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CaveDog
01-17-2015, 03:34 PM
Gotta be careful about how you raise the government's kids...

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Child services still hounding couple who let their kids play outside.

You may recall the story last month of a family threatened by the authorities for letting their kids walk outside (http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/23/cps-threatens-dad-who-let-kids-play-at-p). Here's the latest from the mom, Danielle Meitiv, who is hoping the rest of the media takes note. I hope so, too.Meitiv explains via email:
Dear Reason: On Monday, a Montgomery County child protective services worker went to my children's school and interviewed them without my knowledge or consent. Why?
Because last month we'd let them walk home from the park by themselves. It's a mile away. They are 6 and 10. We live in suburban Maryland. Let me recap the story and then tell you where we're at.

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http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/14/cops-and-cps-threaten-parents-whose-kids

Dr. Who
01-17-2015, 03:51 PM
Gotta be careful about how you raise the government's kids...

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Child services still hounding couple who let their kids play outside.

You may recall the story last month of a family threatened by the authorities for letting their kids walk outside (http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/23/cps-threatens-dad-who-let-kids-play-at-p). Here's the latest from the mom, Danielle Meitiv, who is hoping the rest of the media takes note. I hope so, too.Meitiv explains via email:
Dear Reason: On Monday, a Montgomery County child protective services worker went to my children's school and interviewed them without my knowledge or consent. Why?
Because last month we'd let them walk home from the park by themselves. It's a mile away. They are 6 and 10. We live in suburban Maryland. Let me recap the story and then tell you where we're at.

-----
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/14/cops-and-cps-threaten-parents-whose-kids


The question is whether there is actually any law that precludes children walking alone or whether CPS and the police are simply making up rules as they go along based on the perception that there is a pedophile around every tree and rock.

CaveDog
01-17-2015, 03:54 PM
The question is whether there is actually any law that precludes children walking alone or whether CPS and the police are simply making up rules as they go along based on the perception that there is a pedophile around every tree and rock.

According to the original article...


She was cited for allowing a child under age 8 "to be locked or confined in a dwelling, building, enclosure, or motor vehicle while the person charged is absent."
The CPS worker decided "confined in a dwelling" was the same thing as "outside in a park.

Alyosha
01-17-2015, 03:59 PM
The unintended consequences of progressivism. They make "nice" laws, laws grow and move to the extremes.

This is why I'm an anarchist. In an anarchist society people would have just told the parents "hey that's stupid" if they thought it was.

At 6 I would walk down five blocks for my mother to wait in line for milk. She was not a bad mother.

donttread
01-17-2015, 04:17 PM
Gotta be careful about how you raise the government's kids...

-------------
Child services still hounding couple who let their kids play outside.

You may recall the story last month of a family threatened by the authorities for letting their kids walk outside (http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/23/cps-threatens-dad-who-let-kids-play-at-p). Here's the latest from the mom, Danielle Meitiv, who is hoping the rest of the media takes note. I hope so, too.Meitiv explains via email:
Dear Reason: On Monday, a Montgomery County child protective services worker went to my children's school and interviewed them without my knowledge or consent. Why?
Because last month we'd let them walk home from the park by themselves. It's a mile away. They are 6 and 10. We live in suburban Maryland. Let me recap the story and then tell you where we're at.

-----
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/14/cops-and-cps-threaten-parents-whose-kids



Your "Cave Dog " quote says it all, the government's kids

del
01-17-2015, 04:27 PM
when i was 6, my mom would send me to the drugstore to buy her cigarettes

she and the druggist would be up on rico charges if it happened today

CaveDog
01-17-2015, 04:29 PM
Believe it or not, David Farragut, who became America's first Admiral got his commission as a midshipman at the age of 10. He got his first command at age 12. We've extended childhood so drastically in this day in age that we now regard a 10 year old as unable to walk home from the park during mid-day in suburbia while minding a younger sibling that CPS shows up and threatens to take the kids away. The objective of all this is purely political. To establish that all children are wards of the state so that government has the right to intervene in the family.

Peter1469
01-17-2015, 04:32 PM
The unintended consequences of progressivism. They make "nice" laws, laws grow and move to the extremes.

This is why I'm an anarchist. In an anarchist society people would have just told the parents "hey that's stupid" if they thought it was.

At 6 I would walk down five blocks for my mother to wait in line for milk. She was not a bad mother.

Well, can you go get me some milk. Please. Organic. Last time you didn't get organic....

