My older sister walked me to Washington Elementary School, about a mile from my home, when I was in kindergarten. Then again, she was in fifth grade and attended the same school. When I entered first grade, I was on my own, like pretty much every other student. No one considered this unusual or problematic. The idea that kids shouldn’t be allowed to go places on their own was unthinkable at the time. Then again, the words “stranger” and “danger” had yet to be connected.
Not only has there been a distinct shift in the propriety of parents allowing their young (and not so young) children to be outside on their own, but other people observing children walking without a parent or guardian hovering over them have assumed a duty to call the police on other people for allowing their children to be “free range,” as Lenore Skenazy calls it. That’s what happened to Virginia mother Karyann Parkinson.
As the mother tells it, she was weeks away from giving birth to her fifth child when she took a walk with her son Sam through their gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia. They passed by a couple of ponds and crossed the street about six times, she said. Sam, 5, zoomed ahead of her and back on his bike, with the goose feathers he likes to collect from the ponds’ edges sticking out of his backpack.
When they returned home that day on June 5, Sam wanted to go back out to look for more feathers, she said.
Granted, a five-year-old is kindergarten age, and collecting feathers, unlike walking to school, is a volitional activity. It’s not that Sam couldn’t do so, but there was no need for Sam to do so. Then again, this was a gated community and Sam was obviously familiar with his surroundings.
She said she started making lunch, and, after 20 to 30 minutes, there was a knock at the door. On the other side was Sam, visibly shaken, with a handful of feathers, she said. Behind him stood a security guard, who told her a neighbor saw her son outside alone and was so concerned they called security, she said.
Parkinson said she insisted her son was safe and had the right to walk through his neighborhood by himself. But the guard said she had broken the law and called the police, she said.
You’ll never guess what happened next.
On June 18, about two weeks after police first arrived at Parkinson’s doorstep, they returned with a warrant for her arrest, she said. Parkinson was charged and convicted last month of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to online court records.
She was given a six-month suspended sentence, but that hardly vitiates the arrest or conviction. First, the neighbor who called security and initiated this situation believed Parkinson had neglected her child and put him at risk. Then the security officer, and later the police, joined in. Ultimately, the prosecutor and judge thought it worthy of a conviction. As for Parkinson, she was of the view that her decision as Sam’s parent was not only appropriate, but good parenting.
Parkinson, who has a bachelor’s degree in family science and graduated from William & Mary Law School in May, said she allowed her son to do the roughly half-mile walk by himself because she and her husband, Dallin, believe it’s important for children to “encounter reasonable risks, to do anything that they feel confident doing within safe parameters.” And Sam knows how to safely cross the street, get back home or ask a neighbor for help because she taught him, Parkinson said.
No one would argue that some parents are bad at the job, putting their children at needless risk of danger out of neglect or recklessness. No one wants to see a child neglected or abused. But where is the line? Who decides whether the line has been crossed? Is it up to the mother to determine whether she wants her child to experience a degree of freedom, or is it up to the most fearful neighbor who doesn’t believe any child under 13 should be allowed out without supervision?
“There’s a real disconnect between letting your kid do something normal that you trust that he can do, and you know him and your neighborhood, and abusing a child, which is the worst thing in the world, right?” Skenazy told The Post in an interview. “So, why are they mashed up?”
Are they “mashed up,” or is there no accepted clarity as to the degree of latitude a parent should have before childhood freedom morphed into child abuse? Every parent has to make a decision as to what they’ll permit their child to do, and some would not have allowed their five-year-old to cross streets and walk near ponds for fear of harm. Other parents would see this as a valuable lesson in growing up, taking on responsibility, enjoying a modicum of freedom and learning independence.
Is that a crime? For Parkinson, it was. Should it be? How would a parent know? Why should a parent accept the limits of their nosiest neighbor, or some cop, prosecutor or judge, as to how their child should be raised? Does a judge’s sensibilities trump the right of a parent to decide the degree of freedom their child should enjoy?
Added: Prawf Jon Adler provides greater insight into the case.
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
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Two things. I may be the only SJ reader that lives in a mobile home( trailer) park.
It reminds me of when I was a kid, groups of young and very young children out doing things that kids do.
Secondly in reading the accompanying article, I was piqued by Sam’s refusal to get into the security vehicle. I wonder if the vehicle had an appropriate car seat for a five year old.
Years ago, an elderly neighbor gave me the usual tsk-tsk because my 6-year-old was running ahead of us on the way to the park. I asked her what age she was first allowed out on her own back in the 1930s. The instant pivot to “well, it was different back then” said it all.
