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 ...
Me too. I thought that was “normal”.
Tom Sawyer... Huck Finn...
“...What has become of America? ...”
Commies posing as liberal Democrats, Bob. That’s what.
:)
I had Atari 2600.
Everyone has such pretty memories of when they were kids; so do I. However, it’s time to realize that this isn’t the America in which we grew up and it isn’t the America in which our parents were fortunate enough to bring up their children.
Thanks to our “tolerant” Liberal government, droves of sexual perverts and mentally deranged individuals that used to be locked away from society now roam among us at will. Even if they do happen to get locked up for a time, they are soon given their freedom to victimize again. After all, they have their “rights” too.
“Free range kids” is a pretty idea, a nostalgic one that is dangerous to put into to practice in this present day. But some people just won’t get it until it’s their own child who doesn’t come home or that disappears into thin air.
Times were different for me back then . I was a little kid in the early 60’s. There are a lot more sickos around these days.
rural GA is good
Yep. Back when this was still “America”, it was a MUCH better place...and s**t like this was “taken care of” at the local level.
The Freak State nannies are in papers all over the country.
Combined Maryland “Freak State” and Nanny State PING!
For the forum’s consideration. I found it to be an interesting, informative article
The Overprotected Kid
A preoccupation with safety has stripped childhood of independence, risk taking, and discovery—without making it safer. A new kind of playground points to a better solution.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/
|The problem is that liberals know that their judges are releasing pedophiles from jail, so they know it is unsafe, they are the pedophiles...
Thanks for the ping!
With daylight savings time, sunset is at 8 PM. As a kid, I would run out an play after dinner when the Spring brought longer daylight hours. I don’t think we had daylight savings time back then.
When I was 6, I walked down the road one mile to catch the bus. The bus would travel 12 miles to the closest Catholic School. I would get off the bus at 7:45 AM and walk 6 blocks to the school where I would attend morning mass. It was quite a routine, but my parents expected it because their childhood was even harder.
That summer, when I had just turned 7, I camped out in the back yard. That morning, I built a campfire, brought a fry pan, butter, eggs and bacon out from the kitchen and made scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. Today, a nosy neighbor would have called the fire department.
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