11 ms·

Utah governor signs law legalizing 'free-range parenting'

197 points by jeffreyrogers 9y ago

Analemma_ 9y ago
This law is coming from a good place, but I'm not sure how much it can accomplish. The pressure against "free-range parenting" is much more social than legal, and it doesn't seem like the government can do a lot about that. Although maybe it will be enough knowing that if someone threatens to call CPS on you for letting your kid walk to school, you can tell them to fuck off.
- daeken 9y ago
  > Although maybe it will be enough knowing that if someone threatens to call CPS on you for letting your kid walk to school, you can tell them to fuck off. I don't live in Utah, where this law was just enacted, but I will happily tell folks to fuck off if they threaten me with a CPS call for letting my child walk to school. This culture of fear is unnecessary and harmful.
  - jeffreyrogers 9y ago
    You can tell the person to fuck off, but if they call CPS then CPS still has to come talk to your kids. This happened to me as a child (not for being allowed to walk to school, but for something similarly dumb).
  - delecti 9y ago
    But what will you do if they actually call CPS? Because the threat is easy to act on.
  - andersonmmi 9y ago
    If you tell the wrong person to fuck off, they can escalate these situations to class A felonies. Doctors and lawyers are a few examples of people with this kind of influence, I'm sure there are other examples.
- x1798DE 9y ago
  Social pressure is fine, the problem is that right now people leverage the law to force their culture of helicopter parenting on people not complying. Frankly, I think it should go even further, it should be a civil offense to frivolously report child endangerment based only on the fact that children are unsupervised. Even with a protection bill, people will still report parents if there are no consequences, and not everyone on the enforcement side will get the message. Best to level the playing field so helicopter reporters will have some skin in the game.
  - jxcl 9y ago
    I agree with the concept of free-range parenting, and I see where you're coming from re. civil offenses for frivolous reports, but that carries the burden with it that perhaps some things that should be reported will go unreported. Isn't the reverse better?
    - andersonmmi 9y ago
      It's not the reporting that's the problem, it's the overzealous prosecution of families that end up in government's crosshairs. I expect the rate of reporting won't change, but the abuses by local agencies will be abated somewhat.
    - rayiner 9y ago
      > Isn't the reverse better? No. Being a kid is comically safe these days, there is room to move in the other direction. It's also a matter of setting cultural norms. When CPS issues a civil citation for reporting someone for having stuffed animals in the crib, that tells people that worrying about such frivolities is not okay.
  - jlg23 9y ago
    > it should be a civil offense to frivolously report child endangerment based only on the fact that children are unsupervised. So when I see children alone and think they might be lost, what do I do? Trust the runaways who tell me that all is good? Creepily follow them until they reach their destination? What you call "frivolous reporting" in one area would be "criminal neglect" in another. That's the whole idea of child protection services: Give them slightly more power to investigate than an ordinary citizen, so they can make an informed decision according to the law. After all, the reporting is not the problem, lack of standards/consensus what good parenting means en detail is. > not everyone on the enforcement side will get the message Lack of ongoing training in law enforcement should, IMHO, never be a reason not to change things for the better.
- soperj 9y ago
  In BC: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouver-man-ordered-to-stop-letting-his-children-take-city-bus-to-school/article36180815/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancou... Kids can't even take the bus to school together. And that's on government, not social pressure. (For Americans) In Vancouver transit is both clean and effective.
  - djrogers 9y ago
    Wow - when I was 10, growing up in Burnaby (suburb of Vancouver, and uses the same transit system), we learned to use transit in school on a special field trip designed to teach us to take the bus and Skytrain. After that I took it to Metrotown to do my Christmas shopping - felt very responsible and grown up. It was definitely a good thing, and not at all unsafe. Heck, today it'd be even safer since most parents give kids cell phones! - edited to clarify Burnaby's context to Vancouver
    - vkou 9y ago
      I've taken public transit daily since I was 10 in Burnaby. I'd also bike to Metrotown from Edmonds. This was back in the late 90s. What a disgrace.
  - kolpa 9y ago
    That is indeed extreme. The main point of having 4 kids is that it the redundancy makes it OK to risk losing one of them due to unfortunate circumstances that might occur as when riding a bus.
908087 9y ago
When I was a kid, they just called that "parenting". The generation that has been growing up locked away from the world under constant adult supervision is going to have a hell of a time leaving the crib when the time comes. 30 will be the new 18. Maybe this will help Facebook and Google's surveillance towns take off, since these adult children would be able to move somewhere else where they'd be under constant supervision.
- hanbura 9y ago
  When real life sounds like a Black Mirror episode
d--b 9y ago
It is awfully sad that we need laws that describe what we're allowed to do rather than what's forbidden.
- Invictus0 9y ago
  I don't really see it that way. From a legal perspective, it's just preventing legitimate parenting techniques from being dragged into an over-broad definition of neglect.
  - d--b 9y ago
    I understand the intent. And this makes sense. I'm just saying that we're seeing a case of "negligence is everything except what is specifically mentioned as being authorized".
    - mieseratte 9y ago
      Well, we're seeing a case where a type of parenting is viewed as neglectful, so we're adding a law to enshrine it's legality in the face of changing cultural norms among certain sets of the population. This is not the same as "Anything not enshrined in law is unauthorized."
