<p>We also ranged pretty freely, and for hours at a time, when I was a kid. I don’t like the idea of arresting people when there’s no clear legal line.</p>
<p>It was pretty common when I was a kid for a group of us to walk or bike to the city pool about a mile away and stat until it closed. Sometimes we’d take spare change and go across the street, which was really a local highway with no traffic light, to get ice cream. I know I was in elementary school when we started being allowed to go. By today’s standards, there were about a dozen ways we were in danger and should not have been allowed to do so. </p>
<p>Flossy and Hunt, you are so right! The law as interpreted by the police in this event is ambiguous. It is much too open to Police discretion. And a FELONY?</p>
<p>I’ll add my own childhood stories. I rode the city bus alone to school , an 8-mile trip, from the age of 8. Even at the age of 11, during the summers I would disappear on my bike from about 11AM until dinner, usually heading to the neighborhood public park, which had to be at least a mile away. At other times we kids ventured all over our end of town, miles away from our homes.</p>
<p>Yet this goes unpunished …</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Fired-Marysville-cop-whose-gun-killed-daughter-is-reinstated-246346991.html”>http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Fired-Marysville-cop-whose-gun-killed-daughter-is-reinstated-246346991.html</a></p>
<p>By 9, my kids were riding their bikes to baseball practice by themselves, no cell phone. Where I came from (upstate NY), it was not uncommon for a 9 year-old to have both a gun and a motorcycle, both way more dangerous than playing in a park.</p>
<p>I am so angry about this, we would leave our homes and be gone for hours literally until the street lights came on. Our parents had no means to contact us. I swear we are not teaching our kids life skills. This 24 hour news cycle has made too many folks paranoid. The girl was at the park, which is where she wanted to be. They did not live in a good neighborhood, which is why the mom DID NOT leave her home alone. The girl HAD A CELL PHONE to contact her mom. And lastly, there was a FOOD PROGRAM in the park, so she was fed. WHERE, in any of this is the neglect? </p>
<p>I would not have simply dropped my d. off at a park, unsupervised, for 5 hours when she was small, but quite honestly she was often gone from my house on her own for longer than that on summer days without my paying much attention. I knew that she was playing with neighborhood kids, and I had a pretty good sense of which kids wer the most likely playmates – but the kids together could have as easily been walking on their own to the nearby park or beach, or hiking in the hills around our homes – as playing indoors at the friend’s house. I’d go looking for my daughter if she wasn’t home by dusk. She was up and down the street on her own, playing with neighborhood kids, at age 4 – but at that age was not allowed to turn the corner or cross the street, so her range was pretty limited. But by age 9 the kids were on bikes and could easily venture farther. </p>
<p>Harrell’s kid had a key to their apartment and a cell phone, and the park was a 6 minute walk from their home. The park in question was a distribution point for free breakfasts and lunches for kids. See: <a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/21/living/mom-arrested-left-girl-park-parents/”>Mom arrested for leaving 9-year-old alone at park - CNN; </p>
<p>I personally think that the 9 year old was probably better off playing outdoors in the park with other children than sitting indoors at McDonald’s with a computer, or doing nothing at all after the computer was stolen (and probably eating McDonald’s food while she there). We stress about the health implications about childhood obesity, and then “protect” kids by keeping them indoors parked in front of video screens-- doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.</p>
<p>I think that a better plan would have been for the mom to work out a deal of some sorts with a neighborhood parent. As a child,my daughter had a friend from daycare whose single mom worked as waitress, with changing shift hours – the mom couldn’t really afford to pay for childcare when she had to work outside of the hours that the after-school program was offered, so we worked out a deal. She dropped the little girl off with me whenever she needed child care, and in exchange the mom did some housecleaning for me. But perhaps that mom didn’t know anyone who she could depend on to take on that role. </p>
<p>As noted above, most of the time I was benefiting from the “free” child care extended by the parents of my daughter’s friends who didn’t object to my d. spending hours in their homes – I assumed there was an adult in the house available to attend to any emergencies, but truthfully I wasn’t checking up on the other parents. </p>
<p>I think that these article reflect a problem that should be addressed with social workers and not cops. If there are better alternatives for child care in Harrell’s community, then she would benefit from community outreach to make her aware of the options and sign her daughter up for any free or low cost services (for example, a local Boys & Girls club). If not…well, if the community doesn’t offer a solution to the mom’s problem,they have no business criminalizing her decisions. </p>
<p>Yes, Magnetron, that makes me angry still. Same situation with another family who happened to be non-law enforcement (I think it was around Olympia?) and minority-BAM! Arrests made quickly. Hmm.</p>
<p>The Florida woman did not look like a minority to me. Her name is Nicole Gainey. I agree this is ridiculous. Latch-key kids are nothing new and they were not considered neglected. And, that was before cellphones. Taking your kid to work at McDonald’s and propping her up in a booth is not okay, though. The park is probably better. And, however bad the neighborhood I don’t get why she couldn’t just stay home. I mean, it’s where she lived. I also don’t get a nosy park mom calling the police on a kid who is there unsupervised. If I head to nearest park right now I will surely find a bunch of unsupervised kids. </p>
