Posted on 07/16/2014 9:55:58 AM PDT by yoe
When I was nine years old, my family moved to Eau Gallie, Florida, near Melbourne. That summer my mother decided she needed to come up with something for my younger brother and me to do. She got some kind of deal buying a book of tickets to the local skating rink. Five days a week we would walk there in the morning and spend hours there before walking back home. There were no mobile phones back then. Our only way to contact home was to use a quarter in the pay phone that was there. The walk was about two miles.
So she set us off by ourselves and we came back hours later by ourselves day after day.
A mother in Augusta, Georgia did something similar. Lenore Skenazy describes what happened at Reason magazine’s blog.
Here are the facts: Debra Harrell works at McDonald’s in North Augusta, South Carolina. For most of the summer, her daughter had stayed there with her, playing on a laptop that Harrell had scrounged up the money to purchase. (McDonald’s has free WiFi.) Sadly, the Harrell home was robbed and the laptop stolen, so the girl asked her mother if she could be dropped off at the park to play instead.
Harrell said yes. She gave her daughter a cell phone. The girl went to the park—a place so popular that at any given time there are about 40 kids frolicking—two days in a row. There were swings, a “splash pad,” and shade. On her third day at the park, an adult asked the girl where her mother was. At work, the daughter replied.
The shocked adult called the cops. Authorities declared the girl “abandoned” and proceeded to arrest the mother.
I’m not surprised that the cops nabbed the mother. That’s what they do, especially when summoned by some nosy parent. I’m not surprise that the Department of Social Services took the daughter into custody (a much less safe environment for the typical child) because, again, that’s what they do. I hate it but I’m not surprised by it.
[Earlier Post: “Child Takes a Walk; Father Arrested for ‘Child Endangerment’”]
What makes me angry is how the media is full of stupid, moronic, sermonizing, cowards. (The video below takes a minute to appear on my browser. You can also go here if you don’t see it.)
Here is a woman thrown into jail and her daughter is now the property of the Department of Social Services, and these people craft a narrative and speak with moral outrage as if the woman is the aggressor. No, she and her daughter are the victims; these interfering busybodies, both private and public, are the aggressors.
[See also: “Father Convicted & Punished for Making Son Walk a Mile Home from School”]
Debra Harrell did nothing wrong. But I doubt she can hire a real lawyer on her McDonald’s salary. If you don’t think Ms. Harrell was evaluated for her ability to afford a lawyer when the police were deciding whether or not to arrest her, then you are being naïve.
Imagining the possibility of a kidnapping is not a rational accusation. Read the story again. The girl could easily have been hurt if she had been home when it was robbed. She obviously doesn’t live in a safe neighborhood. Do we take all the children of all poor minorities now?
The playground, on the other hand, was full of witnesses. Despite the common myth, the fact is that the crime rate has dropped. Children are as safe as they were a generation or two ago.
Let’s be honest: this nine-year-old girl was abducted and imprisoned by the South Carolina bureaucrats because she is capable of taking care of herself and expects to do so. The system punishes the independent and demands dependence and helplessness. Debra Harrell and her daughter need to learn their proper place in the world. This is re-education for them.
I’ll let Skenazy have the last word:
Because some busybody thought she knew more about this girl’s safety than the girl’s own mother, a family has been separated. Harrell is in jail and the child is in the custody of the Department of Social Services. If only the girl had spent her whole summer sitting in McDonald’s—surfing the internet and eating a Big Mac instead of playing outside and getting fresh air—this never would have happened.
Hell, when I was a boy in the 1950s, cars didn’t even have seat belts. And at 7 we all carried pocket knives to whittle and play mumblety-peg.
Maybe the same place mine was, 300 miles away living in another city........
When I climbed out of a 747 at dawn in Fiji, it felt like the first morning of the world. Was up at dawn every day there to watch the sunrise, gorgeous, dewy, so fragrant that you feel blessed just to breathe. Heavenly
________________
Reminded me of my first arrival in Tahiti & then Moorea back in the 1970s. That fragrance! Your post brought it back.
I grew up in NYC, where we didn’t have gators but did have a lot of dangerous things (mostly human), and when I was 9 or 10, I was outside for hours at a time, either in the parks, riding my bike off to other parks, or simply hanging out some place. No cell phone, no nothing; I just had to check in by mealtime. All the kids I knew had the same “neglect.”
:) Yes indeed, those islands too. I sometimes think God gave us the tropics to remind us of heaven.