    - proofbygazing 9y ago
      This seems like a matter of the legislature reining in law-enforcement whose interpretations have become overly broad, something legislatures (and Congress) also sometimes does to the judicial system. I agree that it can be cast in an awkward light but it's not uncommon.
  - Naritai 9y ago
    Yeah I think OP is highlighting the presence of the over-broad definition of neglect in the first place.
- mtgx 9y ago
  Yeah, the blacklist approach to legislation is much preferable to the whitelist approach, at least in terms of human rights and societal evolution.
quantumofmalice 9y ago
Social trust is falling in the west. I appreciate Utah making an effort here, but the problem is systemic. There are specific reasons that this is the case, but most people will not discuss it openly. Putnam sat on his results for years because it is simply not acceptable to discuss in polite society.
- vinay427 9y ago
  Would you care to discuss these so-called "specific reasons" relatively anonymously then? I genuinely have no idea what you might be referring to.
  - quantumofmalice 9y ago
    You can look up Putnam and the controversy around his work easily enough.
  - 0x4f3759df 9y ago
    >>A study conducted by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam suggests that diversity hurts civic life and that differences can actually translate into distrust https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12802663 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128026... Seems logical but social isolation is also increasing in Japan with their ethnic homogeneity. I think its all related to the collapse of large families. People have few children and when the kids grow up they're likely to move away.
    - corey_moncure 9y ago
      >social isolation is also increasing in Japan When was the last time you were there? I spent most of the past month in metro Osaka, as a parent of young children, and I noted: * Young children freely coming to city parks, fraternizing, and leaving, in absence of any adult supervision, indeed, without any adults other than myself even present * Groups of young schoolchildren traveling mostly autonomously to and from school among busy urban streets (though sometimes under the watchful eye of many volunteer shepherds along the route) * Children as young as 8 approaching me to be generally curious, maturely and completely without fear * Proprietor of a local bar I visited knew everyone around, including my in-laws' family, this in the busy inner-city * Ample resources and facilities provided by the prefectural and local governments, including staffed play areas and civic center events. My older daughter was broadcast on-air TV with other children attending a Girls' Day event. * health care including vision/dental costs hard capped to 500 yen/treatment day (~$5) for children under 6 So yeah. I don't think the situation in Japan is comparable at all in any way to what's happened here in the USA. I would not allow even the appearance of my daughter playing alone in my own front yard, for fear of what well-intentioned neighbors might say or do, let alone the boogie-man.
poelzi 9y ago
I"m shocked that this is even forbidden in the "land of the free". I was walking home alone from school. In fact, my father once said to me that I basically raised myself on my own.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  Walking alone might be too scary for the "land of the brave". Jokes aside, I'm often surprised by how frequently people in US describe places, people and ideas as "threats".
  - tropo 9y ago
    You can't be brave unless you perceive a threat. Being oblivious to a threat, or being in denial of a threat, is not bravery. Bravery requires well-considered acceptance of a recognized threat. It's a matter of being able to justify taking a risk.
- Notorious_BLT 9y ago
  It isn't forbidden, but its very poorly protected. (Intentionally vague) laws intended to protect kids from serious harm end up being applied to situations where kids are perfectly safe, but some busybody heard a late night news report one time about a kid that got abducted, or fell out of a tree and broke his neck, or got hit by a bus and felt the need to impose their worry on others. So they call CPS, and now the parent is under investigation for doing something completely normal, because CPS has too much power and not enough oversight/due process. The idea of this law is to send a clear message that parents are NOT to be harassed/threatened by government agencies over these harmless situations. Sometimes the state has to be told where their power ends explicitly.
pbreit 9y ago
Is there any way to get rid of the original laws that this new law is addressing or is that not how it works?
- djrogers 9y ago
  It's not the original laws as written - they were fine for many generations. It's the modern interpretation of those same laws that often gets out of hand. Often it's changes in regulations, or court rulings related to those laws. In this case, it was gradual shift in the perception of 'neglect' by CPS, helicopter parents, or overly concerned citizens who think every child is in mortal danger if they're not within 10 feet of a responsible adult.
eeZah7Ux 9y ago
English is not my first language - forgive the stupid question: does "free-range" come from animal farming? (I hope not, that would sound quite patronizing)
- badloginagain 9y ago
  Yes, although the fact that the law is remotely necessary validates the patronizing nature of the term.
- mtinkerhess 9y ago
  Yes it does! FWIW it doesn't come off as patronizing to me, it has connotations with organic / locally grown / health food.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  It's an ironic joke. By saying that you raise "free-range kids" you are accusing (correctly these days for the U.S.!) that other parents are raising caged, confined kids.
gumby 9y ago
Weird that such a law is even required -- what was the legal regime before the law was enacted?
- OtterCoder 9y ago
  In Utah? Perfectly sane. The law just codifies Utah CPS practices. Other states with similar laws? You could have your children confiscated if they weren't in visual range.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dahart 9y ago
