Rebecca Mildren's Blog - Posts Tagged "free-range-kids"
A mom in the land of the free
For the most part, I'm a color-inside-the-lines sort of person. That is, when I do color outside the lines, I need a million rationalizations for it. Too much of a control freak. So anyway, when I saw that Senator Cruz had announced his bid for presidential candidacy, with a campaign focus on individual liberty, it got me thinking.
Here is one of the issues that my husband and I struggle with, perhaps especially because we're repatriates trying to understand America after living outside it for nearly 20 years: Like many states, my newly adopted state doesn't legally define child neglect or endangerment. There's no set definition for the age a child can stay at home or go to the park unsupervised. Which is great, right? Very American. I grew up as a free-range kid myself. I read an article this week http://www.businessinsider.com/this-f... that says that in 1979, kids in first grade were expected to try to write a few letters but also to be able to go four to eight blocks on their own. I used to walk 10 blocks to my elementary school.
But times seem to have changed, and laws haven't necessarily kept track. We still cling to the idea of America as the land of the free and home of the brave when that's not necessarily the case. In one of the countries where I lived overseas, the age a child can cross a street by himself, babysit a sibling, or babysit someone else's kids was defined by law. It makes it easy for parents: You know when you're stepping over the line. But here in America, it seems like every day, there's some new heart-wrenching story in the media of a good mom who left her kid in a car for five minutes to run into the store, or who lets her kids walk to the park by themselves, and then has Child Protective Services called on her, resulting in heartbreak and legal hassles for the whole family because the laws are so open to interpretation. My family lives in a low-traffic residential neighborhood, but honestly, I'm terrified to let my 7-year-old ride his bike around the block. Not because I fear for his safety, but because I'm worried some well-meaning neighbor will turn us in for an amorphous, ambiguous, subjectively-defined neglect or abandonment or endangerment clause. OK, maybe I'm paranoid and read too much news, but theoretically, this could happen, right? Even in Montana.
So while I'm all for individual liberties, it's tempting to wish for clearly defined boundaries. But if, as some of my libertarian friends would probably say, it's not more regulations that we need, and if America doesn't want to have the age of unsupervised activities for children defined for it, along with everything else, then please, Senator Cruz and our other legislators, come up with a better solution than what we currently have. If we're not going to regulate ourselves to death, that's fine by me; but then I want to know my individual liberties are better protected than they appear to be so I don't have to live in fear. It would be nice if I actually felt free to make sound judgment calls regarding my children without having to look over my shoulder.
Here is one of the issues that my husband and I struggle with, perhaps especially because we're repatriates trying to understand America after living outside it for nearly 20 years: Like many states, my newly adopted state doesn't legally define child neglect or endangerment. There's no set definition for the age a child can stay at home or go to the park unsupervised. Which is great, right? Very American. I grew up as a free-range kid myself. I read an article this week http://www.businessinsider.com/this-f... that says that in 1979, kids in first grade were expected to try to write a few letters but also to be able to go four to eight blocks on their own. I used to walk 10 blocks to my elementary school.
But times seem to have changed, and laws haven't necessarily kept track. We still cling to the idea of America as the land of the free and home of the brave when that's not necessarily the case. In one of the countries where I lived overseas, the age a child can cross a street by himself, babysit a sibling, or babysit someone else's kids was defined by law. It makes it easy for parents: You know when you're stepping over the line. But here in America, it seems like every day, there's some new heart-wrenching story in the media of a good mom who left her kid in a car for five minutes to run into the store, or who lets her kids walk to the park by themselves, and then has Child Protective Services called on her, resulting in heartbreak and legal hassles for the whole family because the laws are so open to interpretation. My family lives in a low-traffic residential neighborhood, but honestly, I'm terrified to let my 7-year-old ride his bike around the block. Not because I fear for his safety, but because I'm worried some well-meaning neighbor will turn us in for an amorphous, ambiguous, subjectively-defined neglect or abandonment or endangerment clause. OK, maybe I'm paranoid and read too much news, but theoretically, this could happen, right? Even in Montana.
So while I'm all for individual liberties, it's tempting to wish for clearly defined boundaries. But if, as some of my libertarian friends would probably say, it's not more regulations that we need, and if America doesn't want to have the age of unsupervised activities for children defined for it, along with everything else, then please, Senator Cruz and our other legislators, come up with a better solution than what we currently have. If we're not going to regulate ourselves to death, that's fine by me; but then I want to know my individual liberties are better protected than they appear to be so I don't have to live in fear. It would be nice if I actually felt free to make sound judgment calls regarding my children without having to look over my shoulder.