I think part of it is that we aren’t as close knit of a society as we used to be. All the families in a neighborhood knew each other, and kept eyes on each other. There would be a Gladys Kravitz type, sure, but the Moms (correction: housewife stay at home moms) knew all the kids and the kids looked out for each other.
I remember, strongly, my Mom and Grandmother talking about how they’d grown up with the prevelant fear that Gypsies were going to kidnap them. So that kind of fear is nothing new. What is new is a knowlege that if something like that were attempted, kids would have less options to quickly get away and to safety.
My husband works 24 hour shifts, and the neighbor would only do this on the days my husband worked. Our other neighbor had a talk with him and we’ve not had a problem since. My guard is not down, mind you. We live in Steubenville (aka Little Chicago), and until about 25 years ago this guy would have been taken care of if you get my drift.
I should add that he wouldn’t answer the door the multiple time my husband tried to talk to him.
Almost the same thing. The woods were a magical place when we were little.
We played in the woods near the swamp & Grapevine Bridge of the Seven Days Battles. We made forts, played in old earthworks, ate watermelons in the fields. Life was good.
Unless we wanted to take a nap, we were expected to stay outside. We even had a cup near the spigot in case we were thirsty. No need for that—we knew the locations of several springs and that water was always the best. :)
We knew it was time to come home when we heard the car horn blow.
I lived in Buckroe Beach and it was the mid-50s. The road between home to Yorktown was a very rural one or two lanes.
No self-respecting kid would come home until dark. I’d get up around 7am, grab a cup of instant coffee and then ride my bike to the library and various parks, or wherever I pleased. I’d go home when I wanted something to eat or drink and then back out I’d go. Sometimes we’d play soldiers using our whole block as the perimeter of the war. Sometimes we’d follow a creek and go exploring, picking up crawdads or other interesting creatures. If someone got cut, we’d go home and dress it ourselves. We played roll-a-bat or “baseball” or kickball. Someone usually had one piece of equipment and someone else another. Depending on what you could bring to the games you might be the captain. Summer used to be fun. Now it’s scripted to death. Poor kids.
My gosh, when I was growing up I first played in the park, then became a park employee for my town at 15. We had arts and crafts and swimming lessons. Some of the kids were there EVERYDAY from 8 to 6.
Us too or until your friends mom told you to go home.
You make very good points however, along with all the perverts,criminals etc. these meddlesome people are just as bad as those who ‘might’ prey on a child as they can ‘kill’ a family just by calling the ‘helpful authorities’ by not investigating the situation. Still Outraged!
Goodbye, America.
Glad I knew you when you were good, healthy and sane.
And what should be done to parents who let their children travel through a drug -infested country, led by “coyotes” intent upon doing the bidding of a marxist president while they are occasionally raped?
She was the only child in the park. I would not leave my 9 you child alone all day. You should get all the facts before lambasting. Hurray for all you folks that went to the moon, biked cross country, etc, while you were left unattended for days. At least you knew how to get home unlike this child.
Still outraged and trying to find out whats happening with that little family. Freepers are Good People!
In elementary school, I walked home alone and along a busy 4 lane city street. A few years later, we were riding bikes all over town from dawn to dusk in the days before cell phones or knee pads and no busybodies were calling the cops on our parents. Fast forward to my little ones walking to grandma’s a quarter mile down a quiet country road and the neighbors getting their panties in a wad. I survived swimming in the river unsupervised and so did they. I learned to handle sharp objects and respect guns at an early age and so did they. Lil’ Miss was slicing homegrown cucumbers for home canned pickles at age 3 but today there are teenagers who are afraid of knives and guns kill people, don’cha know.
In fact, just had the nephews over who are afraid of the outside. They aren’t allowed to play outside in their own yard and they live in a nice wealthy neighborhood. Coming out to the country totally freaked them out. Couldn’t walk around the neighborhood or take grandma cookies because it’s outside. Couldn’t ride bikes because 1) they don’t want to learn and 2) it’s outside. Couldn’t play putt-putt because it’s outside. One wouldn’t go to the garage to play with the kittens because the garage was opened. Couldn’t go fishing, fly a kite, play with RC cars, hike, geocache, archery, help hubby bbq and a million other things I would have loved to have done at their age but noooo, that would mean they’d have to go out into the big scary outside. Hubby had to beg them to roast marshmallows one night. Since when do kids have to be begged to roast marshmallows?
Good for you! When I was a kid we had so much freedom. We would walk to the park, taking a lunch with us and come home in time for supper. Can’t do that now. It is not even safe to let the children play in the yard...and certainly not safe to let them visit a gay person.
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