I feel like we don't have enough free-range parenting, even if silly new laws seem to support it. Not nearly enough parents let their kids walk to school where I live. (But I'll be careful to admit this view may be much more upper-middle class centric than for poorer families.) My parents took me and my siblings to Mexico when I was a kid, I was the oldest at 7 years old. My brother and sister were 6 and 4. We'd go walking for miles on our own. In retrospect it seems amazing that nothing serious happened to us, though once my brother decided to pet a horse from behind and got kicked. This article also reminds me of a story comedian Molly Shannon tells about sneaking onto an airplane with her friend when they were 13 and flying to New York City to spend the day. It seems like nobody does this kind of stuff anymore, parents are much more on top of it than 30 years ago.
- lostmsu 9y ago
  Could that be a survivor bias?
azinman2 9y ago
It’s sad to me that the 24h news cycle that depends on selling fear causes people to misestimate the dangers in the world. My sister doesn’t allow her teenage children to take the bus in a wealthy suburb for fear of something happening to them, yet both she and I took buses around SF and the bay starting at age 10 without cellphones. Statistics show that things are _less_ dangerous now than when we were kids — but she’s been made paranoid via attention grabbing media.
- kyoob 9y ago
  Could the world be less dangerous now because kids aren't riding around unescorted on buses any more?
  - quadrangle 9y ago
    Interesting hypothesis, but I doubt you'll find any support for it.
  - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
    Unlikely because it is much less dangerous for everyone, not just kids.
  - r00fus 9y ago
    Could be related to removing lead from paint and gasoline reducing overall violence.
- smelendez 9y ago
  Does your sister take the bus herself? I've met people who don't take public transportation and think city buses are basically the Mos Eisley cantina on wheels.
  - azinman2 9y ago
    She has a car which is far more practical for her suburbian situation. But I doubt she’d have a problem taking it herself due to safety issues.
mrleiter 9y ago
That a law like this is even necessary seems absurd to me. A child learns by doing, by making mistakes by itself. By being curious about the world. By feeling the consequences of ones actions. Of course parenting is needed, but much less restrictive as it apparently is. My parents sent me to the UK when I was 12. i knew no-one. Yes, there was a school and a host family that fulfilled my basic needs, but I had to become selfconscious and responsible. I would never want to miss that. Your parents won't always be here and the earlier you learn to get on by yourself, the better. A child must develop a sense of self dependency IMO. Disclaimer: I'm from Europe.
- graeme 9y ago
  That's the point of the law. In many north american jurisdictions you can have your children taken from you if you let them roam around freely. There was a notable story of a parent in Vancouver who had to stop letting his kids take the city bus to school because a neighbour complained.
  - mrleiter 9y ago
    Wow, so hard for me to grasp. I didn't know. When I was young I used to climb on trees all the time. I remember one incident where a neighbour called my mother and told her that I was doing that and that she should tell me to stop this as it was dangerous. My mother told her that this was none of her business. For such a drastic measure (taking ones child away) much more severe neglect is needed here in Austria (e.g. drug abuse, violence,...)
    - xxpor 9y ago
      Remember though, the reason it became a news story was because it was so absurd. Kids take public transit to school here in Seattle all the time.
    - graeme 9y ago
      That's the way it should be. Unsure why it's different in North America. I think it's because the agency faces severe consequences from a false negative, so they err on the side of false positives. It is also very hard to get the bureaucracy to drop a case once it has been brought to their attention.
mnm1 9y ago
The fact that our society needs such a law is beyond insane. When did the law change? I walked to school in the 90's by myself at 9 years. Or has the law changed? Or has the enforcement just changed without anyone's consent? I can't imagine raising kids in America today. I'd never subject another human being to this kind of life. Children are human too but Americans seem to have forgotten that lately.
- vinay427 9y ago
  > Or has the enforcement just changed without anyone's consent? I'd bet that the enforcement of existing laws has changed with society's consent, as is usually the case. Like it or not, parents are more likely to see new threats that didn't exist a few decades ago, and this manifests itself in what law enforcement officers see as threats.
- kolpa 9y ago
  Thanks to Internet and mass media, the occasional extreme case gets misreported and widely publicized as "the new normal" The irony is not lost: "Free-range" advocates say that society vastly overestimates the risk of harms, so they campaign against child-protection laws that they vastly overestimate the harm of.
  - tropo 9y ago
    I've dealt with those agencies enough to know that they are horrible. I've even caught them in criminal acts, which of course won't be prosecuted. The typical harassment starts with a kid who gets a normal childhood injury or is found unattended at a library or church, or sometimes an anonymous tip by somebody who wants to cause trouble. This is enough to start an investigation. The agency's workers then feel entitled to interview and examine the kids alone, invade the home, and even inspect the content of a refrigerator. Depending on your location, a warrant may be automatically approved by a judge. The thing with the refrigerator is particularly absurd. It's not as if you can't feed children without one. You could even eat out every day! If the agency's workers find moldy food you forgot in the back of your refrigerator, they will presume that the children are being fed moldy food. If you haven't been shopping recently and the refrigerator is mostly empty, they will assume the kids aren't being fed. The agency benefits greatly from people's reluctance to talk with friends, news media, and so on. So much of the malicious activity occurs in private. These investigations have lasting effects. Years later, one can snap awake in a panic due to a nightmare about kids being grabbed out of the home. You can forever lose your feeling of safety and security in your own home. When the report is anonymous, you can no longer trust anybody you know.
