<p>Debra Harrell’s case is one of those “I spit-out my tea at the computer monitor” moments.</p>
<p>The police in South Carolina engaged in a complete and utter over-reaction. This was not the case of a mother leaving a young child alone in a locked and hot car. While I hardly ever let my child out of my sight when he was 9, parents should be allowed to employ their own judgment, unless the circumstances and situation are unquestionably dangerous to the child. In my opinion the police are constantly going too far and arresting people on the slightest whim. Where’s the protest about this?</p>
<p>In a similar case recently, a Florida woman was arrested for letting her 8 or 9 year old walk alone to a busy public park about a quarter mile from home, in the middle of the day. I don’t trust the police or any arm of government to be an reliable and objective judge of family priorities. From the broadcast report I heard, they didn’t bother to truly investigate the circumstances or counsel her. They just slapped on the cuffs and her son doesn’t understand why.</p>
<p>I completely disagree with OP regarding the Harrell case. I think leaving a nine year old in a park without a designated caregiver or even an older sibling for five hours is child neglect, plain and simple. How easy would it have been for a child molester to lure this little girl into a secluded area, or accost her in the restroom? This mother showed terrible judgment, and I’m glad someone called the police so neither this child nor any other in this neighborhood will be similarly neglected for the foreseeable future. If I saw a small child left unsupervised in a public park for hours on end, I’d have called the authorities, too. None of you would? </p>
<p>Ridiculous. The world today isn’t any more dangerous than when many parents of young kids grew up. We’re just much more paranoid now. </p>
<p>I was one of the last kids in my neighborhood who could ride my bike or go to the park by myself. I didn’t live in an exceptionally safe area but it wasn’t terrible either. I don’t think my parents ever thought twice about me going. </p>
<p>If government officials truly cared about the well being of this child and others in her situation, they’d be fighting to greatly expand childcare subsidies and increase free programs in the summer.</p>
<p>MommaJ, first off- the odds of being molested by a stranger are incredibly low. You’re much more likely to be assaulted in your own house or by a close family friend than some creeper in a park. </p>
<p>With that said, how often do we hear of children being snatched or molested even when parents are around? IMO, this girl was actually probably much safer in the park with lots of people around than in her own home which had been burglarized twice. </p>
<p>There are a thousand other hazards that can befall an unattended nine year old besides being molested in a park. The article states the family has suffered a couple of break ins to their home. That tells me it’s probably a high crime area. The child could fall off a swing, get sick, finds drugs or a gun, chased by a dog etc. etc. Let’s not even mention that temperatures in South Carolina this time of year approach 100 degrees. It’s a poor plan to use the park as child care all day for the whole summer. I can’t speak for that town but we have a “summer camp” in our town for precisely this reason. The kids are supervised and do activities and are safe. Teens are employed. It’s wonderful that the mother has tried to clean up her life but she’s still applying crack head logic to child rearing.</p>
<p>In reality the mother will probably be forced to take parenting classes as her sentence and will learn how to find resources. I know one working mom who developed a spreadsheet of all the vacation bible schools in the area and had free child care for June and July courtesy of churches she doesn’t attend. I thought it was creative.</p>
<p>When I was a kid, lots of us played in the park or went to the public pool or rode our bicycles together around the neighborhood for hours on end in the summer without constant supervision. I don’t recall any of our parents being arrested.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t let my kids do any of that, I guess partly because I bought in to a lot of the fear and paranoia that if you aren’t watching your kids every second of the day, it’s likely that something bad will happen to them. </p>
<p>I am not in favor of putting that mother in jail. Rather, I’d have preferred that someone pointed her in the direction of helpful resources.</p>
<p>So, the South Carolina police and prosecutors are using an ambiguous law to define and criminalize child abandonment and neglect. Wonderful. NOT!</p>
<p>Harrell is a working single mother. Apparently responsible and reliable enough to become a shift manager at her place of employment. And news reports say that the child is an exceptional student. Harrell doesn’t sound like the kind of person who should be handcuffed, fingerprinted and publicly humiliated. Oh, but it’s South Carolina. The place that was incarcerating mothers of newborns; women who suffered from drug addiction. Even mothers whom were getting medical treatment and were trying to get better. Wonderful. NOT!</p>
<p>When I was 9 back in the dark ages (pre cell-phones) I’d leave the house to play in the summer and often not be back for four or five hours. Nobody thought that was unsafe.</p>
