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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: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday January 16 2015, @06:21PM
No starving kids, beaten kids, molested kids. No giant caseload at all for CPS agents so they can just swan off to track down and harass every parent of every child not leashed to an adult. Because if they do actually have a caseload then directing effort into this is *taking time and money away from the work of helping abused children* and that would be a sin so vile no reasonable person would accept it... right? Right?
This is the other part of the story: Not only are innocent families being harmed by having their lives subjected to pointless intrusions and abuses, but innocent abused children are being given less of the help they need.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Friday January 16 2015, @07:11PM
You forgot one associated risk:
Publishing this story far and wide actually puts those kids MORE at risk. Advertising out that these kids will be out walking alone is likely to attract the very people the CPS/Police thought they were protecting against.
I don't know who decided to bring this to the attention of the media, but if it was CPS or the Police some action should be taken. If it was the parents calling the newspaper, I'm beginning to question their judgement.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Friday January 16 2015, @08:34PM
As I don't currently have mod points, please accept a virtual +1 from me.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday January 16 2015, @08:47PM
Do those people exist in any quantity, though? Kids don't get snatched by strangers that often, and even aside from that grabbing kids who've been on the news seems like a bad way to pick a random target.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday January 17 2015, @02:52AM
They exist in a quantity that doesn't even qualify as statistical noise: There are only about 40 genuine child abductions-by-strangers per year in the U.S.
The rest are all by family members, custody disputes and the like.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday January 17 2015, @10:59AM
I don't question them at all. They are now involved in an unfair fight where some CPS crazy is trying to bust up their family. They need the brightest spotlight possible focused on them to keep their children from being stolen away in the dark by said crazy.
The greatest danger to their children right now is CPS. Hopefully they're allergic to bright public spotlights.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 16 2015, @07:23PM
It's a case, on the books, it needs to be processed. If they were to dismiss it, they might be found negligent, or overreaching in their independent decision making. Worse, it would reduce their "time to process" workload statistic, and weaken their arguments for being overworked and underpaid.
"You're in the system now," comes up in a frightening number of living bureaucratic nightmares.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday January 16 2015, @08:54PM
In other words: 'Someone sees something, so he says something. The person he says it to -- a policeman, a security guard... now faces a choice: ignore or escalate. Even though he may believe that it's a false alarm, it's not in his best interests to dismiss the threat. If he's wrong, it'll cost him his career. But if he escalates, he'll be praised for "doing his job" and the cost will be borne by others. So he escalates. And the person he escalates to also escalates, in a series of CYA decisions. And before we're done, innocent people have been arrested... and hundreds of police hours have been wasted.'
(Not my words, just something from https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2007/11/how_we_won_the_war_o.html [schneier.com] with the terrorism-specific lines elided. It was true in 2007, it's true now.)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 19 2015, @01:25AM
This is the way of our world - you can ruin people with baseless accusations.
🌻🌻 [google.com]