graeme 9y ago
A lot of posts in this thread are not understanding the point of the law. Sentiments such as: "Why need a law? Just let your children be free and independent. They need that." "If anyone threatens to call CPS on me I'll tell them to fuck off." That's why the law is needed! Currently, in a lot of jurisdictions, do either of those two things and your kids can arbitrarily be taken from you, legally, by the government. This law makes it so that allowing children normal independence is legal. Because slowly administrative agencies started to take a stricter view on what was "safe".
- doitLP 9y ago
  Very true. I used to volunteer with an advocacy group that helped parents whose kids were wrongly taken by CPS and what I saw of the system scared the crap out of me. It does some good work but the sheer stupidity of some of the employees, the arbitrary powers and lack of due process was the stuff of nightmares.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    There's a number of stories about children being taken from parents for dubious reasons, who end up dying in foster care: Removed from parents because the father smoked marijuana at night when the child was asleep, child murdered by foster care parent with a history of violations: http://fox43.com/2014/11/06/2-year-old-taken-away-from-parents-because-they-used-marijuana-killed-by-foster-mother/ http://fox43.com/2014/11/06/2-year-old-taken-away-from-paren... Removed from parents for "drug use and homelessness", died from neglect in foster care: https://www.abqjournal.com/1113809/caregiver-arrested-in-death-of-11-month-old-foster-child.html https://www.abqjournal.com/1113809/caregiver-arrested-in-dea... Removed from parents because baby had a bruise from when he bumped his head while feeding, died in foster care: http://fox40.com/2017/08/17/after-baby-dies-in-foster-care-biological-family-wants-answers/ http://fox40.com/2017/08/17/after-baby-dies-in-foster-care-b...
    - zzzeek 9y ago
      I read that last one and I'm not sure the "free range parenting" bill would even cover that. That was a case of, baby had a bruise and a doctor arbitrarily decided it was a willful injury by the parents. A process as aribtrary and random as that seems pretty broken and after that the foster process failed catastrophically. But I doubt "free range parenting" shuts down the entire process of removing kids from environments that are detected (rightly or wrongly) as directly physically abusive.
lewis500 9y ago
so cool they are finally gonna let the parents wander around freely.
bunderbunder 9y ago
I'm glad to see some sense coming back, after having seen things get to the point where most of what's happening in the Charlie Brown Chrismas special would be unthinkable. ("He bought a Chrismas tree? Without adult supervision!?!?")
- kolpa 9y ago
  So? Charlie Brown is a cartoon that mostly erases adults from the plot because they are boring. It's not a documentary of the 1950s.
coding123 9y ago
For this thread, you have my permission to be temporary republicans. edit: Oh man, come on that was a 3-layer deep joke that had at least one paradox.
hathawsh 9y ago
The news is about Utah SB 65: https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html Look specifically at the underlined additions on lines 309-325. This is simply a refinement of the definition of "neglect".
banned1 9y ago
When I was 12 years old, my friends and I used to bike about 8 miles to the airport to see airplanes take off from a nearby hill. The hill was federal land, delimited by simple wire fencing, so we would climb it to get to the hill. The path was clearly there, so we must not have been the only ones there. As long as we came back before the light came on, we would be fine with my parents. Once, we had to cross a freeway and a truck hit our dog, who died. There was nothing we could do for it, so we left it there. We never went back after that. If a kid was caught doing that today, it would legally be taken away form his/her family by Children Protective Services, the parents charged, tried, and probably convicted of child neglect and endangerment. Some of the best memories from childhood for me are those trips. How sad that kids have to be home playing with their iPads today.
- kolpa 9y ago
  > it would legally be taken away form his/her family by Children Protective Services, the parents charged, tried, and probably convicted of child neglect and endangerment. citation needed. > Once, we had to cross a freeway and a truck hit our dog, who died. Your parents negligently put you in charge of a dog that you negligently killed. That should be legal?
  - banned1 9y ago
    "citation needed" http://www.masslive.com/living/index.ssf/2015/01/maryland_parent_investigation_raises_issue_what_age_to_allow_children_free_range_to_walk_stay_home_a.html http://www.masslive.com/living/index.ssf/2015/01/maryland_pa... "Your parents negligently put you in charge of a dog that you negligently killed. That should be legal?" Shit happens. The truck killed the dog, not me. Maybe you come from another continent or country, but America is a free country, so we don't care about what is legal, because the law establishes what is illegal, and everything else is legal. It is not illegal to run with your dog.
    - tomasdore 9y ago
      This is genuinely a fantastic comment. You dealt with a cold, rude comment with grace and calm, then provided an easily understood statement of what defines a country with both freedom and rule of law.
fzeroracer 9y ago
Last I checked, it's generally a bad idea to leave pets alone in a car so I'm not sure what the political or parental benefits are of leaving children alone in a car. This just reads of something done purely for face-saving reasons rather than solving the greater issue of safety in America. Never mind that the concept of free range parenting in America is something mostly for the white and wealthy.
- hanbura 9y ago
  Leaving children in the car for short periods has occasionally practical benefits, just as with pets. And both humans and animals do just fine in cars as long as you make sure that the interior doesn't get too hot. In this instance it's more about making sure harmless behavior isn't accidentally outlawed. >Never mind that the concept of free range parenting in America is something mostly for the white and wealthy. How is that? The US isn't Norway, but it is still very safe. I don't see why helicopter parenting should be required?
