The Meitivs say that on Dec. 20, a CPS worker required Alexander to sign a safety plan pledging he would not leave his children unsupervised until the following Monday, when CPS would follow up. At first he refused, saying he needed to talk to a lawyer, his wife said, but changed his mind when he was told his children would be removed if he did not comply.
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"Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone."
The distance: 1 mile. The place: Silver Spring. The children: a 10-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl. The parents: a climate-science consultant and a physicist at the National Institutes of Health.
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Think we should all just move into the White House and get it over with.
Insane.
CPS lets kids live in absolutely dangerous families and instead go after the low-hanging, easy to deal with good families who do something someone finds iffy.
O lord. My ma would still be in prison.
As Instapundit says:
Tar. Feathers.
(For cops and CPS.)
At age 11 I was babysitting my brothers. I did some babysitting in the neighborhood. At age 12, I was riding my bike 2-3 miles each way to the library, and occasionally 10 miles each way to the downtown library on weekends. I learned to shoot guns with my dad. Built treehouses with friends. (I even learned some, um, high energy chemistry from mail order instructions.)
Think we should all just move into the White House and get it over with
Exactly. This never would have happened if Romney had won.
Observe. Report. Administer. The benefits of living in the nanny state.
You should have tagged this with "bureaucrats gone wild" in addition to children and law.
Silver Spring MD has some tough neighborhoods, so a 1 mile walk supervised by a 10 year old is evidence of fuzzy-brain syndrome at least. But consider the parents: first-order technocrats. Fuzzy-brain confirmed.
"Exactly. This never would have happened if Romney had won."
Another bit of random nonsense from maddisonfella.
Remember people. The liberals believe that they are the smart ones.
There's danger at every corner of the imagination.
@"Terry"
Just because I mocked the person who was blaming Obama for this doesn't mean I'm a liberal. Personally I'd like to see the President impeached, but that doesn't mean I blame the man for everything that is wrong in the world.
The kids usually carry a "free range children" card supplied by their parents, ha ha. Parents are as goofy as busybodies calling cops.
Lenore Skenazy covered this, of course. From the video report, it seems that the legislative loons in Maryland have actually outlawed kids walking around their neighborhoods "unattended" (depends upon age).
Part of the problem, as usual, is the cops. The cops try to scare the bejesus out of parents. Why do they do this? They want more jobs. Cops claim to be "protecting" folks, when what they are actually doing is "protecting our jobs".
It's becoming more apparent every day that the U.S. has a big problem with parasitic cops. Start by cutting funding, say 10%/year until things shape up.
"This never would have happened if Romney had won."
Very true. Nice of you to notice.
The "climate science" wife probably voted for this creepy government. Serves her right.
When I was in kindergarten, I walked about five blocks to school. My mother had an older kid walk with me the first day so I didn't get lost.
The nuns gave me a hard time about something I can't recall so I decided not to back. There was a florist shop and nursery next door to the school so, the next morning I just went there. They were friends of my father and knew me so, when I volunteered to help the old uncle in the nursery, he agreed. At noon, I said I had to go (The bell at the school next door rang) and went home. The next day, I went to the nursery again and never did go back to school.
I was saved by the fact that we moved in November or I would have been found out. I finally told my mother about it 35 years later. The school had never called her.
My parents were even Democrats.
Madisonfella: you were mocking me? Thanks for the clarification. Here's some more clarification: I wasn't mocking Obama but the whole gang of lefty pomos led by the likes of our president who believe the State is better at telling us how to run our lives than we are. Since--according to their Narrative--we are better wards of the State than citizens, let's all just surrender to it and be at peace.
My grandmother brought herself and seven younger siblings to Minnesota from Norway at the age of 12. Her Father had immigrated already and was working. Her mother had died.
She was a strong woman all her life and lived to be 100.
" Personally I'd like to see the President impeached, but that doesn't mean I blame the man for everything that is wrong in the world."
