It blows my mind that a bunch of adults, prosecutors, CPS employees, etc all decided the fair, reasonable and best thing to do was prosecute and punish this mother.
Prosecuting people is their job. If you don't do your job you get fired.
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Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
241–250 of 306 posts
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#242And to add more nonsense, iirc collecting (possessing) bird feathers, that they shed naturally, is illegal in the US under the name of protecting migratory birds.
That is a matter of practicality of just enforcing the laws around protecting migratory birds. You can't possess the feathers of protected birds, and it doesn't matter how you got them. Research the massively destructive bird feather trade in the 19th century if you want context for why the law is that broad.
Of course. If you find a bunch shed by a protected species, there's a good chance they're ill-eagle feathers.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps the neighbor who called it in thought that if they approached the child themselves, they might be seen as a potential child molester.
If you automatically assume somebody approaching a child is a kidde fiddler (!) then your society has problems.
There is zero chance I would approach a kid on their own that isn't mine. Because there is a very non-zero chance that someone would accuse me of that. If it gets to charges, even if I do successfully defend myself, then my name is mud and it costs me a ton.
I'd call security too. Not my monkey, not my circus.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US is extremely car focused, which they often don't really realize. Things that are normal here (like everybody has a bike) conflicts with their cyclers vs drivers culture. Such a distinction simply does not exist here. Instead we have roads that are red with signs "Cars are guests". Or indeed city centers where cars aren't allowed. When I go to the US I'm often surprised that you can't get to things that are onl…
The last time I was in the US - a couple of decades ago, I admit - people were aghast that we walked to a store just a few hundred meters away. 3 people stopped and asked whether they can drive us somewhere... I mean, super friendly people, but... it's just a few hundred meters, come on! You were the wild west, once!
To be fair, there are an embarrassingly large number of places in the US where safely walking to a store a few hundred meters away would be very difficult at best.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#245>CPS responded, he recounts, that "a 5-year-old child can never be unsupervised." I would immediately move from that neighborhood and that city, if they do not have roots with neighbors or kids' friends. These are people who see her as a bad parent for letting their child outside the house. >The James City County family services specialist assigned to Parkinson's case declined to comment, citing confidentiality requi…
Oregon pushes it all the way to 10.
https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_163.545#google_vignet...
>A person having custody or control of a child under 10 years of age commits the crime of child neglect in the second degree if, with criminal negligence, the person leaves the child unattended in or at any place for such period of time as may be likely to endanger the health or welfare of such child.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article really glosses over the fact that the kid was 5yo walking to a pond. It mentions it at the very start and then never brings it up again. That's the part that got me: the mom gave her 5yo permission to go to a large body of water unsupervised. I'm a parent of three and strongly believe in letting your kids roam around (indeed, I live on acreage and taught my kids about the venomous snakes and spiders in ou…
Myself and my siblings all lived on a fairly large rural farm with 2 large bodies of water that we always hung around unsupervised from about 4 y/o onwards. We loved catching bullfrogs and watching the fishes and stuff. Our mom gave us very strict/scary warnings about never going in and being careful, but other than that we were pretty free thankfully. 5 y/o with a good warning seems totally fine.
Survivorship bias.
More children ages 1–4 die from drowning than any other cause of death. For children ages 5–14, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death after motor vehicle crashes.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a naturalized American who lived in 3 other countries including two in Europe and who travels often all over the world, married to a European, etc I must say the US has its perks and it’s definitely in my top 5 countries to live. I lived mostly in the south and the east coast so I don’t have a full picture of the US as a resident. But it’s the same in Europe, living in Berlin is very different than living in Sicil…
You should start a timer every time you get into the car. For most Americans it might add up to 7-10 hours a week or more. That's a lot even over a few weeks. That's not time walking with your kids or dog sniffing the flowers, that's the opposite.
> For most Americans it might add up to 7-10 hours a week or more.
I live in a major city. It is more like ~4 hours/wk for me. The car drives itself. It is very relaxing. It is my alone time for either thinking or listening to podcasts. I am in a nice air-conditioned, HEPA-filtered cabin and I can be on my own schedule.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#248Here in Switzerland children start walking to school at around 5-years. Parents aren't allowed to bring them to school. If a parent escorts their children to school they'll be told not to. If they keep doing it they'll get a letter from the school and probably a police visit. And if they continue (I never heard of it getting to this stage) they may be fined. It's funny in the morning. One child walks to another child…
> Parents aren't allowed to bring them to school.
Huh? So if they live 10 miles away they must walk 10 miles? Surely not, but then how does it work?
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#249Here in Switzerland children start walking to school at around 5-years. Parents aren't allowed to bring them to school. If a parent escorts their children to school they'll be told not to. If they keep doing it they'll get a letter from the school and probably a police visit. And if they continue (I never heard of it getting to this stage) they may be fined. It's funny in the morning. One child walks to another child…
> If a parent escorts their children to school they'll be told not to. If they keep doing it they'll get a letter from the school and probably a police visit. And if they continue (I never heard of it getting to this stage) they may be fined.
What's the rationale for the parent being punished? I would understand the government employing programs to encourage parents to develop their child's autonomy, but forcing them under threat of punishment? What if there are particular circumstances, like medical conditions, or they keep seeing something sus along the way one week? How to go about things with a minor should ultimately be by the parent's judgment, since they're the most informed on their circumstances.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#250Here in Switzerland children start walking to school at around 5-years. Parents aren't allowed to bring them to school. If a parent escorts their children to school they'll be told not to. If they keep doing it they'll get a letter from the school and probably a police visit. And if they continue (I never heard of it getting to this stage) they may be fined. It's funny in the morning. One child walks to another child…
> If a parent escorts their children to school they'll be told not to. If they keep doing it they'll get a letter from the school and probably a police visit. And if they continue (I never heard of it getting to this stage) they may be fined. What's the rationale for the parent being punished? I would understand the government employing programs to encourage parents to develop their child's autonomy, but forcing them…
I'm sure they have systems to deal with the edge conditions like medical conditions.
One can instantly figure out why it's pretty smart to have the school assert a policy here based on your following ideas that it "should ultimately be the parent's judgment" and what if "they see something sus."
The current child-, parent-, and civilization-damaging child management system in the US is the direct consequence of simply "I saw something sus" and "I'm the parent so I know what's best."