  - fzeroracer 9y ago
    Because the occasional practical benefits do not outweigh some of the more irresponsible parents leaving children or pets in cars on hot/cold days. I view that as being more of a public safety issue much like seat belts. As for your second point, it's because for a lot of the poorer parents they don't really have the ability to let their kids roam freely. Either due to proximity, lack of funds and so forth. Not to mention the institutional problems minority kids face on a daily basis (see: black children being shot by police). It's not about requiring helicopter parenting but rather that laws like this don't really solve the actual problem for the majority of parents in the US. It's effectively lip service and I guarantee the wriggle-room left in the law will be used to harm minorities more than anyone else.
    - kolpa 9y ago
      Cars have air-conditioning, heaters, and openable windows.
- 9y ago
eco 9y ago
Child abuse and neglect laws started in the 1940s after a series of articles were published by a doctor with accounts of children with injuries clearly caused by adults and by the 1970s most states had passed them. They were well meaning and only intended to protect children from real harm. The problem is they are (somewhat necessarily) vague. They didn't think the laws would be used for trivial things but words like "endangerment" can easily be applied to letting your kid walk home alone. This is the first real attempt that I know of to scale back some of it and I suspect we'll see more of this in other states as society realizes some of this has gone to far. It should also be said that this is just codifying what was basically already the case. Utah's Child Protective Services supported this law and already considered the behaviors the law protects to be perfectly fine but they were obligated to open investigations anyway. Now they don't have to. It also prevents Utah's CPS in the future from doing some of the ridiculous actions that have occurred in other states if the attitude of the workers/leadership at Utah's CPS shifted.
- r00fus 9y ago
  I seriously hope other states take the opportunity to review this legislation for similar adoption. As a parent, the shuffle to drive or walk my bike-capable kids 0.5 miles to their school costs us time or money (to have someone shepherd them). These days we have ways to track kids or kids have their own phone, tools like Nextdoor and crime levels are low. Why shouldn't we trust kids to be able to navigate (perhaps in a group) themselves to a local school?
kolpa 9y ago
> Utah lawmakers said they were prompted to pass the law after seeing other states Smells like political posturing.
kolpa 9y ago
Link to the actual law, in case people want to discuss the law and not their own preconceptoins: https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html
- hathawsh 9y ago
  Right. To clarify what that page is showing, the bill is a proposed change of the Utah code and it's presented almost like a "diff" file. Underlined portions are additions, strikeouts are removals. Lines 309 through 325 contain the important parts.
  - bargl 9y ago
    Your comment helped me find the part in question thank you very much.
paulddraper 9y ago
> On the federal level, another Utah politician, U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, added an amendment to a 2015 federal education bill supporting the concept. It said kids shouldn't be stopped from biking or walking to school alone with a parent's permission, and parents shouldn't face charges for letting them. Ah, what? In Florida in the late 90s, my my 2nd grade self and my 1st grade sister walked a mile to school every day. The thought that someone would find that objectionable...genuinely bizarre.
Chris_UT 9y ago
Coming from UT, I remember a lot of teens in high school that had over reaching parents and as a result they didn't get the full experience of being a junior or senior in HS. Luckily for me, my parents had trust in me so in high school I could hang out with my friends without my parents questioning my every move. They just wanted me home before 10.
kolpa 9y ago
This is Utah, where the Mormon church has a de facto near-monopoly on large segments of society. The church (and parents) impose far more oppressiev restrictions of children's freedom than any CPS does.
bcheung 9y ago
What is wrong with people if they need to make a law for this? Seriously, just because a kid is playing outside instead of being confined indoors playing video games is no reason to call the cops.
cwbrandsma 9y ago
Should call this the "let city kids have the same rights as rural kids" law. All the kids on farms are just looking at this like "what the...?" (yes, kids still live and work on farms)
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  This is the part where I make some reply that subtly suggests that everyone BFE is a backwards hick, that there's no economic opportunity there and that kids who don't get out will all turn to drugs. If I really wanna show how out of touch I am I should take pity on anyone who lives somewhere without over 9000 ethic restaurants and bars that serve hipster micro-brews within walking distance and mention startups somehow. (yes, this is sarcasm)
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
As a parent of three it seems ridiculous that we need these laws, but sadly we do to reverse the years of overly anxious people creating a world hostile to kids exploring it without hovering caretakers. I won't move to Utah because of this, but hopefully other states take notice and I'll be lobbying my state to use this as precedent.
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
The US has a slow decline where the acceptable level of risk to expose your children to is nil. This is not good parenting; good parenting involves teaching your children to navigate the world with increasing independence and ability to judge and handle risk. It is, however, what people will pressure each other into doing when something bad happens (or looks like it might). You cannot and should not prevent every possible bad thing from happening to your child. It doesn't produce the best outcome.