That may fly with a newcomer around here but I call bullshit on that Either that or a lefty took over your screen name a few months ago and was posting idiot comments.
The upside to these little incidents is that the middle class is finally starting to learn that police and other government officials aren't on their side.
"Just because I mocked the person who was blaming Obama for this doesn't mean I'm a liberal."
Never said that this particular comment is what makes you a liberal, madisonfella.
Fine, call yourself a trotskyite or a syndicalist, or whatever you want. You can even call yourself non-ideological, if you want.
Only people on the left think that conservatives blame Obama for everything that is wrong in the world. Hyperbola is what makes libs so bad at debating issues.
Quaestor said...
Silver Spring MD has some tough neighborhoods, so a 1 mile walk supervised by a 10 year old is evidence of fuzzy-brain syndrome at least. But consider the parents: first-order technocrats. Fuzzy-brain confirmed.
You know who's fuzzy-brained? YOU.
Unless you know for certain that Silver Spring neighborhood in question is "tough", you're making an unwarranted assumption.
Ditto with your contemptuous attitude toward the parents. Do you know them??
This country has changed, changed for the (much) worse! Back when I was elementary school age (the ice was still on most of North America at that time), the response to such nonsense would be "Mind your own business!"
20 years ago: Our three children walked about 3/4 of a mile to elem. school (starting at ages 5,7,8 for 4 years). Then rode bikes 2.5-3 miles to middle school for 2 years. That was an important part of teaching them independence and gradually increasing the responsibilities they had.
Ten?!?! Ten?!?!
I'm mind-boggled.
I'm counting down the days until my oldest is ten because I plan on leaving her in charge so I can get some short errands done without taking everyone into three different stores over the span of 45 minutes.
@ Birches
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
The State law which says children younger than 8 must be left with a reliable person who is at least 13 years old. The law covers dwellings, enclosures and vehicles.
Nanny State. Also other Nanny State Mothers who are the ones to push for these laws and call the cops 99% of the time. Because "if you're not doing it my way...."
I looked up my old walk to school on Google Maps. It turns out, in first grade, I walked a half a mile to school each day. That would have been when I was six. I don't even remember walking with anyone, which in hindsight seems strange since you'd think other kids from my neighborhood went to the same school. But I remember walking by myself.
@ Bob Boyd
My State doesn't have the age restrictions that Maryland does. If it did, I wouldn't do it.
This is why we moved, one mile my kids wouldn't even be off our property yet. Farthest our three year old has gotten (with his three giant guard dogs in tow) is about three quarters of a mile so far.
Silver Spring has some dodgy neighborhoods? Sure.
Guess what - those "tough" neighborhoods probably have more 10 year old kids wandering around without supervision than the kind of neighborhood that a "a climate-science consultant and a physicist at the National Institutes of Health" are most likely to live in.
Have we lost our minds?
One mile? How about 600 miles.
My siblings and I all walked a mile to school every day starting in first grade. Most days I walked with older siblings, but sometimes I went by myself. Usually on the way home in the afternoon. Mornings I think I almost always was with an older sibling.
But by third grade I was pretty much walking by myself or escorting my younger brother.
We are raising a nation of wimps.
And they are all robots like me.
That sort of crap is why I moved out of Maryland and took my tax money to Virginia.
@Biff, in answer to your question, in Maryland, Hell! Yes!
Was it uphill both ways?
How crazy is all of this?
Most of the commenters on a WaPo article actually seem to be making sensible remarks!
Supposedly, that is one of the signs of the apocalypse!
Texas, until someone notices and makes a stink "for the children," lets parents determine when their children are ready to be left alone.
A couple of years ago I sent my then-11 year old out with her baby brother, 3, in a stroller to take a walk for a couple of blocks to get him out of my hair so I could make dinner in peace. Someone apparently was concerned and called the police, and a policeman stopped to talk to her. However, he got her story (I live at XX address, mom knows we're out, he's my brother), determined she was fine and sent her on her way.