A few years later, a nearby parent had the cops called on their 7-year-old for simply taking a daily walk around their quiet suburban block. Just like the case you posted, it escalated straight to an arrest, charges, and CPS—largely because the parents dared to push back and refused to show ID to the officer bringing their kid home. It was pure retaliation for failing to bow to authority.
Inspired by Lenore Skenazy’s work—and the residents of my town being silly enough to put me in local elected office at the time—I decided to sponsor a local “reasonable childhood independence” law protecting parental discretion.
Before introducing it, I checked with our school superintendent. Their policy already allowed first-graders (6-year-olds) to walk home from the bus stop alone. Sensible enough.
Then I met with our police chief. Hard no. He gave me the full sermon about the supposed catastrophe of kids roaming around “willy-nilly.” Pointing out historical precedent didn’t matter; noting that state abuse and neglect statutes already covered genuine danger didn’t matter.
I passed the ordinance over his objections anyway.
It’s been years now. The sky didn’t fall, kids are fine, and the only real casualty was losing the police union’s endorsement for my reelection. We have to stand up for parents’ right to give kids the same basic freedom we all grew up with, or the busybodies and authoritarian overreach win by default
“Hey, kid! Do your parents know you’re out here? They do? Oh, okay, then.” And then the neighbor went back to minding their own business. Or if the neighbor was really concerned, then they could have asked where he lived and gone to confirm it with the parents and express whatever concerns directly. You don’t need a rent a cop to talk to a child you think is in danger.
However, we live in a society where social capital is dwindling and so we rely on rules-based bureaucracies to mediate neighborly matters and even to make parenting decisions for us. Those silly sociologists have been ringing the warning bells on bureaucracy, alienation, and social capital for well over a century now and not just the commies among them. The impersonal rules-based bureaucracy don’t jive with values-based things like parenting. Parkinson, apparently “testy,” made herself a nail. The hammer of bureaucracy obliged.
I hope this gets corrected in due course.
No PK, it won’t get corrected. Not all sociologists are silly just 99.9% of them. The ones smart enough to analyse the complex causal networks and who examine those behind intractable social problems such as crime and drugs, give sensible advice that goes against common sense or as I call it COMMON NON-SENSE we wisely ignore.
I meant Parkinson’s matter individually. The larger issue of social capital continues to haunt me. I studied sociology. I read Putnam’s Bowling Alone and more. I only called sociologists silly because the pervading notion that the social sciences are “soft” and that “hard” materialism is all we need. And yet, I see smart people wondering how we got here without giving credit to a history of great and well-reasoned analysis.
For the balance, I think you’re talking about cognitive biases, which are important to know and acknowledge so that they can be mitigated against. We have many, varied, inherent biases in how we think. Know thyself, I parrot from the Greeks.
It’s certainly tough when the system consists of Barney Fifes al the way up.
Something smells like the neighbors have an issue with the Parkison family…
Helicopter parents are a menace as they raise overly cautious, overly fearful children that underachieve and waste those talents they have. Most children of my baby boom generation were lucky not to have them but my mother was a dual gas turbine powered dual rotor heavy lift helicopter. If I wanted to do something I would ask and she would say no, I would nag, ……. nag, nag, and she would relent and then I would give in. After some time I assumed anything I wanted was forbidden and did not ask. I didn’t learn to drive until I was 25, I assumed my mother would think it dangerous. Basically I am affected with many damaging neuroses and am still much too cautious.
It is better if a few children fall out of trees, break legs and even necks so that the majority who survive do not turn into overcautious procrastinating weaklings like me.
I think the big problem today is that kids would rather stay indoors (social media, etc.), so when a child is seen outside, it’s more of an anomaly.
My son is 16, and he would rather spend his days indoors or around the house.
I told him he could go out and do stuff, and he’d rather be on his phone indoors.
This lady managed to serially enrage a neighbor, the guard, the cop, the cop’s supervisor, a CPS officer, prosecutor, the prosecutor’s boss, and a judge. At some point she should consider AITA?
If her behavior was within her rights, then “No!”
Kindergarten (generally age 5) does seem really young to be out by oneself that far away from the house. I think one marked difference from when we were younger is the proliferation of Amazon/Doordash whatever delivery vehicles that seem to drive very quickly through neighborhoods making the roadways less safe for children. Some of this is going to be facts and circumstances dependent like, for example, whether the neighborhood has sidewalks vs. walking in the street.
That said, a criminal prosecution seems over the top for what seems to be a poor parenting choice (even if one was was to accept my position as the definitive answer). People make dumb parenting decisions every day, you can’t criminally prosecute people for every dumb thing they do.