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To answer all the insults here -
Yes, I’m effeminate as I am a female....
Yes, I do get out....
I am probably older than anyone posting to this thread....
I am a conservative....
I don’t believe in insulting people just because I disagree with them....
Where did any of you get the idea the story was about you and your experiences growing up?

For all of you posters who can’t get upset upon reading about an abducted child taking up days of 24 hour news cycles and later found murdered, check out the area from the December news about this same family and tell me these children are safe and the parents perfectly sane.

Not one of you bothered to check the December story to discover that these kids were not walking in a residential neighborhood at that time. We don’t have the details on the park they were in for this particular incident except they were still a mile from home.

The good Lord forbid, if something were to happen to these children and no one cared or showed any concern because the children were simply learning how to be independent, you’d all be on FR declaring the parents were neglectful and your parents would never have been that neglectful blah blah blah....

Are you folks too obtuse to understand that even ADULTS come up missing in this country?

http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/27863335/free-range-family

As a lifelong Montgomery County resident, perhaps I can shed a bit of light as to many lifelong MoCo residents feelings concerning the issue. When I was a little girl, I too had the freedom many posters expressed. I came in when the street lights came on. My best girlfriend and I would sleep in tents in our front yard. We would “wander” our neighborhood after 10 on Summer nights. Well, the county changes with the Lyon Sisters. For those FReepers who don’t either remember or know about them.. two girls (around the same age as the kids in Silver Spring) walking to Wheaton Mall (and in those days, the area was still very nice. Nothing unusual... a lot of kids did it. They disappeared in broad daylight. The forthcoming investigation was horrific. The police named the Father as a potential suspect even though he was broadcasting in a radio station a block from there. They simply vanished.

Life in MoCo changed that day. The innocence of the county was lost and lost forever. In the years since, the county’s “occupants” have changed as well. IMHO, Silver Spring is no place for a 10 and 6 year old to be wandering alone and for these reasons: (1) The traffic situation is horrific. (2) The parents after the initial warning from Child Services went public. All fine and good but in many articles, the detail listing of when/where the kids walk were published. Every possible child molester with a “preference” for a little boy or girl were given not only the street address but pictures of the kids as well. How easy it would have been or IS to present a fake badge and take the kids. (3) The parents were warned. Wether one believes it was over the top or not, a person decides when/how/if to take a political push back decision. The parents obviously wanted to keep this issue on the front burner so chose to ignore it. That is their right.. but they also had to know that the following issue may lead to the losing of their kids... wether temporarily or not.

In short, I guess a true “Conservative” may say that it is the right/choice of a parent to ignore insane traffic, potential sexual abusers etc... and allow their children to “free range”. I guess it is in a way. However, if one chooses to only look in our past childhoods and pretend that it is in any way, shape or form the same as today... well, they are fooling themselves. For what it is worth, new info has emerged in the Lyon sisters missing case. From the articles I have read, they were taken out of state, repeatedly raped for possibly weeks and may be buried in some hillbilly family plot. The county police are still working this case.. which may seem like a Cold Case for some.. but not to the lifelong residents of MoCo.