197 points by jeffreyrogers 9y ago

This law is coming from a good place, but I'm not sure how much it can accomplish. The pressure against "free-range parenting" is much more social than legal, and it doesn't seem like the government can do a lot about that. Although maybe it will be enough knowing that if someone threatens to call CPS on you for letting your kid walk to school, you can tell them to fuck off.

daeken 9y ago
> Although maybe it will be enough knowing that if someone threatens to call CPS on you for letting your kid walk to school, you can tell them to fuck off. I don't live in Utah, where this law was just enacted, but I will happily tell folks to fuck off if they threaten me with a CPS call for letting my child walk to school. This culture of fear is unnecessary and harmful.
- jeffreyrogers 9y ago
  You can tell the person to fuck off, but if they call CPS then CPS still has to come talk to your kids. This happened to me as a child (not for being allowed to walk to school, but for something similarly dumb).
- delecti 9y ago
  But what will you do if they actually call CPS? Because the threat is easy to act on.
- andersonmmi 9y ago
  If you tell the wrong person to fuck off, they can escalate these situations to class A felonies. Doctors and lawyers are a few examples of people with this kind of influence, I'm sure there are other examples.
x1798DE 9y ago
Social pressure is fine, the problem is that right now people leverage the law to force their culture of helicopter parenting on people not complying. Frankly, I think it should go even further, it should be a civil offense to frivolously report child endangerment based only on the fact that children are unsupervised. Even with a protection bill, people will still report parents if there are no consequences, and not everyone on the enforcement side will get the message. Best to level the playing field so helicopter reporters will have some skin in the game.
- jxcl 9y ago
  I agree with the concept of free-range parenting, and I see where you're coming from re. civil offenses for frivolous reports, but that carries the burden with it that perhaps some things that should be reported will go unreported. Isn't the reverse better?
  - andersonmmi 9y ago
    It's not the reporting that's the problem, it's the overzealous prosecution of families that end up in government's crosshairs. I expect the rate of reporting won't change, but the abuses by local agencies will be abated somewhat.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    > Isn't the reverse better? No. Being a kid is comically safe these days, there is room to move in the other direction. It's also a matter of setting cultural norms. When CPS issues a civil citation for reporting someone for having stuffed animals in the crib, that tells people that worrying about such frivolities is not okay.
- jlg23 9y ago
  > it should be a civil offense to frivolously report child endangerment based only on the fact that children are unsupervised. So when I see children alone and think they might be lost, what do I do? Trust the runaways who tell me that all is good? Creepily follow them until they reach their destination? What you call "frivolous reporting" in one area would be "criminal neglect" in another. That's the whole idea of child protection services: Give them slightly more power to investigate than an ordinary citizen, so they can make an informed decision according to the law. After all, the reporting is not the problem, lack of standards/consensus what good parenting means en detail is. > not everyone on the enforcement side will get the message Lack of ongoing training in law enforcement should, IMHO, never be a reason not to change things for the better.
soperj 9y ago
In BC: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouver-man-ordered-to-stop-letting-his-children-take-city-bus-to-school/article36180815/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancou... Kids can't even take the bus to school together. And that's on government, not social pressure. (For Americans) In Vancouver transit is both clean and effective.
- djrogers 9y ago
  Wow - when I was 10, growing up in Burnaby (suburb of Vancouver, and uses the same transit system), we learned to use transit in school on a special field trip designed to teach us to take the bus and Skytrain. After that I took it to Metrotown to do my Christmas shopping - felt very responsible and grown up. It was definitely a good thing, and not at all unsafe. Heck, today it'd be even safer since most parents give kids cell phones! - edited to clarify Burnaby's context to Vancouver
  - vkou 9y ago
    I've taken public transit daily since I was 10 in Burnaby. I'd also bike to Metrotown from Edmonds. This was back in the late 90s. What a disgrace.
- kolpa 9y ago
  That is indeed extreme. The main point of having 4 kids is that it the redundancy makes it OK to risk losing one of them due to unfortunate circumstances that might occur as when riding a bus.

908087 9y ago

When I was a kid, they just called that "parenting". The generation that has been growing up locked away from the world under constant adult supervision is going to have a hell of a time leaving the crib when the time comes. 30 will be the new 18. Maybe this will help Facebook and Google's surveillance towns take off, since these adult children would be able to move somewhere else where they'd be under constant supervision.

hanbura 9y ago
When real life sounds like a Black Mirror episode

d--b 9y ago

It is awfully sad that we need laws that describe what we're allowed to do rather than what's forbidden.