<p>Depending on the park and the kid, I don’t see this as a parenting problem. Some kids would be fine at 9 in this situation, others not. Better than being left at home in an area with a lot of break-ins, I’d guess.</p>
<p>We got some pushback on allowing our kid to ride her bike around our neighborhood at about that age, and on occasionally taking the (public) bus back from school and walking four blocks. The fear level is way out of whack with reality, imo. We followed a pretty simple rule: adults you approach are likely to be fine; adults (except for people in police uniforms and the like) who approach you are risky. I’m not a big fan of teaching girls that the world is a terribly dangerous place that they should fear.</p>
<p>By 9, I was already familiar and comfortable traveling by myself or with other kids not only to local parks/school, but also ride the subways without parental supervision. And NYC back then still fit the high-crime high danger stereotypes Hollywood and the newsmedia loved to portray it back then as I grew up at the tail end of the high crime era in the '80s and early '90s. </p>
<p>Actually, violent/street crime is statistically at an all-time low and comparable to the early '60s before the rising trend in the nationwide crime rate from the late '60s until the late '80s/early '90s when the last of the baby boomers and some of the older GenX folks who were a few years behind aged out of the 12-24 age demographic most likely to be involved in such crimes. </p>
<p>Main issues driving this paranoia is 24/7 news cycle and more crime news from other parts of the nation/world along with some folks who are inclined towards micromanagement in positions of authority feeling the need to impose their worldview on other parents and everyone else. </p>
<p>I found the story surprising also. I guarantee you my kids were roaring around the neighborhood on bikes at age 9. and I know that I left them home for 1/2 hr or less at age 10 and the amount of time alone increased from there as time went by. I think we hired the last “date night” babysitter when the oldest was maybe 13, so for about 2 hours he wa “in charge.”. I “babysat” two little kids at 10 and started walking a mile and back from school at 8 so I more or less formulated my “rules” of independence based on my childhood - what else would I formulate based on? I don’t consider a nine year old a small child I guess. I also think it depends on where you live, perhaps if people live in a high crime area they might be reluctant to let kids have any independence until they are well into their teens. And it can depend on the parent and the kiddo, some adults are fearful and some are not and some kids are impetuous and do not make good decisions.</p>
<p>Frankly, only a parent knows there “kid” well enough to know if they are emotionally ready…but in general I think between 9-11 is about right for giving them some independence for short periods of time if they aren’t impulsive or immature for their age. </p>
<p>Well. in my state 11 is the age you are legally allowed to leave a kid home alone. But, I did it a time or two before then because that’s about the age they would rather stay home than be dragged around on errands and whatnot. And, they certainly wandered the neighborhood with friends much earlier. But, leaving a little girl alone in the park during your shift at McDonald’s is slightly different. Home seems safer to me. In any case she should have been told not to talk to strangers. Also, our local library is constantly complaining about parents who drop the kids off there for several hours as though it’s a free daycare center. It’s not.</p>
<p>Actually most states do not have a “legal age” where a child can be left alone so it’s not really a “no, no” unless someone reports you to child welfare I would guess. I suppose like everything else in our oh too political world it will come down to who has the bigger lawyer - the local court system or the parents of the tween. So sad that parents can’t just “parent” like they used to be able to do. Are we really convinced that kids for some reason can’t grow to adulthood without government intervention. No wonder so many are seriously struggling with adulthood.</p>
<p>What I learned when my D worked at McD’s last summer is that a shift is usually scheduled for about 4 hours and often you are sent home after 3 if it gets slow. It isn’t as if the kid was at the park for 8 hours</p>
<p>Our local news yesterday–stranger attempted to abduct a 9yo girl from her driveway, at noon in a suburban area. He grabbed her, but fortunately she was able to get away and run into the house. There have been several other attempted abductions around here in the last year or so. I have young daughters. I do not let them out of the house alone. If they want to go to the park/playground 1/2 mile away, they have to be with older sibling/parent.
Our district allows students 3rd graders and up to walk to school alone (8-9yo). I walk my kids to/from school through 5th grade. (I’m more worried about them stepping out in traffic than abduction.) We drive to the middle school. HS is a very short walk, which I think is safe. I had a very unsupervised childhood, but had a bunch of siblings and neighbors constantly doing things together in groups, so I was never alone.</p>
<p>The public resources used to shame and humiliate this mother and her child could better have been spent paying local teens minimum wage to run a drop-in day camp in the park. Obvious, it is needed.</p>