I would prefer that people did not clutch their pearls at seeing a middle schooler babysitting a preschooler on a safe sidewalk in a sedate neighborhood, but at least the policeman acted sensibly.
And I have heard that children in Japan walk to school alone starting at age 4.
Jeebus. For real?
When I was a kid,I walked through black neighborhoods on my way to a formerly black school in the middle of Virginia integrating its schools. Got in some fights, but that builds character. But the idea that I wouldn't walk to school, or anywhere else for that matter, never occurred to anyone. Or ride a bike. During the summer, we were exiled from the house after doing chores, and we had fun!
I really pity the children of the last couple of generations. It's the primary reason I didn't have kids; if I couldn't raise them the way I was raised, then what's the use? Maybe right out of high school. I dunno. It's a shame to hear such stories.
I would prefer that people did not clutch their pearls at seeing a middle schooler babysitting a preschooler on a safe sidewalk in a sedate neighborhood, but at least the policeman acted sensibly.
The difference 50 years ago was that kids knew the names of all the families in the neighborhood and the busybody up the street would have watched the kids go by and only have called the cops if there was a stranger around...
I really pity the children of the last couple of generations.
Really just the last generation. People who grew up in the 70s and 80s didn't have to deal with this nonsense.
More than anything else, I blame the 24-hour news cycle and its incessant need to tell every parent in America about every bad thing that happened in America. Life in the United States has never been safer, and yet most parents think we're constantly besieged by killers, molesters, and strange new diseases.
The difference 50 years ago was that kids knew the names of all the families in the neighborhood and the busybody up the street would have watched the kids go by and only have called the cops if there was a stranger around..
Yes. I walked a few blocks to elementary school, a mile to middle school, and slightly less to high school. I never rode to school in a car with the possible exception of my first day of kindergarten.
I did know practically every family in every house along the way though. People say we conservatives are just a bunch of old racists for missing the way things were, but there were a lot of good things back then, without question.
I blame the 24-hour news cycle and its incessant need to tell every parent in America about every bad thing that happened in America. Life in the United States has never been safer, and yet most parents think we're constantly besieged by killers, molesters, and strange new diseases.
Also, Oprah.
The Summer she was 10 (1941) my sister had full charge of the neighbor's preschooler while she was at work. Just the other day she and I were talking about taking the shortcut through the industrial waterfront in Waukegan to get to the beach, walking along the concrete wall of the shipping canal.
I was 12 when we moved to NJ. The first day we were there, staying in an hotel in NYC with a subway station in the basement, I went exploring by myself. I realized after I was standing on the Brooklyn Bridge That I had already spent all my money. I found a quarter on the Bridge roadway, got back on the subway, and got back to the hotel in time for dinner.
No big deal, back when root, hog, or die was the standard American approach to life.
Okay, folks, I live in the same neighborhood as the family mentioned here does.
Walking from the family house to downtown Silver Spring (i.e. the Discovery Channel building) is, in terms of crime, perfectly safe. I would not be worried about crime, I'd be worried about TRAFFIC! Very few people get murdered in Montgomery County, but quite a few pedestrians get run over jaywalking.
Would I let a 10 & 6 year old make this trip alone? No, I wouldn't, but I'm not going to call the cops about it either, Would I let a responsible 12 & 8 year old do it? In a New York minute.
Quastor, downtown SS no longer has the "dodgeiness" you probably remember, as it did when I moved in back in 1980. It got the hell re-developed out of it in the 90's, and it's closer to downtown Bethesda now than what it was.
I know that area, and I think it can safely be described as upscale. I looked up the zip code of that park where they were found - it's 20910. The average cost of a house in that zip code is $495K.
When I was a kid in the late 1950s we were poor enough to live in a segregated government housing project. As a second grader I walked from the white side, through the black side, on my way to school, a distance of slightly less than a mile. If my parents were at all concerned I didn't know anything about it. My, how things have changed.