Dr. Who
01-17-2015, 05:24 PM
According to the original article...
It's no wonder children are getting so obese. They are not allowed to walk anywhere anymore unless in the company of adult. That pretty much lets out much playing if Mom or Dad is busy. I started going to the store for my mother when I was 5 and I always walked to school on my own. It wasn't uncommon for me to be a mile away from home before I was 8 years old. My mother knew where I was - usually past the railroad tracks behind the Catholic school and out in the gully with friends looking for varmints and bugs or trying to catch frogs, poly-wogs or whatever little fish we could find in the creek - depending on the season. In winter we would toboggan down the big hill there that ended in the creek. I often tell my mother that by today's standards she would have been charged with child neglect. LOL.

Alyosha
01-17-2015, 05:42 PM
Life is filled with danger. Some kids will be harmed by bad people but to deny kids that feeling of freedom and exploration because of what could happen is wrong. Some of my best times was walking through the streets of Moscow as a kid with the snow coming down.

Russia and snow are my best memories prior to the year 2000.

PolWatch
01-17-2015, 05:43 PM
I never heard a child whining that he was bored because they knew I would find something to keep boredom away (cutting the lawn or cleaning windows). My son fell, cut himself, and generally knew all the emergency room nurses by their first name. He was so abused he never had a video game. He was spanked on the butt when necessary and made to say yes ma'am and no sir. He actually survived the abuse and lived to adulthood....he still speaks to us too! go figure

Alyosha
01-17-2015, 05:45 PM
We live in such a suspicious society today in the west. I find it very sad. All of the polarization and fear has trickled down. Everyone is a serial killer, everyone is a pedophile, everyone is a terrorist.

It's just so sad.

CaveDog
01-17-2015, 06:32 PM
We live in such a suspicious society today in the west. I find it very sad. All of the polarization and fear has trickled down. Everyone is a serial killer, everyone is a pedophile, everyone is a terrorist.

It's just so sad.

My mother says she remembers a time when a woman would not have thought twice about asking another woman that she didn't know to watch her kids for a minute in a store. Times have certainly changed.

Dr. Who
01-17-2015, 06:37 PM
The problem with trying to make our children safe from every potential form of harm is that in the process they are being deprived of freedom. Freedom to do the right thing or the wrong thing and know the consequences of their actions. I wonder how people raised without really knowing freedom are going to vote?

Ethereal
01-17-2015, 06:55 PM
Don't you realize how dangerous the world is? Don't you watch TV?

I'm glad to see government agents basing their decisions on TV. That's very reassuring.

Ethereal
01-17-2015, 06:57 PM
The question is whether there is actually any law that precludes children walking alone or whether CPS and the police are simply making up rules as they go along based on the perception that there is a pedophile around every tree and rock.

It's definitely the latter. In America, the authorities can legally harass anyone they want with virtual impunity.

Mr. Right
01-17-2015, 07:17 PM
All these stories about what we did as kids is entertaining. My mother turned myself and my older brother loose every day during the summer.
Once in a small town we'd ventured out to a site where there was a radio tower being erected. We climbed up about 150 feet with a pocket full of rocks. We were throwing rocks down when we heard a loudspeaker telling us to "Get Down FROM THERE"... It was a sheriff's deputy. We hauled butt back down and got on our bikes and left before he could reach us. I was 7 and my brother was 9. We were regularly over 3 miles from home for hours at a time. When we moved back to Mississippi, we'd ride our bikes to my grandmothers house on the other side of town. When my brother got the flu once when I was 10, I took his paper route over for 2 days; he had 174 people on his route. To this day, when I see a basket on the front of a bike, I think about those days of helping him on his route and the tamale stand we stopped by almost
every day.

Dr. Who
01-17-2015, 07:45 PM
All these stories about what we did as kids is entertaining. My mother turned myself and my older brother loose every day during the summer.
Once in a small town we'd ventured out to a site where there was a radio tower being erected. We climbed up about 150 feet with a pocket full of rocks. We were throwing rocks down when we heard a loudspeaker telling us to "Get Down FROM THERE"... It was a sheriff's deputy. We hauled butt back down and got on our bikes and left before he could reach us. I was 7 and my brother was 9. We were regularly over 3 miles from home for hours at a time. When we moved back to Mississippi, we'd ride our bikes to my grandmothers house on the other side of town. When my brother got the flu once when I was 10, I took his paper route over for 2 days; he had 174 people on his route. To this day, when I see a basket on the front of a bike, I think about those days of helping him on his route and the tamale stand we stopped by almost
every day.
Doesn't it make you sad that kids today don't know that kind of freedom? They are like pets in cages now. They get to go for a walk if someone takes them and all of their activities are supervised and controlled. Absent any freedom, they stay indoors and play video games that give them the illusion of freedom and adventure.

