Posted on 01/15/2015 5:02:57 AM PST by ConservativeInPA
It was a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. But what the parents saw as a moment of independence for their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, they say authorities viewed much differently.
Danielle and Alexander Meitiv say they are being investigated for neglect for the Dec. 20 trek — in a case they say reflects a clash of ideas about how safe the world is and whether parents are free to make their own choices about raising their children.
“We wouldn’t have let them do it if we didn’t think they were ready for it,” Danielle said.
She said her son and daughter have previously paired up for walks around the block, to a nearby 7-Eleven and to a library about three-quarters of a mile away. “They have proven they are responsible,” she said. “They’ve developed these skills.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I should have also included that I think the big difference back then was that just about everyone's mom was at home in those days. At very least there were lots of moms and seniors around and they were keeping in eye out. Also, one neighborhood I lived in had at least 50 kids between the age of 5-16ish that were always outside, so safety in numbers was huge.
It would be different if they lived in the country
I think one of the central characteristics of liberalism, is self-destruction. The “sexual revolution” leads to AIDS and other STD’s. The multiculturalist values and reverence for “tolerance” and “understanding” leads to an influx of Muslims that don’t share that tolerance and understanding.
Liberalism is the West committing suicide. They act like the Western world should self-immolate because the West committed a few sins, such as Imperialism, when pretty nearly every civilization on the Earth has committed violence and aggression against other cultures. But not every civilization has developed concepts of freedom and the pursuit of science, reason and knowledge in opposition to superstition.
The true core value of Liberalism is self-hate, hence the embrace of “The Other”, not despite, but BECAUSE the Other is someone who may rob, rape, convert or kill you.
In Kansas City two depraved men took a girl waiting alone in front of her house for the school bus. They did unspeakable things and then murdered her. My kid never waited alone for the bus. You just can’t do it anymore.
I remember when I walked to my school from K to 8th, then rode my Honda 90 to high school.
Would the authorities make the same objection if the parents were “same sex”? They wouldn’t dare. They also would not pick on minority parents, except maybe Asians.
I think that was the bigger mistake, it was me and one friend about 7 blocks from home at the beach at the wrong time. Had we been in a larger group it may not have been so severe, but were were both scared poopless and panicked. I tried to ride away from these guys on my bike, but they were too quick and I was too slow to react.
I just happened to be in a remote section of the street where the nearest home was probably 1000 feet away when this all took place. My friend couldn’t hardly remember anything about the vehicle they were in, what they looked like and was guessing about the color of the vehicle. An old chevy suburban some kind of tan or brown and 4 guys.
My brother (7 years my senior) thought he knew who did this to me and had me rolling around in the back seat of his car as he went looking for them almost immediately after this happened to me. Apparently I rode my bike home, went inside, laid on the couch and about 15 minutes later my brother got home. My friend told him what happened, and then we went looking. We never found them. When mom and dad got home about an hour after we returned they realized it was pretty bad (Mom used to be a nurse’s aid, so she knew I had a concussion). That was an expensive ambulance ride...
My Mom had been back to work for about 4 or 5 years when this incident occurred, but several other people’s Mothers stayed home in those days. It’s too bad we didn’t think to call on one of them instead of waiting like we did.
Gotta go with the parents on this one. It’s their decision. There is nothing illegal about it. The cops shouldn’t have stopped the kids to begin with.
That sounds about right. It was a long walk. I remember I used to listen to Bon Jovi’s New Jersey in my Walkman, and I went through most of side B before I got to school/home.
Your post was great. It took me back to my days when I was 9 years old until 11 or 12. We walked to school. We walked to a shopping mall, crossing one of the busiest streets in Roanoke (Hershberger Road), often with maybe 15 cents in our pockets. The mall was gigantic, or so it seemed. There was a gourmet restaurant with mints in a bowl at the desk when patrons left. We’d sneak a few of those. We’d put a penny (nickel?) in the sweet tart vending machine and see how many we could get by banging on the machine and jiggling the mechanism as we turned the crank. When we were “rich” (somebody had a dollar or two) we might go to the drugstore and get a banana split. There were balloons with prices inside. A banana split was 50 cents, max, but the balloons you chose might charge you 40 cents, 25 cents, or less. My buddy got his for 1 cent once!!
We played football without any pads or helmets. A neighbor would sometimes come out and be quarterback for both teams. We found an old mattress and dragged it to an apartment complex swing set, where we’d jump out of the swings and land on it. We always tried to do flips, but as I recall no one ever had the nerve.
Wow. Thanks for triggering those memories.
We had block moms (every block had a stay at home mom, whose house you could run to on the way to school if you were hurt, sick or scared etc.) but if it was summer time, it probalby would not have occured to me to seek them out either.
In my day, we had to walk 5 miles to school, through snow that ws chest deep, uphill both ways. and that was in July.
“They’ve developed these skills.”
Well, we can’t have THAT! Before you know it, they’ll be THINKING CRITICALLY and just might not grow up to be Good Little Socialists!
Anyone familiar with 99th & Lincoln in Milwaukeestan? 4-lane divided HIGHWAY with crosswalks. Started crossing that ALONE when I started Kindergarten.
I agree. Americans have been PROGRAMMED to be soft targets.
You’re welcome. It’s good to remember those carefree days now and again.
“In my day, we had to walk 5 miles to school, through snow that was chest deep, uphill both ways. And that was in July.”
Hi, DAD! LOL!
Dumb idea for the parents to do this in Silver Spring...
You're entitled to your opinion. They are are entitled to their's. No?
I read the article and did not get that impression. It's beside the point, anyway. What these parents choose reflects what we did with our home schooled sons twenty years ago. They were often out walking to the grocery, playing or riding the bus to the library or museum during school hours. They also carried a note identifying them with our address and phone. That was our due diligence as parents.
We taught them to never speak with strangers and to yell and raise hell if anyone unknown to them approached.
We had the advantage of living in a smaller city and the boys became known to the neighbors and cops.
They were brought home by the police a time or two, but it never escalated to CPS. I mark that good fortune to our correct choice on where to live.
Too many parents have been convinced by the media that they themselves are incapable of making decisions about their own children. And it seems like the sentence today’s parents utter most often to their children is “Be careful!”
One of the most idiotic things is the stupid helmets for bikes and such. The sight of a kid wearing a helmet and riding on a little bike with training wheels makes me want to smack his parents.
This Government relies on a compliant public. Legalizing dope, penalizing parents who encourage their kids to think, arresting people who cross the Govt.’s arbitrary lines. I ended up in the ER with high blood pressure after the 2012 election. I am/was not sure how Obama cheated his way back into the WH, but I was sure this country, as we remember it with our freedoms, was over.
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