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The WaPo reports that Danielle and Alexander Meitiv in Montgomery County Maryland say they are being investigated for neglect after letting their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter make a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. “We wouldn’t have let them do it if we didn’t think they were ready for it,” says Danielle. The Meitivs say they believe in “free-range” parenting, a movement that has been a counterpoint to the hyper-vigilance of “helicopter” parenting, with the idea that children learn self-reliance by being allowed to progressively test limits, make choices and venture out in the world. “The world is actually even safer than when I was a child, and I just want to give them the same freedom and independence that I had — basically an old-fashioned childhood,” says Danielle. “I think it’s absolutely critical for their development — to learn responsibility, to experience the world, to gain confidence and competency.”
On December. 20, Alexander agreed to let the children walk from Woodside Park to their home, a mile south, in an area the family says the children know well. Police picked up the children near the Discovery building, the family said, after someone reported seeing them. Alexander said he had a tense time with police when officers returned his children, asked for his identification and told him about the dangers of the world. The more lasting issue has been with Montgomery County Child Protective Services which showed up a couple of hours later. Although Child Protective Services could not address this specific case they did point to Maryland law, which defines child neglect as failure to provide proper care and supervision of a child. “I think what CPS considered neglect, we felt was an essential part of growing up and maturing,” says Alexander. “We feel we’re being bullied into a point of view about child-rearing that we strongly disagree with.”
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday January 16 2015, @05:50PM
Bullshit. America is more safe than it's ever been. This is about control, and incidentally creates dependent children incapable of independent thought and action, who will become useful idiots for the nanny-state.
For this, the emerging trend of helicopter-parenting is partially to blame. The primary instrument of the helicopter-parent is a varient of Munchausen by-Prioxy [wikipedia.org] in which they foster the dependency of their children. This is not often malicious but rather misguided ("I want my kid to be safe and have all those things I always wanted as a kid!").
This is why the recent generations of American children are weak, malnourished-looking, whiny, effeminate sicklings who have been kept in a state of permanent infantilism not seen since the CIA LSD experiments on infants.
This all is the fault of liberals who vote Democrat. Yep, liberals are to blame for this. Especially the ones who grew up in California around the Bay Area and Napa Valley. And people who vote Democrat. Others wouldn't dare corrupt life to such an unnatural extent.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday January 16 2015, @06:07PM
It's not about an actual dangerous world, nor is about a conspiracy to control.
The "dangerous world" belief system is strongly identifiable characteristic of right wing authoritarianism [psych-it.com.au]. Tightly correlated with low scores on the Big Five personality trait of openness, it's described by a belief that disaster is eminent, and I'm sorry to say you're exhibiting all the symptoms.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by buswolley on Friday January 16 2015, @06:34PM
I live in a liberal west coast town and our child's liberally ran school district actively promotes riding bikes to school...the schools even have contests on which child has the most miles ridden in a month.
But I guess its a liberal conspiracy
subicular junctures
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 16 2015, @07:08PM
I agree with this "flamebait" post. It should be "insightful". The man told it like it is.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 16 2015, @07:32PM
I disagree with the 'liberal' bit. I know dyed in the wool republicans who act in the exact same way as well as dyed in the wool democrats.
You need to trust your children. They will get hurt sometimes. You can not protect them all the time. But you can teach them how to at least give up a fight about it. If you do everything for them they will never learn. They are going to break things. They are going to get it wrong many times. Some people think children are stupid as a box of bricks. Some are. But they are just people who have not learned any better yet. There is a big difference between stupid and does not know.
The core issue is our school system has been kowtowed into handing it back to the parents. The parents have acted accordingly that they can not trust other adults around their children, as the school is not going to do anything, and in some cases will try to take your children away. This has been done as the schools are terribly afraid of being sued into non existence for any error. Then a very small group have taken advantage of this to bully the schools into treating their special snowflakes more special than the other ones. You also have school admins who are afraid to do anything so legit abuses by other students get swept under the rug just to make things 'go away'. You then also have child crusaders who are protecting the children. At the expense of all the children. The parents are also afraid to show any sort of discipline to their children outside of the home for fear of 'having the cops called'. There are cases where they should step in. But now they just create blanket rules and if they catch a few innocent people in the mix so be it. You are automatically guilty until proven innocent.
These people do this because they are afraid of being sued into non existence and poverty just because they were seen as 'doing nothing' or 'missed something'. You see the same thing in our medical system. Our justice system is being used to bully our fellow Americans into being politically correct do nothings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 16 2015, @08:39PM
> I agree with this "flamebait" post. It should be "insightful". The man told it like it is.
I'm afraid that says way more about your than it does about "it."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Saturday January 17 2015, @02:18AM
Flamebait my ass. You're absolutely dead-on, and I don't say that lightly or with "intent to inflame". Even if the nanny-state isn't itself intentional, the self-fulfilling result of all this infanticizing is a nation that =needs= nannying, which in turn "justifies" the nanny state. Democrats typically think they know what's best for us (and that average folks can't determine this for themselves), and =that= is the fundamental source of this nanny mentality in government.
Remember the woman who was castigated for letting her kid ride the NYC subway? Now she's exposing instances of this government-enforced nannying:
http://www.freerangekids.com [freerangekids.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by dboz87 on Tuesday January 20 2015, @07:46PM
It is not a Republican/Democrat or even a Liberal/Conservative thing. It is the idea that the plebes should just do what the "smart" people say. Everything would be so much better if everyone just did what they were told.