seems to mean that supervising your kids is a hit or miss operation. Some do. Some don't.
LOL about this. I am 9 and 10 years older than my younger brothers and often watched them all day when they were babies and my mom and step dad were at work. I even took them outside and we went to the store and to the park or over my friend's house lol.
It is amazing how times have changed to where a social worker is needed for the above. I can see leaving the kids alone a super long time, but my mom worked 10 hours shifts and worked in a factory so oftentimes when she was home, I watched my younger brothers and took them out of the house just to help her get some rest.
My mom and dad used to leave me and my older brother home alone in the house when we were 4 and 5, even younger I believe. I remember having a good time with my brother when we were by ourselves.
IMO the reason why a lot of kids are pretty immature today is because they have too much adult supervision. Kids need to learn how to take care of themselves at some point. I remember going to the store by myself in the inner city in a neighborhood with gangs and drug dealers when I was 5 or 6 and bartering with the store keeper about prices for candy lol. My kids and none of the kids I know at that age knew how to count money and handle themselves outside of the house as well as I did. FWIW I do joke with my parents that today that they would have been put in jail for the way they parented us back in the 1980s.
I was a mother myself when Etan Patz was abducted. However, a generation before that I was more or less a free range child on the streets of NYC. Played outside in the streets, walked to and from school, walked from the Village to Central Park, rode the subways, etc.
The only problem I ever had was actually from an NYPD Squad Car following me home in my "sexy" Catholic School Girl Uniform at 11 years old taunting me with, "Hey, Baby, want a ride home?" "Kiss, Kiss". Ironic, huh?
I ignored them and walked as fast as I could home. My Dad was a Longshoreman and got home early from work. As soon as I got home, I told him what happened. He ran out the door cursing looking for them. I am sure if he had found them he would have shot them had he had a gun.
My aunt recently told me that someone who was a guy in their neighborhood used to do something similar to her when she walked home. That it happened a few times and the 3rd or 4th time it happened, she told her dad, my grandfather and that he stormed out of the house and she never saw that man in the neighborhood again!! She always wondered if he beat the man to death. Grandpa was a golden glove champion and he did have a gun!
But as a mom today, I used to get a lot of flack for letting my 10 year old at the time walk to the Boys and Girls club which was only 2 blocks from our house. He went there in the summer for childcare/activities while my husband and I worked. Even my husband at first didn't want our son to walk 2 blocks. I had to remind him he grew up in Chicago's south side and took the train by himself and 2 buses to school everyday when he was 8 years old, so I think our son could walk 2 blocks.
My son also takes the city bus to school starting at age 12 and people think/thought I was nuts. He is 16 now and still takes the city bus. Nothing has ever happened to him and I like that he is much more independent than other kids his age and doesn't think he is too good to take a bus, a lot of kids around here think they are too good to take public transit and always want a ride everywhere. My kids have legs, bikes, and bus passes lol.
LOL about this. I am 9 and 10 years older than my younger brothers and often watched them all day when they were babies and my mom and step dad were at work. I even took them outside and we went to the store and to the park or over my friend's house lol.
It is amazing how times have changed to where a social worker is needed for the above. I can see leaving the kids alone a super long time, but my mom worked 10 hours shifts and worked in a factory so oftentimes when she was home, I watched my younger brothers and took them out of the house just to help her get some rest.
My mom and dad used to leave me and my older brother home alone in the house when we were 4 and 5, even younger I believe. I remember having a good time with my brother when we were by ourselves.
IMO the reason why a lot of kids are pretty immature today is because they have too much adult supervision. Kids need to learn how to take care of themselves at some point. I remember going to the store by myself in the inner city in a neighborhood with gangs and drug dealers when I was 5 or 6 and bartering with the store keeper about prices for candy lol. My kids and none of the kids I know at that age knew how to count money and handle themselves outside of the house as well as I did. FWIW I do joke with my parents that today that they would have been put in jail for the way they parented us back in the 1980s.
Have a question for those who believe young children learn valuable life lessons while wandering about on their own.
What is he role of adults who notice they need help?
Say you are at a playground and a young girl playing alone is approached by a disheveled man who is clearly a stranger. She tells him to go away. He doesn't. So she leaves and he follows. Should you let her learn a valuable life lesson or should you intervene?
Or a child falls off the playground equipment. He tries to limp away, but he can't put any weight on one leg/foot. Should you offer assistance or should you allow the child to learn self-reliance skills?
Or a child brings a toddler and goes off to play. The droopy-diapered toddler is wandering around, eating sand/wood chips, falling down, wandering into the parking area, ... You know, learning self-reliance.
What is the role of adults in situations where unsupervised children need help?
Last edited by GotHereQuickAsICould; 03-28-2018 at 08:47 AM..
Have a question for those who believe young children learn valuable life lessons while wandering about on their own.
What is he role of adults who notice they need help?
Say you are at a playground and a young girl playing alone is approached by a disheveled man who is clearly a stranger. She tells him to go away. He doesn't. So she leaves and he follows. Should you let her learn a valuable life lesson or should you intervene?
Or a child falls off the playground equipment. He tries to limp away, but he can't put any weight on one leg/foot. Should you offer assistance or should you allow the child to learn self-reliance skills?
Or a child brings a toddler and goes off to play. The droopy-diapered toddler is wandering around, eating sand/wood chips, falling down, wandering into the parking area, ... You know, learning self-reliance.
What is the role of adults in situations where unsupervised children need help?
No one is suggesting that you ignore a child in need of help or guidance. Just that there is no need to follow them 24/7 in case someone should approach them or they fall down, etc.
Children who are given gradual freedoms like walking 300 ft. to the buss by themselves, playing outside by themselves, looking after younger siblings learn how do deal with situations they may encounter like creepy strangers, accidents and looking after younger children.
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