Children's book author Kari Anne Roy was recently visited by the Austin police and Child Protective Services for allowing her son Isaac, age 6, to do the unthinkable: Play outside, up her street, unsupervised.
He'd been out there for about 10 minutes when Roy's doorbell rang. She opened it to find her son —and a woman she didn't know. As Roy wrote on her blog HaikuMama last week, the mystery woman asked: "Is this your son?"
I nodded, still trying to figure out what was happening.
"He said this was his house. I brought him home." She was wearing dark glasses. I couldn't see her eyes, couldn't gauge her expression.
"You brought..."
"Yes. He was all the way down there, with no adult." She motioned to a park bench about 150 yards from my house. A bench that is visible from my front porch. A bench where he had been playing with my 8-year-old daughter, and where he decided to stay and play when she brought our dog home from the walk they'd gone on.
"You brought him home... from playing outside?" I continued to be baffled.
And then the woman smiled condescendingly, explained that he was OUTSIDE. And he was ALONE. And she was RETURNING HIM SAFELY. To stay INSIDE. With an ADULT. I thanked her for her concern, quickly shut the door and tried to figure out what just happened.
What happened? The usual. A busybody saw that rarest of sights—a child playing outside without a security detail—and wanted to teach his parents a lesson. Roy might not have given the incident a whole lot more thought except that shortly afterward, her doorbell rang again.
This time it was a policewoman. "She wanted to know if my son had been lost and how long he'd been gone," Roy told me by phone. She also took Roy's I.D. and the names of her kids.
That night Isaac cried when he went to bed and couldn't immediately fall asleep. "He thought someone was going to call the police because it was past bedtime and he was still awake."
As it turns out, he was almost right. About a week later, an investigator from Child Protective Services came to the house and interrogated each of Roy's three children separately, without their parents, about their upbringing.
"She asked my 12 year old if he had ever done drugs or alcohol. She asked my 8-year-old daughter if she had ever seen movies with people's private parts, so my daughter, who didn't know that things like that exist, does now," says Roy. "Thank you, CPS."
It was only last week, about a month after it all began, that the case was officially closed. That's when Roy felt safe enough to write about it. But safe is a relative term. In her last conversation with the CPS investigator, who actually seemed to be on her side, Roy asked, "What do I do now?"
Replied the investigator, "You just don't let them play outside."
There you have it. You are free to raise your children as you like, except if you want to actually give them a childhood. Fail to incarcerate your child and you could face incarceration yourself.
I'm just totally flabbergasted that this is where we're at now. That parents can't let their kids out of their sight at all, EVER, w/o fear of having the cops called on them. I'm sure we can all tell stories of how when we were kids, that's what we DID. Went out and played w/ our friends for hours on end. And our parents may not have even known exactly where we were!!!
To add- this is the kind of thing where I if felt comfortable letting my DS go around the corner to his friends house alone, I might not do that for a few years now because of the fear that someone might CALL THE COPS. Not because I don't think he'll be o.k..
Post by mrsGreeko on Sept 16, 2014 13:18:40 GMT -5
Might as well call CPS on me now. I let my. 8 and 5 year olds play out front quite often without supervision. And gasp they've been doing it for at least a year. I check on them occasionally, but I'm not always out there watching them. if the 2 year old is out there then so am I, but I can't always be out there. I have grown up things to do while my kids are being kids.
And it pisses me off that CPS polices things like this, but ignores actual abuse. (I was regularly beaten and gagged and choked as a kid by my father. CPS was called to our home on multiple occasions and did absolutely nothing)
Might as well call CPS on me now. I let my. 8 and 5 year olds play out front quite often without supervision. And gasp they've been doing it for at least a year. I check on them occasionally, but I'm not always out there watching them. if the 2 year old is out there then so am I, but I can't always be out there. I have grown up things to do while my kids are being kids.
This, except my middle just turned 6. Sometimes I even have the 8 year old watch the 2 YO for a couple minutes if I have to run inside for something. This doesn't seem uncommon in our neighborhood.
Post by aspentosh on Sept 16, 2014 13:24:42 GMT -5
This pisses me off. I LIVED outside from about 4yo. I was alone or with friends, in the woods, walking around, NOT getting into trouble. Usually my mom knew my general location (going from A to D, or playing at X) but didn't follow me around.
I live near Austin, so this is really scary to me. My kid is barely walking, so this is a few years off for me, but I fully intend to let my kid(s) play outside by themselves anyway.
I really want to know how we can fight this culture. This is not ok. But if everyone keeps their kids inside because they're afraid someone will call the cops on them, then it makes kids playing outside an even stranger sight, thus raising the chances that people think it's odd or wrong for kids to play outside. I'm very frustrated.
Post by dragonfly08 on Sept 16, 2014 13:30:25 GMT -5
Stories like this make me thankful I have normal, sane neighbors.
They wouldn't be calling the cops or CPS on my unsupervised kids. Because then they'd have to explain why *their* kids were out there, right alongside mine. Heaven help me if I ever move from here to a neighborhood full of wackos.
And ditto on the anger that CPS has time for this when they're constantly letting kids who really need them fall through the cracks.
Post by ilikedonuts on Sept 16, 2014 13:32:42 GMT -5
This is insane.
