Moms Getting Busted for Letting Kids Play Outside

[GURPS]

It may not be all that illogical depending on Texas law. In Virginia you CAN be arrested for leaving children unsupervised, even in your own backyard.

..... awesome no state laws, only up the the digression of the CPS investigator

What to Consider about Child Supervision

Something to Consider First

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Please note: These organizations do not advocate that all children who take the class are able to supervise younger children.
A Word About Inadequate Supervision
There are no laws in Virginia that state specifically how long a child may be left unsupervised. Loudoun County Child Protective Services may be called about a situation involving inadequate supervision of children. A social worker may then need to assess the risk to the children. The guidelines are suggested and may help to prevent such calls.

 

[Rommey]

Speaking generally about weekends and summertime....Growing up, we would eat breakfast and do whatever chores needing doing, but then would be on our own...go to friends, go to the playground, ride bikes to wherever...and just had to check in by street light time, which meant by 8PM-ish. BUT...I lived in a city with sidewalks on both sides of the street, traffic signals, and you could get from point A to point B by side streets (so you didn't necessarily need to ride a bike on a busy street). The local elementary school had (free!) organized activities during the summer (softball, volleyball, arts & crafts, etc.) so we had informal supervision while there. But there would be plenty of times I would ride 6-7 miles to go to the beach or a park, not thinking twice about the consequences or possible dangers.

There were no video games, cable TV, or computers to keep us inside, so the only indoor activities were generally board or card games.

 

[Chris0nllyn]

I just wanted to add to his by saying there are risks in life, but you can't punish folks based on those risks. Something bad could happen, anywhere, anytime.

This woman was charged for leaving her (11 year old) daughter in the car while she ran inside a store.

http://www.wfsb.com/story/25982048/bristol-mother-charged-with-leaving-child-unattended-in-car

This woman also left her kid (12 years old) in the car while she ran inside her bank.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/cali...in-Car-Before-Fatal-Bank-Heist-267486971.html

Unfortunately, it was the bank in Stockton that was robbed. The mother was taken hostage and eventually killed.

She did exactly what so many public service announcements—and busybodies and cops—tell parents not to do. She left her daughter unsupervised in a car. Now, could she have been charged with child endangerment? According to similar stories, you bet, but her daughter is still alive today. What would have happened had she taken her daughter in the bank with her?

Statistically, tragedies are extremely unlikely to happen while parents run errands. The vast majority of kids who die in cars do so because they are forgotten all day, not waiting while mom picks up the pizza or runs to the bank.

What happened in Stockton should serve as a reminder that we just can't predict tragedy. We shouldn't be arresting parents under the assumption that outlandishly unlikely dangers are always just around the corner. You could prohibit parents from leaving kids in cars and then have them die in bank robberies! Both dangers are extremely rare and impossible to predict....why have laws that assume lightning is always about to strike?

 

[vraiblonde]

I can see not leaving little kids unattended in a car (although my mom did it all the time, as did my friends' moms, and we are no worse for it), but a pre-teen? That's absurd nanny busybody crap. But these laws don't materialize out of thin air; people pester their state and county legislators for them. So someone out there with pull thinks it's a good idea to outlaw unsupervised 11 year olds.

 

[GURPS]

But these laws don't materialize out of thin air; people pester their state and county legislators for them.

some moron leaves a 3 yr old in a car in 100 degree weather ... and politicians knee jerk ..

 

[johnestmon]

It takes a village.

Of petty, tyrannical statists.

 

[GURPS]

Mom Arrested for Cursing in a Grocery Store


The incident began when Wolf was shopping for groceries with her husband and children. She became frustrated with her husband throwing items into the shopping cart and yelled at him to be more careful, using “F–k.” Michelle Smith, another customer, overheard this remark and confronted Wolf, telling her not to use harsh language toward her children.

Wolf tried to clarify. “I said ‘No, I said that to my husband,’ that he was smashing the bread by throwing the frozen pizzas on top of it,” Wolf explained, according to a local Fox News report. Not content with an explanation or an apology, Smith alerted the local police to handle the situation.

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Even more troubling about this story is the statute under which Wolf was charged. The North Augusta City Code of Ordinances defines disorderly conduct as uttering “while in a state of anger, in the presence of another, any bawdy, lewd, or obscene words or epithets.” Under this broad standard, consider the types of ordinary speech that could be prosecuted. How many times have you heard profanity used during a heated sporting event? Half the attendees at a local football game—and almost all the players—would be put in jail if this statute were evenhandedly applied in this context.

 

[GURPS]

The Cops Were Called Over Boy Playing Alone Outside. Then CPS Showed Up & Asked Kids Questions That Left Mom ‘Really, Really Angry.’


A family in Austin, Texas, received a visit from Child Protective Services a few weeks ago after a neighbor spotted a 6-year-old boy playing alone at a nearby park and called the police, KEYE-TV reported.

Kari Anne Roy answered a knock on her door one morning to find that the neighbor had brought her son home. She learned later that the police had also been called.

After police spoke with Roy, CPS got involved, sending someone over to question Roy’s three children about how she was raising them.

On her blog, Roy shared the kinds of questions the CPS officer asked her kids:

My kids reported that she asked questions about drugs and alcohol, about pornography, about how often they bathe, about fighting in the home… I understand the need for these questions. I understand CPS investigators have an incredibly difficult job. But the conflict I feel is immense. My children were playing outside, within sight of the house, and now my 6yo and 8yo and 12yo have seen their mother spoken to — multiple times — as if she, herself, was a child being reprimanded. They have all been questioned, by a stranger, about whether they’ve ever been shown movies of other people’s private parts. And no matter what I say, I can tell that they think they’ve done something wrong.​

The case was closed, marked as a non-event, Roy said, but the fact that her children saw her disrespected — and that they were asked questions about sex that had likely never occurred to them before — was a scarring event for the family.

 

[awpitt]

check the other thread .... Larry, Gilligan, and others myself included, roamed far and wide in our childhood ..
... it was called being a kid - yes, if my parents went out for the evening they got a sitter ..
... in the daytime I had to be back before the street lights came on .....

I remember having that rule. In my younger days in Laural MD (lived there until age 8), us kids had the run of the neighborhood and the ajacent woods. Came home to eat then back out again. It was pretty much free roaming but when those street lights came on, my but had better be in my own yard.

 

[GURPS]

I remember having that rule. In my younger days in Laural MD (lived there until age 8), us kids had the run of the neighborhood and the ajacent woods. Came home to eat then back out again. It was pretty much free roaming but when those street lights came on, my but had better be in my own yard.