One morning when I was in third grade, I decided that I didn't want to wait for the bus and walked two miles to school. I continued this for several years.
My senior year in high school, I hitched the 8 miles to school as doing so gave me fifteen more minutes in bed.
Peter G.
The average cost of a home in 20910 may be 495K, but that includes a lot of "lower" priced homes in the area south east of downtown Silver Spring.
This is houses go for in Woodside Park.
Truth in advertising: I don't live in Woodside Park. I live in Woodside Forest, right next to Woodside Park. Woodside park is more expensive because it's closer to downtown & to the Metro. Take those prices, drop about $30-50K, & you've got prices for my neighborhood.
I think I was wrong. She was probably 11, because the boy's mother was doing "war work," which would have made the year 1942.
In '43 or '44 my father dropped me off at Navy Pier to see an exhibit of military hardware o some sort. I remember watching a Navy diver welding underwater. When I had seen all I wanted to see I walked down to his office in the Loop. I would have been 11, at most.
When I was twelve I sold Collier's magazine all over Waukegan, first on foot, eventually on a bike.
"One mile? How about 600 miles."
In RJ Wagner's biography he tells the story of how he arrived in California. His father, a fairly wealthy man in Michigan, put him on a train to California in 1937 when he was 7 with a tag on his coat telling the porter to see that he got off in Los Angeles. He was going to school at a boarding school.
He named his favorite dog after that porter who, he says, took care of him all the way to California.
"When I was twelve I sold Collier's magazine all over Waukegan, first on foot, eventually on a bike."
I had a paper route in 6th grade. I must have been eleven. In the winter, there was funeral home on my route about half way and I would stop for a half hour or so to warm up. They were always teasing me about staying for dinner as they were having "liver." Great guys. I was about 12.
gee, do you think they have lawyer yet?
" I never rode to school in a car with the possible exception of my first day of kindergarten. "
I can't get over my son and his wife taking their kids to school in the car when it is about a 1/2 mile and past our house to go from theirs to the school. I don't say anything, of course.
I drove him to school because he was in private school miles away from the house. In this community (Mission Viejo), the city was laid out with an elementary school in the middle of neighborhoods but, as the years have gone by, the families grew up and the prices got too high for most young parents to afford.
Now, the planning has backfired a bit as older residents complain about traffic jams twice a day around schools but the parents mostly live out of the neighborhood and often could not afford those homes.
The State is not to be trusted.
Why? Because the State clothes its agents in its power, and soon the agents think the clothes belong to them.
Every power we turn over to the State can be used to our detriment. And sooner or later it will be.
I have lived and read long enough to realize that abusing power is an inalterable element of human governmental behavior. The fact that we have inalienable human rights and Constitutional rights is not enough. We must limit the power of the state, not give it power and then fight with the state when the power is abused.
I would have done what the mother and father did. Acquiesce. Sign the document or they will take the children. Once you have given them that power, you can not win.
When I was 10, I trudged to school for 10 miles knee deep in the snow!
These days kids are too coddled!
Excuse me while I retrieve my dentures.
At age ten, upon arrival at home, I'd grab my shotgun and go duck hunting.
This is pretty nuts.
Like others are saying here, I walked to school from first grade through the 9th grade. I don't know how far it was but a mile would be a close guess.
I've got four children. I've thought for years I should put an escape to Mexico bag together. Because if cps ever tried to take my children from me, I'd rather go live poor in Mexico than without my children in the united states.
Ditto with your contemptuous attitude toward the parents. Do you know them??
I don't have to know them. One is described as a climate science consultant, which means someone whose grasp on causality is rather slippery.
These kids are on a mile walk, which means they aren't likely to be in one neighborhood, but crossing perhaps several. One is ten, which is a age when a certain personal responsibility may be assumed. The other is six -- likely not even out of preschool. Is it asking too much to expect a ten year old to responsibly supervise a six year old on such a hike? I think it is. Whether the parents deserve to be investigated is another matter. However, given the arrogance of Washington technocrats, I doubt the sweet voice of reason would have much effect.