Invictus0 9y ago
I don't really see it that way. From a legal perspective, it's just preventing legitimate parenting techniques from being dragged into an over-broad definition of neglect.
- d--b 9y ago
  I understand the intent. And this makes sense. I'm just saying that we're seeing a case of "negligence is everything except what is specifically mentioned as being authorized".
  - mieseratte 9y ago
    Well, we're seeing a case where a type of parenting is viewed as neglectful, so we're adding a law to enshrine it's legality in the face of changing cultural norms among certain sets of the population. This is not the same as "Anything not enshrined in law is unauthorized."
  - proofbygazing 9y ago
    This seems like a matter of the legislature reining in law-enforcement whose interpretations have become overly broad, something legislatures (and Congress) also sometimes does to the judicial system. I agree that it can be cast in an awkward light but it's not uncommon.
- Naritai 9y ago
  Yeah I think OP is highlighting the presence of the over-broad definition of neglect in the first place.
mtgx 9y ago
Yeah, the blacklist approach to legislation is much preferable to the whitelist approach, at least in terms of human rights and societal evolution.

quantumofmalice 9y ago

Social trust is falling in the west. I appreciate Utah making an effort here, but the problem is systemic. There are specific reasons that this is the case, but most people will not discuss it openly. Putnam sat on his results for years because it is simply not acceptable to discuss in polite society.

vinay427 9y ago
Would you care to discuss these so-called "specific reasons" relatively anonymously then? I genuinely have no idea what you might be referring to.
- quantumofmalice 9y ago
  You can look up Putnam and the controversy around his work easily enough.
- 0x4f3759df 9y ago
  >>A study conducted by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam suggests that diversity hurts civic life and that differences can actually translate into distrust https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12802663 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128026... Seems logical but social isolation is also increasing in Japan with their ethnic homogeneity. I think its all related to the collapse of large families. People have few children and when the kids grow up they're likely to move away.
  - corey_moncure 9y ago
    >social isolation is also increasing in Japan When was the last time you were there? I spent most of the past month in metro Osaka, as a parent of young children, and I noted: * Young children freely coming to city parks, fraternizing, and leaving, in absence of any adult supervision, indeed, without any adults other than myself even present * Groups of young schoolchildren traveling mostly autonomously to and from school among busy urban streets (though sometimes under the watchful eye of many volunteer shepherds along the route) * Children as young as 8 approaching me to be generally curious, maturely and completely without fear * Proprietor of a local bar I visited knew everyone around, including my in-laws' family, this in the busy inner-city * Ample resources and facilities provided by the prefectural and local governments, including staffed play areas and civic center events. My older daughter was broadcast on-air TV with other children attending a Girls' Day event. * health care including vision/dental costs hard capped to 500 yen/treatment day (~$5) for children under 6 So yeah. I don't think the situation in Japan is comparable at all in any way to what's happened here in the USA. I would not allow even the appearance of my daughter playing alone in my own front yard, for fear of what well-intentioned neighbors might say or do, let alone the boogie-man.

poelzi 9y ago

I"m shocked that this is even forbidden in the "land of the free". I was walking home alone from school. In fact, my father once said to me that I basically raised myself on my own.

eeZah7Ux 9y ago
Walking alone might be too scary for the "land of the brave". Jokes aside, I'm often surprised by how frequently people in US describe places, people and ideas as "threats".
- tropo 9y ago
  You can't be brave unless you perceive a threat. Being oblivious to a threat, or being in denial of a threat, is not bravery. Bravery requires well-considered acceptance of a recognized threat. It's a matter of being able to justify taking a risk.
Notorious_BLT 9y ago
It isn't forbidden, but its very poorly protected. (Intentionally vague) laws intended to protect kids from serious harm end up being applied to situations where kids are perfectly safe, but some busybody heard a late night news report one time about a kid that got abducted, or fell out of a tree and broke his neck, or got hit by a bus and felt the need to impose their worry on others. So they call CPS, and now the parent is under investigation for doing something completely normal, because CPS has too much power and not enough oversight/due process. The idea of this law is to send a clear message that parents are NOT to be harassed/threatened by government agencies over these harmless situations. Sometimes the state has to be told where their power ends explicitly.

pbreit 9y ago

Is there any way to get rid of the original laws that this new law is addressing or is that not how it works?

djrogers 9y ago
It's not the original laws as written - they were fine for many generations. It's the modern interpretation of those same laws that often gets out of hand. Often it's changes in regulations, or court rulings related to those laws. In this case, it was gradual shift in the perception of 'neglect' by CPS, helicopter parents, or overly concerned citizens who think every child is in mortal danger if they're not within 10 feet of a responsible adult.

eeZah7Ux 9y ago

English is not my first language - forgive the stupid question: does "free-range" come from animal farming? (I hope not, that would sound quite patronizing)

badloginagain 9y ago
Yes, although the fact that the law is remotely necessary validates the patronizing nature of the term.
mtinkerhess 9y ago
Yes it does! FWIW it doesn't come off as patronizing to me, it has connotations with organic / locally grown / health food.
quadrangle 9y ago
It's an ironic joke. By saying that you raise "free-range kids" you are accusing (correctly these days for the U.S.!) that other parents are raising caged, confined kids.

gumby 9y ago

Weird that such a law is even required -- what was the legal regime before the law was enacted?

