<p>Due respect, but there’s a lot of unsupported assumption in this statement.</p>
<p>How about this is not about saving children, but about parental and childrens rights being violated.</p>
<p>this assumptions that we are riding to the rescue of kids with working parents is a propoganda, to me. We are too much up in people’s business: kids, parents, just in general. We are rule bound and it creates all sorts of “problems” where there are none.</p>
<p>The way people talk these days you’d think we have MORE crime now, or that our country is MORE dangerous than it was when we were kids. It’s not. </p>
<p>This kind of stuff is based on media stories and not on reality.</p>
<p>This case is better or maybe worse because it doesn’t have all of the hot button poverty, race, and drugs stuff. It is just government deciding a kid can’t walk to the park alone and making an arrest. Crazy!</p>
<p>I don’t know if our world is more dangerous now, but because of media we do hear more about it and are more aware , so we can be better educated. My 14 year old went to our local library by herself. While she was there, a man followed her from room to room and even tried to have a conversation with her. Because of what she has heard on the media and classroom training, she knew it wasn’t normal. She called us and notified someone at the library. As it turned out, they were suspicious as to why he was hanging out at the library so much. There wasn’t much they could do either because technically the man didn’t harm my child. He just made her feel very uncomfortable.</p>
<p>I don’t really care about if we have more or less crime, but it is personal when it happens to your kid. It was reality for us, not some media stuff. After that incident, I always had my kids go to the library together.</p>
<p>I don’t dispute that there is danger out there. I just dispute that we are protecting children by arresting their working parents. </p>
<p>I was followed home and almost abducted once as a kid. </p>
<p>I was very careful with my own kids. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be careful. I am saying that we have got to discern between criminal neglect and doing what has to be done. Its arbitrary and directed at women and has nothing to do with anything other than controlling what other people are doing with their lives. If it was really about safety, we’d do the same thing we do with police and we’d have drop in places to keep our working parents kids out of harms way. But, that’s not what this is.</p>
<p>I don’t see why it should general public’s responsibility to keep other people kids out of harms way. When parents decide to have children they have the responsibility to keep their kids out of harms way. When a parent has a long history of drug abuse and not able to support herself on a consistent basis, why should she even have (or be allowed to have) children.</p>
<p>As a working mother, I am for one who would say that we need to do a better job in providing day care for our kids, so more parents can choose to work. But I knew the kind of imperfect system we had in this country and we thought very hard about whether we should or when we should have children. A lot more parents should think long and hard before they decide to have children and then put those kids in harms way when they couldn’t take care of those kids.</p>
<p>“When a parent has a long history of drug abuse and not able to support herself on a consistent basis, why should she even have (or be allowed to have) children.” So oldfort, you’re in favor of forced sterilization? Ot forced abortion for those you decide don’t “deserve” to have children but get pregnant anyhow? That’s the only way you can “not allow” someone to have children.</p>
<p>This mom had turned her life around, her daughter was not removed from her custody and was doing well in school. Isn’t that what anyone wants-a caring parent whose kids do well? Her crime is mostly that she is a member of the working poor. Unsubsidized day care can cost upwards of $600/mo for PART TIME care for a school-aged kid. And there’s the matter of GETTING there. But yeah, better we should not ALLOW this mom to have a child becaue she can’t afford the upscale life you feel is important.</p>
<p>Who said the South Carolina matter is about race? I and other posters are just as annoyed about the Florida woman who got the 'book ‘em Dano’ treatment for letting her son ride to the local park just a few blocks away from her home. Though I suspect that if noted, wealthy and famous South Carolinian Vana White left her toddler ramble unaccompanied in a public park, she would have been counseled differently from Ms. Harrell. That’s sarcasm, folks.</p>
<p>My personal summation of the Debra Harrell story is that, as reported thus far, the police acted without good direction. OK, the law is ambiguous. OK, the child seemed to be on her own for several hours. But others on this thread have pointed out important circumstances which the police (and apparently prosecutors) did not take into account. This child was not abandoned. Nor was she ever close to danger. As far as I am concerned ,a little more legwork, i.e investigation, was required here. On the other hand, to put the best light on the police, the law that empowered them to arrest Ms. Harrell is a spoiled sandwich (LW censors self here). </p>
I don’t know what is your definition of upscale life is, but every child has the right to be fed and a home to go to. Now, we can debate whether leaving a 9 year old child at a park for 5 hours is neglect or not, but we know there are so many children who are born to parents who can’t afford to feed or house them. It is my personal view that some people shouldn’t be allowed to have children if they can’t even take care of themselves. People should consider it as privilege to have children.</p>
<p>@oldfort, I don’t necessarily disagree with you at all.</p>
