Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- What seems odd to me whenever this debate comes up is the failure to differentiate between:
- the child must never be unsupervised
- I/we think the child should never be unsupervised
We have less and less space between an opinion or recommendation and legal requirement. On a wide range of subjects people go straight to “require”, unwilling to simply express their opinion and move on.
by lokar - I agree. It's one thing to think her action was riskier than you would like for your own child. It's another to think it should be a crime.by thewillowcat
- 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.by marticode
- Prosecuting people is their job. If you don't do your job you get fired.by megagpt1
- Sometimes the government feels like it needs to make an example. And once the government decides something like this, they can't back down, so they have to march forward. No matter how bad it looks.by Simulacra
- Sounds like there is very little crime happening in their precious gated community that they've got to trump up everything they can to justify the budget wasted on themby morkalork
- On top of this is a pregnant mother of 5. With all the decrease in fertility, maybe the woman that managed to make their children independent enough to allow them to have 4 siblings should be given a freaking medal.by giorgioz
- I started walking to school alone once I started 1st grade (at around age 7) and did it for about 5 years until my parents moved our family to a place outside of town where it was impractical to do so. I just checked Google Maps to be sure and it is about a 1.2Km / 0.75 miles, so a short walk for either an adult or a 7-year old.
A few months ago I had a heated argument with my father, stepmother and wife because I (half-joking/serious) told my almost 8-year daugher that next year we will start practicing her going to school by herself. You would not believe the stink all of them raised telling me I was irresponsible, yadda, yadda, what about child molesters/ kidnappers, yadda, yadda, too many cars and the usual non-sense you usually hear about this.
Again I went and checked on Google Maps just to be precise and the walk between our house and my daughters school is... 500 meters / 0.31 miles.
In a single generation we went from "your starting school for the first time? time to fend for yourself, you will do fine" to "you are a snowflake that needs to be protected at all times and must not be allowed to alone in any circunstances".
PS: To give more context, I don't live in the US but in a small EU country with a low crime rate, on a town that indeed is busy but very safe.
by marcocampos - > too many cars
they are probably right and I can certainly bet my money there are way way more cars in small EU country than there were 30 years ago (assuming you had her at least at 30, if later, then the difference will be even starker)
my kids school is ~1.1km walk, son is walking to/from school by himself maybe from 3rd grade (8.5yo) with classmate(s), I still walk my 4th grade (8yo) daugher to school in the morning (unreliable/inconsistent slow classmate living nearby), at least I get some exercise working from home (if I didnt have time to walk them and help them with backpacks I would probably let them go by themselves earlier)
the main reason I still walk her is crossing the road, because I consider Prague roads dangerous even for adult pedestrian, let alone for kid, too many crazies driving here cars
other big reason is heavy backpack when they have to lug tons of books/workbooks
on the way back they go home either with classmates or together already for years, used to pick them up only in 1st and maybe 2nd grade
by Markoff - One of the worst aspects of modern life. The most paranoid person decides what the right thing to do is.by rahuldracula
- Well, I actually live in Gurgaon, India. It is very modern, and it's pretty much the same. Everyone lives in these gated complexes with a tiny militia guarding them from no real threat. Children are driven around everywhere and are always accompanied by a nanny or grandparents inside the gated complex.by rahuldracula
- The person who thought they cared about the child's welfare turned out to be the actual danger, and made the child's life much worse.by gblargg
- American modern life. Vast swathes of the rest of the planet doesn't suffer from our unfortunate pathology.
- In China, I would see kids who must have been 7 years old running around the streets or on public transit without adult supervision.
It seems like a much healthier way to live than in constant fear.
- In the US, if you are in a residential neighborhood with a lot of kids, its also fairly typical for them to be out finding their playmates.
I would say if you're in a neighborhood where there's just like 1-2 kids, it may not be that typical. The kids parents might do more scheduled playdates.
Unfortunately in the US there are people that get annoyed about kids playing. And they are also the same kind of person that escalates things to the authorities / complains a lot about trivial things.