Mr. Right
01-17-2015, 08:16 PM
Not here, Doc. My daughter and her friend rode their ponies on the trails around here today unsupervised. Last Sunday, they both rode over to a trainer's facility 2 miles from here. They ride on the sides of the road mostly b/c the horses are not shod. Several years ago, we ran out some imported riff raff and and got a "hood" watch thing going. The neighbors will call the cops at the drop of a hat...

Redrose
01-17-2015, 09:37 PM
The problem with trying to make our children safe from every potential form of harm is that in the process they are being deprived of freedom. Freedom to do the right thing or the wrong thing and know the consequences of their actions. I wonder how people raised without really knowing freedom are going to vote?


I grew up in the fifties and sixties. I guess we were "free range" kids(7-8 years old) We went to school on city buses, not a school bus. Walked home sometimes, about a mile along the main avenue. Most moms didn't drive or have the car. One non school days we would go out to play at 9 am come home for lunch back out again for dinner, the out again until 9 when dad whistled to call us in. And you had better get home fast. We grew up street wise. Brooklyn back then where we lived was the "suburbs". Pretty tree lined streets of nice brick homes with manicured lawns. No crime.

Even my own kids 30 and 40 years ago had some freedom growing up. The did have school buses though.

Today I would be afraid to let my kids roam free, unattended until they were at least 12 or so. It's a different world now.

Peter1469
01-17-2015, 09:41 PM
I walked to school alone in grades 5-8. Got into a couple of fights, like 2. No more after that.

Dr. Who
01-17-2015, 09:45 PM
I grew up in the fifties and sixties. I guess we were "free range" kids(7-8 years old) We went to school on city buses, not a school bus. Walked home sometimes, about a mile along the main avenue. Most moms didn't drive or have the car. One non school days we would go out to play at 9 am come home for lunch back out again for dinner, the out again until 9 when dad whistled to call us in. And you had better get home fast. We grew up street wise. Brooklyn back then where we lived was the "suburbs". Pretty tree lined streets of nice brick homes with manicured lawns. No crime.

Even my own kids 30 and 40 years ago had some freedom growing up. The did have school buses though.

Today I would be afraid to let my kids roam free, unattended until they were at least 12 or so. It's a different world now.
Is it really all that different, or do we simply report every incident endlessly until people are terrified?

PolWatch
01-17-2015, 09:50 PM
good question. I think some of it is better reporting...we hear about incidents more often than we used to. I don't think human nature really changes much.

Redrose
01-17-2015, 09:55 PM
Doesn't it make you sad that kids today don't know that kind of freedom? They are like pets in cages now. They get to go for a walk if someone takes them and all of their activities are supervised and controlled. Absent any freedom, they stay indoors and play video games that give them the illusion of freedom and adventure.


Children that are too protected, too sheltered, never learn to deal with problems. When they are finally out in the world, junior high, high school or the business world the are incapable of handling problems. They are weak, naive, coddled, spoiled. One over protective mother still cuts her son's meat at 10 because she will not let him handle a knife. Mom needs help I think. We're not helping these kids develope normally.

Now I don't mean we throw our kids out of the house as toddlers, but mid grammer school they can be out of mommy's watchful eye depending on the area. If you live in an inner city that is crime riddled, then that would not be advisable. Common sense should prevail. Each child is unique, let the child indicate how much freedom he/she is ready for.

PolWatch
01-17-2015, 09:59 PM
People do not learn how to make decisions unless they have experience making decisions...even bad ones. It sometimes seems that the last generation was not allowed to be children...they were treated like crystal idols. Everything was given to them and done for them. They have no experience with learning how to do something and have it not turn out the way they want it.

Redrose
01-17-2015, 10:09 PM
Is it really all that different, or do we simply report every incident endlessly until people are terrified?