Some here have called into question my opinion about "tough neighborhoods" based on property values. All property values in the DC environs are elevated and distorted compared to the average, so a dollar value may not be a good index of risk. Silver Spring is not what I'd call a safe environment for unsupervised children to roam about in, and it's not just my opinion. The crime index for SS is 37, meaning that SS is more dangerous for personal and property crime than the average American city. The most recent statistics show 199 crime incidents per square mile. The national median is 37.9 per square mile.
"I would have done what the mother and father did. Acquiesce. Sign the document or they will take the children. Once you have given them that power, you can not win."
Then I would start looking for a way to move.
Yup... In the 60's at 4 yrs old I was walking just shy of a mile to kindergarten. My mom decided that we were getting sick riding the stuffy school bus. My older siblings had different hours so after a few rides and walks with my mom, she sent me off by myself. I never looked back!
All you people lamenting the good old days when a kid could walk anywhere in perfect safety, you simply don't appreciate the many benefits that diversity has brought us.
Further evidence that way too much money is spent on government if it's being spent this poorly.
Taking away without a court order after a due process hearing. Follow President Jefferson's advise and "take arms". The USA could do with a reduction in Swedish style "social workers"!
Four year old walking a mile to kindergarten. Next I expect to read stories about neonates tobogganing their way to grad school on their still-attached placentas.
If you ask me there are entirely too many Yorkshiremen commenting on Althouse.
The Fort Wayne Schools administration and its elected school board may be arrested in mass if the school budget crisis spreads. Faced with tightening budgets imposed by limitations on the growth of property tax rates, these officials did something that should have been done years ago - they rolled back court-ordered busing from 30 years ago. The Fort Wayne busing budget has to be reduced some $2.5 million next year which will bring fleet and driver reductions.
Now elementary students will walk to school if they live within a mile; middle school kids could walk a mile and a half; high school students will walk as far as 2 miles in all kinds of weather often when it is dark.
Haven't heard a peep from Indiana CPS as yet. Nor have I heard about celebrations coming from the corporation that runs the city public buses.
Strange, many a time I walked home from school about 3 miles away down the city into the edge of the city limits.
Didn't seem to hurt me any.
But there are lots of paedophiles now, some like Bill Clinton, lurk around looking for interns.
This is a good indicator that we have too many state employees.
Bagoh2o,
Is it really you? Good to see you again even if your comment was deleted. Where have you been?
every weekday morning in Tokyo you can see little kids in uniforms and pack packs making their way down the street and into the subways. Sometimes in small groups, sometimes alone, never with adults.
Such is one benefit of a decidedly un-multi-culti society. Harder to find cool Hungarian and Iranian restaurants but then there are only a dozen or so handgun murders a year in all of Japan.
Generally, six years old is First Grade, not pre-school. Pre-school is four (or three). Kindergarten is five. Do you know any kids? Six year old kids aren't' in pre-school.
An important thing to keep in mind as we recount all the crazy things we did when we were kids (I was probably 6 the last time I had adult supervision for regular around the neighborhood stuff, was walking or riding my bike to the mall at 10, was babysitting at 12) is that the world is as safe or safer now then it was for almost all of us back then.
The common rejoinder, "the world is different now," is true. Back then we did not suffer fools. Now we put them in charge.
Quaestor trying to dig himself out of a hole, and I'm agreeing with Fen. Too many employees of the state looking for things to do.
The real danger to the kids, as the parents know and state, is traffic fatalities. But I doubt the cops who stopped the kids spend much time each day stopping drivers who are breaking the law. Similarly, I'm fairly certain that the CPS worker who drove to their house likely sped.
Only lesson the kids learned was don't talk to the police. Run away from them. Was that the lesson the government was hoping to teach?
1 mile?
My brother and I walked about that when we were kids. No one cared.
