I guess they're trying to overcompensate for years of brutal child slavery with kids working in textile mills, tobacco processing, agriculture, mines, and factories.
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/hiring-out-of-the-e...
Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
41–50 of 306 posts
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#42This is one of those frustrating things. You're just not allowed to not be scared with kids. If you aren't scared of letting your kid walk to a pond, you get punished for it. If you're not scared of the kidnappers, you have to be scared of the police. None of it is rational, it's different how many of us were raised, yet if you try to opt out the law gets involved.
Stranger kidnappings are basically unheard of. It's never been a safer time for kids in terms of crime like that.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#43Here 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…
Pedibus. So civilized. People in California don't believe half the things I tell them about life in Switzerland, such as "if you try to drive your kid to school the cops will chastise you" and "if you drive 40 in a school zone you'll automatically get a year in jail" and, of course, "gas is nine bucks".
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#44This is one of those frustrating things. You're just not allowed to not be scared with kids. If you aren't scared of letting your kid walk to a pond, you get punished for it. If you're not scared of the kidnappers, you have to be scared of the police. None of it is rational, it's different how many of us were raised, yet if you try to opt out the law gets involved.
I'm sympathetic with this sentiment but surely it's pretty rare the law actually gets involved? Our kids play outside a lot and no cops have ever raised an eyebrow (except for at our crazy drunk of a neighbor, where eyebrow raising is appropriate).
It’s Foucault’s interpretation of the panopticon. If we know that we may be watched — and punished — we self-police into following the norm, even if we do not know when we are being watched or that someone is necessarily monitoring us individually.
When I was a kid in the 80s none of this was an issue and I was free to roam. Starting in the 90s this became an issue and not only will parents not let their kids roam but the kids themselves have less interest because the norm is to stay in or only go out when supervised. You know you are doing something slightly wrong. It only takes occasional reminders like this to reinforce the rule, once established.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#45>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…
I would have also immediately asked for their policy on how long children of different ages can be unsupervised.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#46How does this happen? There’s no silver lining which makes this conviction reasonable. If they can’t appeal, I hope they use Streisand to get the town or state of Virginia to vacate everything.
They charged her criminally instead of civilly, because in 2023 VA passed a 'free-range parenting' amendment to allow for actions that appropriate for the child's maturity and are not done in a grossly negligent manner that endangers the child. This is likely why the defense asked for comments from others on the child's maturity.
The criminal definition apparently has no such modification.
E: removed a double ‘likely’
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#47Was it a bench trial or jury trial?
I'm of the generation where one of my responsibilities as a kid was walking to the neighborhood liquor store to buy cigarettes for my dad, so I'm empathetic. But if she was found guilty by a jury, I'm guessing there's more to the story.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#48How does this happen? There’s no silver lining which makes this conviction reasonable. If they can’t appeal, I hope they use Streisand to get the town or state of Virginia to vacate everything.
It happened because a neighbor was so disturbed by a child walking alone to report it, the police thought it was serious enough to refer for prosecution, and a prosecutor decided it needed to be charged using their office's limited resources. All insane.
The part that really gets to me is that the neighbor was so "concerned" about the child's safety that they called the police, but for some reason, in their urgent concern, they didn't take the simple step of approaching and talking to the child to see where they were going or if a parent knew where they were.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#49In the US a kid cannot walk half a mile on their own inside a gated community patrolled by security guards? This sounds more dystopian than all the AI talk. "I told [the authorities] that kids need to be able to take reasonable risks," he says, "in order to grow up non-anxious." I guess the system prefers to breed anxiety.
> the system prefers to breed anxiety a happy consumer consumes less than an anxious one :(
They’re also more dependent upon the state.
Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
#50In the US a kid cannot walk half a mile on their own inside a gated community patrolled by security guards? This sounds more dystopian than all the AI talk. "I told [the authorities] that kids need to be able to take reasonable risks," he says, "in order to grow up non-anxious." I guess the system prefers to breed anxiety.
"Gated community" tells you everything you need to know. If you want to live amongst busybody, nosy, fearful and controlling people, move to a gated community.