I had my almost 3 year old playing outside in the driveway yesterday when I was inside doing laundry. I left the door from the house to the garage open and I could hear her playing. Thankfully all of our neighbors are normal and would come talk to us first (at least I think they would)!
Post by newgirl412 on Sept 16, 2014 13:34:13 GMT -5
If this is a case CPS is investigating this thoroughly, then I can only imagine what they will have to say in a year or two when we let my stepson walk a dirt road/dam around the pond (never out of eyeshot from our front porch) at our house to go visit his grandmother who lives directly across the pond from us....OH THE HORROR!
I live near Austin, so this is really scary to me. My kid is barely walking, so this is a few years off for me, but I fully intend to let my kid(s) play outside by themselves anyway.
I really want to know how we can fight this culture. This is not ok. But if everyone keeps their kids inside because they're afraid someone will call the cops on them, then it makes kids playing outside an even stranger sight, thus raising the chances that people think it's odd or wrong for kids to play outside. I'm very frustrated.
that's why we have to let kids play outside unsupervised.
We live in a highrise apt. When we stayed at my mom's house this summer you bet you sweet ass I shoved him out the door to play outside.
Post by cjeanette on Sept 16, 2014 13:38:48 GMT -5
This is nuts.
My kids are always trolling the neighborhood for kids to play with. I don't let E go by herself willy nilly but if it is one of the houses right nearby I will let her walk up there alone.
I mean, I pay out the nose to live in a closed off subdivision with no traffic and minimal crime (which consists of TP-ing houses). Why can't a let my kid be outside?
Post by pinkpinot on Sept 16, 2014 13:44:10 GMT -5
I let my 1.5 year old wander on his own all over our property. I usually drink my coffee and keep him in my line of sight but I by no means hover over him. My 3 dogs stay with him. I actually think it's awesome he has our property to grow up on and so much freedom to roam. I generally hate living in the woods but after having him and watching him play with sticks for hours has made me appreciate this place. Plus he gets so bored inside, I don't know how people can keep kids inside all day. I'm really dreading winter. Really dreading it.
Post by teatimefor2 on Sept 16, 2014 13:48:40 GMT -5
Wow, kids here play all the time unsupervised. I am outside with my two year old, but next year we are fencing in the backyard so I can just leave him out there to play if I need something.
Post by rootbeerfloat on Sept 16, 2014 13:52:57 GMT -5
I still keep an eye on DD, but DS can play in our cul-de-sac alone. But there are often other kids playing/riding bikes, too, and at least one or two adults paying attention. 4-5 seems to be about the cut-off where constant supervision falls off.
I let my 1.5 year old wander on his own all over our property. I usually drink my coffee and keep him in my line of sight but I by no means hover over him. My 3 dogs stay with him. I actually think it's awesome he has our property to grow up on and so much freedom to roam. I generally hate living in the woods but after having him and watching him play with sticks for hours has made me appreciate this place. Plus he gets so bored inside, I don't know how people can keep kids inside all day. I'm really dreading winter. Really dreading it.
you need to worry about bears, not nosy neighbors, lol.
I let my 1.5 year old wander on his own all over our property. I usually drink my coffee and keep him in my line of sight but I by no means hover over him. My 3 dogs stay with him. I actually think it's awesome he has our property to grow up on and so much freedom to roam. I generally hate living in the woods but after having him and watching him play with sticks for hours has made me appreciate this place. Plus he gets so bored inside, I don't know how people can keep kids inside all day. I'm really dreading winter. Really dreading it.
you need to worry about bears, not nosy neighbors, lol.
An old lady told me I needed to hold his hand! I was all, umm no. He's fine.
I'm glad we live in a tight knit family neighborhood - but I am not so delusional as to think there is not a Nosy Parker "good Samaritan" among the group. We do not have sidewalks and our street is quiet, but a local cut-through that some can drive too fast down. So it's years away from when I would send DS down the street to his friends house or around the corner to the park on his own.
However - now i ALSO have to determine the age that everyone else considers appropriate to do so, rather than just my decision that he is mature enough to be safe? So sad - why shouldn't he play in our large, safe suburban park a block away? Le sigh.
In sharp contract I grew up in Europe and by the age of 10 regularly navigated public transit all over the city alone (and *SHOCK* did sometimes get lost and have to figure it out) without a cell phone and I'm convinced those kind of experience - with space to figure things out - are critical building blocks of adulthood.
I firmly believe we're doing more harm by telling parents that kids can not play unsupervised, ever, than we do by giving kids some freedom and teaching them to be self sufficient. I had huge freedom as a kid. I was never afraid. The huge anxiety we see in young adults is surely traced back to this terribly fearful way we're being encouraged to parent.
I firmly believe we're doing more harm by telling parents that kids can not play unsupervised, ever, than we do by giving kids some freedom and teaching them to be self sufficient. I had huge freedom as a kid. I was never afraid. The huge anxiety we see in young adults is surely traced back to this terribly fearful way we're being encouraged to parent.
I see a lot of this axiety and inability to be self sufficient in my students. I teach 10th grade science and the start of the year is always the most difficult as they get use to my "hands off" style of teaching. In lab they are terrified to do ANYTHING on their own without anyone hovering over them giving step by step instructions. Trouble shooting and problem solving are practically nonexistant. They have no idea what to do when I respond to some of their quetsions with "I don't know, what do YOU think?"