There's a Netflix documentary about one such sad case https://www.netflix.com/title/82018736
by softwaredoug - depends. my kids school in china didn't allow me to let my kids bike to school without supervision. (well, actually, they couldn't stop me from sending them to school alone, but they would not let them out unless i was there to pick them up. (there was only one crossing on the route, and that was close to the school and didn't have a lot of traffic)
in germany on the other hand, there was a case where parents demanded a school bus for a 7yr old, but the court said the kids could take the public train to school on their own.
by em-bee - >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 requirements. The prosecutor in the Commonwealth Attorney's Office for James City County said the same.
So the state doesn't have to answer to the public about why they interpret their laws to mean a 5 year old can never be alone. Show me the statute where there is an age cutoff.
Feels like these people made enemies, except that too many separate groups came down on her at once. What awful people.
- CPS type agencies all around the world wield immense power and are staffed by power hungry narcissists who get off on threatening to take parents' kids and coming up with demands they must followby r_lee
- I feel even if CPS or cops got involved, they can just take the kid home, no need to escalate things to charging the mom.
That said, there may be details we don't know here. This particular article is written from one bent, and the officials didn't comment on the case as is common in child-related prosecutions.
by softwaredoug - 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.
by lotsofpulp - I would have also immediately asked for their policy on how long children of different ages can be unsupervised.by briffle
- I'm no lawyer, but I can't see how the judge is able to square this with a plain reading of the law.
Here is the Virginia code on contributing to the delinquency of a minor: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter5/secti...
The only portion that is even remotely relevant is:
> (b) renders a child delinquent, in need of services, in need of supervision, or abused or neglected as defined in § 16.1-228;
However, here is that section: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/16.1-228/
Paragraph 2 is the relevant one:
> No child whose parent or other person responsible for his care allows the child to engage in independent activities without adult supervision shall for that reason alone be considered to be an abused or neglected child, provided that (a) such independent activities are appropriate based on the child's age, maturity, and physical and mental abilities and (b) such lack of supervision does not constitute conduct that is so grossly negligent as to endanger the health or safety of the child. Such independent activities include traveling to or from school or nearby locations by bicycle or on foot, playing outdoors, or remaining at home for a reasonable period of time.
I would think that in order to justify a conviction, prosecutors would have had to overcome the above by showing evidence that this particular child is INCAPABLE of safely walking to a nearby location within his neighborhood, or that the child ACTUALLY DID put himself in danger, i.e. by entering the pond.
Something tells me that evidence does not exist, and the judge ruled based on something other than a correct reading of the law.
by jawns - They will simply call it grossly negligent, triggering the exception.by megagpt1
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Enough!
Old Enough! is a Japanese reality show that has been aired irregularly since 1991 on Nippon Television. The program depicts, in a documentary manner, the efforts of toddlers going on an errand on their own, buying groceries and delivering packages, accompanied by the camera crew.
The American version - https://youtu.be/VhGTtWsW9F8
by ortusdux - by giarc
- How 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.
- > How does this happen?
Simple. Evolutionarily, the dumber you are, the higher the risks of dying, because you do stupid shit. Inversely, the safer the environment, the dumber people become, because not doing stupid shit stops being evolutionarily advantageous. Nature is pretty brutal so there is evolutionary pressure not to be dumb, but in modern civilization we have pretty much infinite resources dedicated to safety, which means there is a feedback loop "people are dumber -> more safety measures -> people are dumber -> more safety measures".
When you go to poor countries you'll realize just how much knowledge children posses on the topic on how not to die.
by anal_reactor - I'm not sure if this just bias from news stories but in general it feels like absurd things which would be avoided with just common sense from authorities tend to happen in the US.by alasano
- Virginia also has a free range kid law.
And in particular, the conviction here was delinquency of a minor. That's usually used to convict parents of teenagers whose kids do serious crimes.
I caveat to say, we don't know the full details. But it all seems pretty weak sauce.
by softwaredoug - 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’
by garciasn