It may not be that different in some respect. It does seem we hear about these incidents more because of our information capabilities now. I think things started to change when we started putting missing kids pictures on milk cartons. That brought it right into our homes. If a child goes missing now in Utah, the entire country knows about it almost immediately. Years ago only the immediate region would know unless something truly unusual made it national news. I will say child predators have a wider range to search due to the internet.
A 42 year old man in California can be interracting with your 12 year old daughter, who thinks he's another kid. Kids are exposed to more potential dangers, some of it can be right in their computer.

Dr. Who
01-17-2015, 10:12 PM
It may not be that different in some respect. It does seem we hear about these incidents more because of our information capabilities now. I think things started to change when we started putting missing kids pictures on milk cartons. That brought it right into our homes. If a child goes missing now in Utah, the entire country knows about it almost immediately. Years ago only the immediate region would know unless something truely unusual made it national news. I will say child predators have a wider range to search due to the internet.
A 42 year old man in California can be interracting with your 12 year old daughter, who thinks he's another kid. Kids are exposed to more potential dangers, some of it can be right in their computer.
So ultimately they may be in more danger indoors than outdoors!

PolWatch
01-17-2015, 10:15 PM
It seems the internet is dangerous for children...if the parents don't know what they are doing. I'm glad that came after my son was grown.

PolWatch
01-17-2015, 10:18 PM
I know I'm dating myself but I don't know when parents decided they wanted to be friends with their children. I'm friends with my son now but he is 42 years old. When he was a child....he was a child and we were in charge. If he didn't like our decisions he was outta luck.

Peter1469
01-17-2015, 10:24 PM
I know I'm dating myself but I don't know when parents decided they wanted to be friends with their children. I'm friends with my son now but he is 42 years old. When he was a child....he was a child and we were in charge. If he didn't like our decisions he was outta luck.

Nah, you aren't that old. You are too cool to be..., right?

Redrose
01-17-2015, 10:25 PM
People do not learn how to make decisions unless they have experience making decisions...even bad ones. It sometimes seems that the last generation was not allowed to be children...they were treated like crystal idols. Everything was given to them and done for them. They have no experience with learning how to do something and have it not turn out the way they want it.


Last year my 9 year old grandson stayed with us. We went to a magic show where kids were pulled from the audience to go on stage. He had a total melt down because he wasn't chosen. We were so embarrassed. He is basically a great child, but he has been coddled since birth. Toddler balls games, Pee Wee League games, etc. Everybody wins, no losers, everybody gets a trophy, no score kept. He's never learned how to lose, he can't handle rejection. I told my husband, he'll commit suicide if he ever gets fired from a job or a relationship fails when he grows up. His mom says they don't want the children to feel inferior. Newsflash, we're all inferior to somebody all throughout our life.

Redrose
01-17-2015, 10:29 PM
So ultimately they may be in more danger indoors than outdoors!


Possibly, and not letting a child grow and mature properly only helps to make them more vulnerable.

I made sure my girls grew up with just the right amount of paranoia. lol

Peter1469
01-17-2015, 10:30 PM
Kids need to be told that nobody outside of their family and friends know who they are much less care about them. People think much to highly of themselves these days.


Last year my 9 year old grandson stayed with us. We went to a magic show where kids were pulled from the audience to go on stage. He had a total melt down because he wasn't chosen. We were so embarrassed. He is basically a great child, but he has been coddled since birth. Toddler balls games, Pee Wee League games, etc. Everybody wins, no losers, everybody gets a trophy, no score kept. He's never learned how to lose, he can't handle rejection. I told my husband, he'll commit suicide if he ever gets fired from a job or a relationship fails when he grows up. His mom says they don't want the children to feel inferior. Newsflash, we're all inferior to somebody all throughout our life.

Mr. Right
01-17-2015, 10:51 PM
Nah, you aren't that old. You are too cool to be..., right?

Peter... oh WTH... I've always hung out with older. My first wife was (gasp) more than 10 years older... think bunnies... .. In career, all my counterparts were older. Nobody was 23 and in business. After about 4 or 5 years in, I met a really cool guy about 66 years of age. Me and the new wife (we just passed 30 together) used to have him and his wife over to our place. He's the reason I'm not with wife 3 or 5. This man described to me the horrors of Cassino and Anzio. "Things you'd rather not hear of" was how he put it. .. . .

PolWatch
01-17-2015, 10:52 PM
We bought our house when our son was 7. He graduated from high school with the same kids he went to elementary school with....some of them he went to 4 year old play school with because its all the same, small town. I didn't have to worry about strangers around my child because everyone knows who you are. The teenagers hated that!