<p>But, if you look at the ways the laws are heading in this country? You’d be surprised to find how difficult it is anymore for a poor woman in the south to obtain reliable birth control. It limits choices. There is a war on Planned Parenthood down here anyone from NYC would be shocked to see. I’d read about it in chicago, but I’m absolutely stunned, even here in a mid atlantic southern state.</p>
<p>South Carolina is redder than red, and the war on women’s reproductive freedom is astonishing. This woman may not have even been able to make what you and I would consider a “choice” about having children. </p>
<p>Women in the state of SC have very little reproductive choice and now those working mothers are being ARRESTED? There is no assistance for them, and when someone is doing the best they can? It’s ridiculous.</p>
<p>You used your own life and family planning as an example. From your prior posts it’s clear that you live a pretty comfortable life. The little girl in question WAS being cared for, housed, and fed. Some parents are NOT good parents and abuse their kids and yes, they deserve to have them removed. But that is not the same as not allowing people to have them. Again, that is forced sterilization or abortion since people, even “bad” ones, still have the right to control their own bodies. </p>
<p>It is a big problem in this country. I will always side with kids. I wish our country would do a better job on this issue, providing better assistance to parents/children when it comes to childcare.</p>
<p>Are you aware that grants such institutions powers which can and have been abused historically not only in various countries…especially those of the authoritarian/totalitarian Fascist/Communist kind, but also in this country. </p>
<p>There’s a reason why the eugenics movement and its derivative policies such as forced sterilizations without prior non-coerced consent is looked upon by most thoughtful people as dark chapters in world and US history. </p>
<p>In light of such history, I don’t trust anyone…including our government to make such decisions which invade an individual’s personal autonomy. This is one of those areas covered under the “keep governments/busybodies out of our bedrooms” ideal. </p>
<p>I also wish people would be more thoughtful about preventing pregnancy unless and until they are ready to care for the children properly. With the current “war” on Planned Parenthood because of their services related to abortion, the baby (easy access to cheap and effective birth control) is getting thrown out with the bathwater, so I don’t see the situation getting better. As to the mother in this sad story, that ship has sailed anyway, so wishing she hadn’t brought a child into the world that she couldn’t afford to take care of properly is wasted energy. What can we do about her situation NOW? </p>
<p>I would be willing to pay more taxes in order to provide more affordable childcare, after school program, summer program for low income families.</p>
<p>In France you can drop your kid off at any time for just a few Euros. Here, it seems we are trying to punish poverty out of existence. It does not seem to be working.</p>
<p>The other point I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread is that the McDonald’s was 1/3 mile away and the girl met her mom for her lunch break. </p>
<p>I had a professional job but got divorced when the kids were pretty young and I used to just hate summer because the day care costs were exorbitant. There were some pay periods I had $60 for groceries because I paid so much for day care. I was making probably 2 times what that mom was making and it was very hard to make ends meet. </p>
<p>A 14 year old girl was out walking her dog in what is considered to be a very safe area in Metro Detroit (Armada, MI) last week. She was murdered. She sent a text message that she thought she was going to be abducted. So very sad, but most people would think a teenager walking the dog in the daylight would be pretty safe. It was on a popular biking/walking trail. We can all sit in safe rooms or we can live our lives using our best judgment. I think most of us prefer to do the latter. Oh… and if this 9 year old girl was obese because she never left the house while her mom was at work, I’m sure people would blame Mom for that too. I believe a big part of the childhood obesity problem is the lack of physical activity because we are afraid to send them out to play all day. </p>
<p>There is a very big difference between child abuse and neglect – and questions of judgment. </p>
<p>Additionally, it is a basic, universal principal of criminal law that people can only be punished when the law is clear as to what conduct is prohibited. If a state passed a law that said that it was illegal for any parent to allow a child under age 15 to be left unsupervised or allowed to walk to the park alone – and even if people thought that was ridiculous, the law might be enforceable because it is clear enough that anyone knows what it means.</p>
<p>But to arrest a parent for letting a 9 year old play alone at a park for 5 hours or allowing a 7 year old to walk alone to a nearby park without an explicit law – among other things, that’s either a misapplication of the law or the law itself could be held to be constitutionally void for vagueness. The reality is that reasonable people can disagree over the question as to how much supervision is necessary or appropriate for school age children – and aside from the question of whether we approve or disapprove of these choices – the law itself can’t be enforced. At the extremes, yes – for example, no one would think that it was acceptable to drop off a toddler at the park – but if the local jurisdictions want to imposes stricter restrictions on parents of 7 or 9 or 11 year olds, then they are going to have to start by writing clearer laws.</p>