<p>Totally agree. I also agree that in the general scheme of things kids are better off at a park playing with other kids than in a house alone. At the park if the child got hurt most likely there would be another kid or parent who would/could intervene. In the home alone if someone gets hurt it can be a serious deal because there is no one there to intervene. The "mother superior’ across the street didn’t like the way we raised our kids one bit and if she caught me on a bad day it would get tense…but I’ve got two graduated from college and on their own and she has a 30 year old living in her basement. i think you can keep your kids close to your bosom and still enable them to grow into healthy independent adults slowly…</p>
<p>I believe in Los Angeles there are enough working poor people who drop their kids off at the library during the summer as a form of day care that the LA public library system has started providing formal programming for these kids as well as lunches. If I understand correctly, kids do not actually have to sign up for these programs but the library system has started to provide these services because so many unsupervised unaccompanied kids spend day after day at the library while the parents are at work.</p>
<p>Libraries have complained about that situation, too. </p>
<p>To clarify, I applaud the Los Angeles Public Library’s response. They perceived a need and filled it. The free lunch program - which offers free lunches Monday thru Friday to children under 18 during the summer at certain branches – is especially admirable. I believe the free lunch program is funded entirely or almost entirely through the Library Foundation’s private fundraising efforts. </p>
<p>Free lunches are served in summer at many schools nationwide and I do think LA does it at the several libraries. But, it is not babysitting and it’s through the regional food bank. It’s 1 1/2 hours at 2 or 3 branches. I expect liability issues would be the primary problem with people dropping kids at the local library and going to work. Our library has signs warning people that all young children must be supervised.</p>
<p><a href=“Where South LA kids can get a free lunch when school's out this summer | 89.3 KPCC”>http://www.scpr.org/blogs/southla/2013/06/11/13942/where-south-la-kids-can-get-a-free-lunch-when-scho/</a></p>
<p>Here’s a link about the Los Angeles program. I expect it’s not uncommon in the summer. And, I really hope people don’t think it means the library is suddenly a free daycare center. It’s not. </p>
<p>I totally agree the library program is not and should not be confused with babysitting and that it is inappropriate for folks to drop their kids off unsupervised at the library. However, the reality is that many parents in the same desperate straits as the woman in OP’s article do just that. I was at a Library Foundation event and the board president acknowledged this and said that at least these kids get a nutritious lunch. And there is a lot of other free programming offered as well, including book clubs and arts and crafts and the like. I guess my point is that the practice of the working poor dropping 9 or 10 year olds off at public places during the day without supervision is probably a lot more common than many of us realize. Don’t get me wrong; I do not condone the practice. But it is the reality for many. </p>
<p>PS The lunch program is at 10 branches. <a href=“http://www.lapl.org/sites/default/files/media/images/summer_reading/SummerLunchFlyer2014.pdf”>http://www.lapl.org/sites/default/files/media/images/summer_reading/SummerLunchFlyer2014.pdf</a></p>
<p>Yeah, and dozens of schools and parks. My point may be getting missed, too. Simply, I think dropping your kids off at the library every day is very likely to result in a visit from CPS. It’s a very bad idea these days. But, it wasn’t always that way. At that age I am among those who roamed the streets, parks, and libraries pretty freely and encountered a few problems from time to time as well. My kids, less freely. But they definitely walked and biked around unsupervised and spent hours outside on their own. I remember searching for them when they were “lost” more than a few times.</p>
<p>The South Carolina girl was in one those free-lunch parks when the police picked her up, interestingly. </p>
<p>Wow, I hadn’t heard that the park was a free lunch site. You’d think that public officials would thus have been prepared for the prospect of unaccompanied children at the park, and at the very least have been prepared to offer counseling as to possibilities for low cost child cate.</p>
<p>I think she might well have been better off (and safer) at the park than home alone. I’d leave that judgment to her mom. Is there a defense fund for the mom? I’d toss some dollars that way. </p>
<p>Leave judgment to a mom with six drug convictions? I’m sure part of her frontal cortex is fried. If the neighborhood around the park is so bad a charity is feeding the kids it’s probably a very unsafe area. It’s not as if the mother did not know school ends in summer and her child would need care. She could have signed the child up for summer school or she could get together with other moms who work other shifts and trade child care. Thousands of poor women do it all the time. I guess that would have required organization and forethought. Many of you say “but the child wanted to stay at the park.” Do you always let a nine year old decide what is good for her? Many years ago I used to frequent an Asian restaurant. The owners’ two elementary age children were in there every night doing their homework and reading. They were safe and supervised. I’m surprised by all the disrespect shown toward the authorities in this case. The linked article was written in a sensational fashion and you folks are swallowing a very one sided story. When the case goes to court if the facts are not aggravated she will probably be let go with parenting classes. Last year here a mother left her 20 month old and newborn in her car for eight hours while she cleaned rooms at a hotel. They both died. She got off with 72 days in jail. I believe the laws favor the incompetent parent more than you people seem to think.</p>
<p><a href=“http://wtvr.com/2014/07/02/mother-whose-children-died-in-car-while-she-worked-not-given-extra-jail-time/”>http://wtvr.com/2014/07/02/mother-whose-children-died-in-car-while-she-worked-not-given-extra-jail-time/</a></p>