731–740 of 763 posts
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> in all 3rd world countries Not true.
Yes, the poverty stricken parents have all the time in the world to walk their kids around all day. /s They'd be lucky to even have two live parents and in the picture.
Please continue and tell me more about the topic.
I'm suspicious of the story, honestly. What are they leaving out? Searching for her name in google news, the Reason story is the only hit, and since this is the perfect piece to stoke their readers' engagement, I'm skeptical of their vetting. The GoFundMe was created back in September, and you would surely expect at least local news hits in google news by now.
I agree that Reason is pretty agenda-driven, and not really a reliable source of reporting, but I don't think there is a special reason to mistrust this story. I have represented several hundreds of people in situations like this. This lady's story wouldn't be in my top quartile of stunning injustice. I have frequently called news outlets to tell them about outrageous cases, and stories like this just don't make news…
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I am with your neighbor, I hate dogs left alone which annoy all neighbors with constant barking, while their owner doesn't have to listen to it. It's less of an problem in the house, but huge problem in residential apartment building, so obviously you call cops to annoy neighbor to force him to do soemthing about it by police harassing him, not that because you would genuinely think there is animal in distress. If yo…
To be clear, he doesn't bark at people walking by the house. He barks at people who walk up the driveway, open the gate, and walk towards the house. He didn't bark until the guy was a meter or two away from the house. That's his job. He was left alone in the house for an hour. I have video surveillance showing the neighbour skulking around on my property. Sorry, this is the reason we got a dog. If the neighbour had a…
Is there anywhere in the world where people still practice "free-range parenting" — I can't believe there even has to be a term for that — on a cultural level? Where being a "helicopter parent" would be seen as ridiculous and uncouth by the locals? A community that's intentionally trying to set things up in such a way that their kids can be given historical levels of freedom to roam? I know about the Nordic countries…
Have you never been outside the US? It's only the US that's like this.
But to be serious: yes, I've been outside of North America. I've been to Hong Kong, South Africa, Australia, and a few other places. None of them are as bad as North America is with this expectation/nigh-on legal requirement of helicopter parenting... but they're all still far worse than what basically-everywhere in the world was like 50 years ago.
To be clear, my expectation for a place that is better, isn't just that kids there can walk to school on their own; but rather that kids in such a place would be allowed — and enabled, by considerations of forestry and wildlife management — to just walk/bike out of the town or city they live in to play and have adventures in the fields and parks and maybe a little bit of thornier wilderness around them, all on their own, for hours at a time. A.K.A. "just be home for dinner."
That's really how things used to be! Recently enough that anyone over 50 can tell you stories about their own solo wanderings of forests and mountains and streams as a child, in search of bugs to catch and birds to watch. Anyone under 50, though? Not so much. Not even younger people from supposedly rural areas in supposedly developing countries (that I've talked to, at least) have had a chance at this kind of youth. They might go out exploring — but parents insist that it be done with a group of friends, that they stay in cell-phone service range, and a dozen other things that mean that they have zero opportunity to clear their mind and actually take in nature for even a single minute.
If you really do insist that "most of the world" has this opportunity, though, then maybe the particular set of countries I've visited (and the people I've talked to on my travels) represent a bubble of experience? I think the countries I've visited have all been Commonwealth or ex-Commonwealth nations. Maybe that's the common factor? Did the Brits invent helicopter parenting and then carry it with them wherever they went?
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The same thing happens in state sentencing. There's a vast gap between minimum and maximum sentencing. Most sentences fall somewhere in the middle, depending on the details of the particular act in question. (You stole from a little old lady versus stealing from a drug dealer, for example.)
Doesn't that lead to vastly unfair sentencing? For example you could target a specific group with harsher sentences, or use minor crimes to stick people with the maximum sentence. Everyone is guilty of something.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/16/black...
(Some would say this is the point.)
