Posted on 04/14/2015 11:22:57 AM PDT by drewh
Two suburban Washington, D.C., parents are under scrutiny again for letting their 6- and 10-year-old children play in a park and walk home alone in a case that has stirred debate about "free-range" parenting and government powers.
For the second time in four months, police picked up the children of Danielle and Alexander Meitiv on Sunday as they were walking home alone from a park that's nearly a mile from their house. This time, instead of bringing the children home, police took them directly to Child Protective Services.
"It's beyond ridiculous," Danielle Meitiv said Monday. "The world is safer today, and yet we imprison our children inside and wonder why they're obese and have no focus."
The Meitivs, who live 6 miles from Washington in Silver Spring, Maryland, believe in "free-range" parenting, which includes allowing their children to play and walk alone in the neighborhood to teach them self-reliance and responsibility.
Danielle Meitiv said she and her husband began worrying when the kids weren't home by 6:30, but that Child Protective Services didn't call them until 8 p.m. to say the children were in their custody.
Police had picked them up on the walk home after another concerned citizen called.
The Meitivs were able to take their children home around 10:30 p.m.
"This morning my daughter wanted to go play in the yard and I couldn't let her out because I was making breakfast," Danielle Meitiv said. "Are they prisoners? She's 6 and she's not allowed to play in the yard?"
The case has drawn international media coverage, and Danielle Meitiv said the couple has heard from people all over the world. The majority have been supportive, Meitiv said, but some have expressed outrage at the couple's parenting style.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
When a police car would come around the corner a bunch of us kids would take off and scatter like we were up to something.
Trying to egg on the cops to come after us.
I bet our town cop got a good laugh out of it.
>>I think I am part if the last generation to be really free.
Well then, we need to work on that :-)
My wife and I were free range kids like our grandparents, uncles, aunts, parents, brothers, sisters, and cousins.
We grew up under a “Benign Neglect” parental behavior from our parents.
No one was kidnapped nor killed.
No one for at least 4 generations had a criminal record.
No one was ever on welfare.
No one was an alcoholic or druggie or both.
Most of the males through my generation, volunteered for the military and served honorably. Many had top secret clearances with their services and some were in the intel groups like the NSG.
Higher education with our cousins was divided into two groups. Either group all ways had jobs until they retired. Many did and still do consulting or part time work after retirement.
Group 1. Many got into skilled/high demand positions via trade schools or internships and continued to learn throughout their skilled work years. After retirement, many did and still do part time work. Those jobs came to them instead of them seeking part time jobs.
Group 2. Those of us who went to college got degrees in engineering, architecture, bus admin, accounting or became licensed health care professionals. No one wasted their time and parents money getting an Instant Unemployment Degree.
Being free range kids under the benign neglect of our parents enabled us to be good citizens.
Free range in Detroit is very different from free range in Maybury.
me too!
No; aRREST SOMEONE FOR kidnapping!
When I was 8 and my cousin was 6, we went on the train from Induanapolis to new Jersy alone.
Of course our parents knew where we were and the train folks knew of the situation and watched over us; but it was cool to be ‘on your own’ for a bit.
Neighborhood? shoot! we had bikes. We could be in the next town or up the mountain and back. Nobody wanted to know. One rule was don’t bring home stray dogs. One day we brought home a boat that had been lost in an earlier flood. “Just keep that thing out of the front yard.” The other was be home by supper. My Mom would still be in jail if these MD bleepholes had been around.
Good grief. I was walking one mile to and from kindergarten if it wasn’t raining.
dangerous neighborhoods? Well that’s fixed by letting the kids have pistols. We had them and could take them if we thot we needed them for practice, rabbits, etc. My Mom’s main advice about guns was “Make sure you clean those guns if you’re gonna drag them around the place.”
But we grew up in America.
Back when child molesters were unheard of, because they ended up with life in prison or executed.
Now they get invited on talk shows to regale everyone with their Love for Children.
So it is of course unsafe now, and that’s what the idiots at CPS are admitting - they refuse to confront the real criminals, and make the rest of us bear the burden.
At the same time people are demanding that children be "cooped-up" with all the lack of freedom that comes with that.
We are no longer the land of the free or the home of the brave, we have let the cowards rule.
Google Amber Hagerman. I used to live near where she was abducted. I would never in a million years let my children walk to the park alone or bike around unsupervised.
I’m late to the party on this thread but I’m in agreement with you. I have 5 kids, 4 grown and one still in high school, and I would NEVER have let them wander around alone. As I mentioned before, I lived near where Amber Hagerman (Amber Alert) was abducted. Even hardened cops that had seen everything were horrified by the state of her body and what some subhuman piece of filth did to her. I think most of the investigators won’t even talk about it to this day. Anyone that lets a 6 year old play in a park unsupervised needs their head examined.
And everyone that keeps saying they did this and that all by themselves when they were young, so what? So did I. Sure as heck doesn’t mean I’d let my kids do it.
My Dad also had a very distinctive whistle that could be heard three or four blocks away. If he whistled twice, I knew I was in trouble.
That's exactly the way it was for me and my younger brothers, who I was responsible for.
The summer before they were entering 7th or 8th grade, my brother and his friend rode their bikes 20 miles (one way) to the County Library... they took a different route home and made a big loop.
We had a bell... The one kid across the road would be called by name by his dad shouting for him. The other kid’s dad would whistle using his fingers. We could be on the other side of the valley at the dairy farm, and we were all capable of hearing a faint call and all the kids would scramble, get on their bikes and race home as fast as possible before there was an asswhoopin’.
My mom and her siblings wandered all over the neighborhood all day, built sod houses in the summer, ice skated in the winter.
I had Super Nintendo, but I envy them.
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