"CPS lets kids live in absolutely dangerous families and instead go after the low-hanging, easy to deal with good families who do something someone finds iffy."
This. And when busybodies don't have real problems to worry about, their little brains amplify trivial things until they're apocalyptic enough to serve as a rationalization for what they wanted to do anyway.
Is it asking too much to expect a ten year old to responsibly supervise a six year old on such a hike? I think it is.
Well then, I guess we need a bunch of laws to enforce your POV with the threat of removal of children, and of course, as a final backstop, deadly force.
I don't ride the DC Metro system all that often, but on weekdays it seems to me that there are a lot of school-age kids riding with only each other for company. And on weekends there are always unaccompanied minors. CPS has a lot of kidnapping to do.
This is insane. I would absolutely let my children do this, assuming they were mature and responsible, which it sounds like the children in this article were. These parents are going through hell and it's because they're GOOD parents who actually teach their children responsibility and independence. Disgusting.
Ridiculous. As a 10 year old, I walked 1/2 mile each way to school and home for lunch. In the summer, my sister and I walked 1.5 miles each way to the city pool. We rode the city bus 2 miles each way to the summer kids movie series. As a twelve year old in the summer, I was riding my bike around. Just googled it and found I was over five miles from my home and my mother had no idea where I was.
High school was a 1.5 mile walk each way, crossing US 12.
I weep for the sissification of our country.
For me, school was always more than a mile away.
In kindergarten and first grade, I walked alone through the snows of Superior, Wisconsin.
In second and third grade, I walked alone on the streets of New York City.
I am white. At the start of fourth grade in racially segregated Charlotte, North Carolina, I decided to ride a city bus home from school. I sat in the back. The driver halted the vehicle, walked back to me, and said, "You have to sit in the front. Negroes sit in the back and white people sit in the front."
I told the driver I would sit where I want.
He threw me off the bus. I had to walk home alone in the rain.
The incident in North Carolina occurred more than two years before Rosa Parks took her stand in Montgomery, Alabama. Needless to say, I became one of the youngest supporters of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
- DEC (Jungle Trader)
I wonder how "she was threatening to kidnap my child so I shot her in self-defense" would fly in a MD courtroom?
CPS in this case is so wrong. Having kids taken away for walking and refusing to sign a safety plan? CPS should be investigated and indicted by the feds. They operate in secrecy with no boundaries. They can do as they please. Every month there are ridiculous CPS horror stories violating parent's rights over silliness.
I was 3 1/2 when we first moved to Germany. I was always out and about the neighbourhood by myself. One day I discovered a bakery and a lovely old lady. I went to visit her almost every day. I have no idea how we communicated, but I am sure I learned german quite quickly. And the smell of a good bakery takes me back there, always.
According to Googlemaps I walked 0.62 miles home from school every day in grades 1 and 2. After grade 2 we moved to a different house, so I know I am right on the years.
At 10 years old my friends and I were riding our bikes all over the place, going miles at a time.
I spent almost every day of the summer of my 13th year at the World's Fair - we had to take a bus, a passenger ferry and then a light rail train. I would go for the day with one or two friends, and then our parents would meet us there in the evening for dinner.
I always thought my mom was a worry-wort, and I had less freedom than many of my friends.
This was also the era of Clifford Olsen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Olsen
to Cynicus, the old English saying:
"mommy says don't talk to bastards"
To be fair, I'd probably not allow my kids to play outside much if I lived in a Democrat stronghold.
I love articles like this.
If said kids were picked up by strangers and never seen again, the same people who are claiming the children were safe and the police/social services did overkill would be the *same* people condemning the police/social services for not stopping them and make them go home.
If said kids were picked up by aliens from the Arcturan Empire and never seen again, doubtless you'd be complaining that NASA hadn't terrorized the children and their parents. And that's not much less likely. Very, very few children are kidnapped by strangers, let alone strangers who randomly picked up a child who happened to be walking down the street.
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