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> Child services had the family agree to a safety plan, which meant Wallace and her husband could not be alone with their kids for even a second. Their mothers—the children's grandmothers—had to visit and trade-off overnight stays in order to guarantee the parents were constantly supervised. After two weeks, child services closed Wallace's case, finding the complaint was unfounded. This is the fault of the nosey neig…
People are idiots, but the cops and everyone else in the justice system had a legal requirement to actually know the law, and letting their kid walk half a mile straight up isn't child endangerment. These people had thier lives turned completely upside down, over the dumbest shit I've heard all year. It was extremely shitty what the neighbor did, but the neighbor had no authority or control beyond making an unfounded…
Plus other details: The police can refuse to take the complaint. The police can refuse to arrest someone. The prosecutor has "prosecutorial discretion". CPS can outright refuse, both the CPS case worker and the people actually implementing the decision. The people implementing community service can refuse.
No this is 100% on each and every one of the government workers involved.
> As they stood on her porch, the officers told Wallace that her son could have been kidnapped and sex trafficked. "'You don't see much sex trafficking where you are, but where I patrol in downtown Waco, we do,'" said one of the cops, according to Wallace > "I still didn't know it was illegal and I said, 'I don't know,'" says Wallace. "That's when the cop replied, 'Okay, I'm going to have to arrest you.'" Let's quick…
> Child services had the family agree to a safety plan, which meant Wallace and her husband could not be alone with their kids for even a second. Their mothers—the children's grandmothers—had to visit and trade-off overnight stays in order to guarantee the parents were constantly supervised. After two weeks, child services closed Wallace's case, finding the complaint was unfounded. This is the fault of the nosey neig…
That would mean they would be responsible for the damage they caused, which includes years lost income (ie. a LOT of money). So no, they bear no blame.
No state accepts CPS bear any responsibility for the damage they cause. Not a single one.
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...and really, CPS does need to investigate. Yes, most often it's just a nosey neighbour, but every now and then those nosey neighbours are on to something, and while unpleasant for the families, missing that one case is the horror story they want to avoid.
This is the fork in the road, they need investigatory power, but not punitory power. They should be empowered to investigate the reports but their investigation should simply be evidence. The evidence should be passed into the legal system and treated no different to other evidence… presumption of innocence snd burden of proof should not be abrogated … lest we simply abandon any pretence of jurisprudence on such matt…
CPS's job is to protect the kids. AFAIK they aren't involved in any kind of punishment. Any measures they take are limited in scope to the best interests of the children. Now, they're indifferent to the impact on the parents, so some of the measures to protect the kids can feel like punishment to the parents, but that's not their concern.
I keep feel like people aren't able to draw the line here between what CPS did and what the cops did. Absent more details on the story (and we always have to keep in mind that we're getting the version of the story that is most charitable to the mom), it sure seems like the cops really messed up here. Once the cops arrested her, that's when CPS got involved, and the consequences from CPS's involvement were pretty much inevitable, and frankly the least of the hardships placed on that family.
> Waco, Texas What? If this draconian policy is happening in Texas, the land of the free, can I assume it's even worse in the rest of North America? I hope Texans are up-in-arms about this government overreach.
You should generally assume that if something is happening in Texas that the other states are better, not worse. The government here is about as hyper hypocritical as it can get and no one actually cares about government overreach except when it has something vaguely to do with guns. In dark blue WA for example this isn't really a problem nor are there any laws on the books prohibiting it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/free-range-kids-and-our...
Let's look at the outcome of this case: After two weeks, child services closed Wallace's case, finding the complaint was unfounded. Keep in mind that Reason.com is essentially an anti-government institution, for which such stories, often presented with an extreme slant or selective take on facts, are catnip. HN's own archives will show many instances of similar articles: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=reason.…
Consider reading the article before you spend multiple paragraphs criticizing the source, because the actual outcome was that Heather Wallace is now barred from her career field and is considered a danger to children. Also, for all of your hand wringing over the source, you failed to realize that this is original piece by Lenore Skenazy, probably the most well known advocate for the free range kids movement, and she…
I'm not familiar with the author. Though I note that her principle publishing outlets both appear to lean strongly Right-Libertarian: Reason and the New York Sun (founded by Conrad Black), per Wikipedia.
My point about Reason's slant and bias remains. If the story has legs, it should be available from another publication.