OtterCoder 9y ago
In Utah? Perfectly sane. The law just codifies Utah CPS practices. Other states with similar laws? You could have your children confiscated if they weren't in visual range.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

dahart 9y ago

I feel like we don't have enough free-range parenting, even if silly new laws seem to support it. Not nearly enough parents let their kids walk to school where I live. (But I'll be careful to admit this view may be much more upper-middle class centric than for poorer families.) My parents took me and my siblings to Mexico when I was a kid, I was the oldest at 7 years old. My brother and sister were 6 and 4. We'd go walking for miles on our own. In retrospect it seems amazing that nothing serious happened to us, though once my brother decided to pet a horse from behind and got kicked. This article also reminds me of a story comedian Molly Shannon tells about sneaking onto an airplane with her friend when they were 13 and flying to New York City to spend the day. It seems like nobody does this kind of stuff anymore, parents are much more on top of it than 30 years ago.

lostmsu 9y ago
Could that be a survivor bias?

azinman2 9y ago

It’s sad to me that the 24h news cycle that depends on selling fear causes people to misestimate the dangers in the world. My sister doesn’t allow her teenage children to take the bus in a wealthy suburb for fear of something happening to them, yet both she and I took buses around SF and the bay starting at age 10 without cellphones. Statistics show that things are _less_ dangerous now than when we were kids — but she’s been made paranoid via attention grabbing media.

kyoob 9y ago
Could the world be less dangerous now because kids aren't riding around unescorted on buses any more?
- quadrangle 9y ago
  Interesting hypothesis, but I doubt you'll find any support for it.
- TheCoelacanth 9y ago
  Unlikely because it is much less dangerous for everyone, not just kids.
- r00fus 9y ago
  Could be related to removing lead from paint and gasoline reducing overall violence.
smelendez 9y ago
Does your sister take the bus herself? I've met people who don't take public transportation and think city buses are basically the Mos Eisley cantina on wheels.
- azinman2 9y ago
  She has a car which is far more practical for her suburbian situation. But I doubt she’d have a problem taking it herself due to safety issues.

mrleiter 9y ago

That a law like this is even necessary seems absurd to me. A child learns by doing, by making mistakes by itself. By being curious about the world. By feeling the consequences of ones actions. Of course parenting is needed, but much less restrictive as it apparently is. My parents sent me to the UK when I was 12. i knew no-one. Yes, there was a school and a host family that fulfilled my basic needs, but I had to become selfconscious and responsible. I would never want to miss that. Your parents won't always be here and the earlier you learn to get on by yourself, the better. A child must develop a sense of self dependency IMO. Disclaimer: I'm from Europe.

graeme 9y ago
That's the point of the law. In many north american jurisdictions you can have your children taken from you if you let them roam around freely. There was a notable story of a parent in Vancouver who had to stop letting his kids take the city bus to school because a neighbour complained.
- mrleiter 9y ago
  Wow, so hard for me to grasp. I didn't know. When I was young I used to climb on trees all the time. I remember one incident where a neighbour called my mother and told her that I was doing that and that she should tell me to stop this as it was dangerous. My mother told her that this was none of her business. For such a drastic measure (taking ones child away) much more severe neglect is needed here in Austria (e.g. drug abuse, violence,...)
  - xxpor 9y ago
    Remember though, the reason it became a news story was because it was so absurd. Kids take public transit to school here in Seattle all the time.
  - graeme 9y ago
    That's the way it should be. Unsure why it's different in North America. I think it's because the agency faces severe consequences from a false negative, so they err on the side of false positives. It is also very hard to get the bureaucracy to drop a case once it has been brought to their attention.

mnm1 9y ago

The fact that our society needs such a law is beyond insane. When did the law change? I walked to school in the 90's by myself at 9 years. Or has the law changed? Or has the enforcement just changed without anyone's consent? I can't imagine raising kids in America today. I'd never subject another human being to this kind of life. Children are human too but Americans seem to have forgotten that lately.

vinay427 9y ago
> Or has the enforcement just changed without anyone's consent? I'd bet that the enforcement of existing laws has changed with society's consent, as is usually the case. Like it or not, parents are more likely to see new threats that didn't exist a few decades ago, and this manifests itself in what law enforcement officers see as threats.
kolpa 9y ago
Thanks to Internet and mass media, the occasional extreme case gets misreported and widely publicized as "the new normal" The irony is not lost: "Free-range" advocates say that society vastly overestimates the risk of harms, so they campaign against child-protection laws that they vastly overestimate the harm of.
- tropo 9y ago
  I've dealt with those agencies enough to know that they are horrible. I've even caught them in criminal acts, which of course won't be prosecuted. The typical harassment starts with a kid who gets a normal childhood injury or is found unattended at a library or church, or sometimes an anonymous tip by somebody who wants to cause trouble. This is enough to start an investigation. The agency's workers then feel entitled to interview and examine the kids alone, invade the home, and even inspect the content of a refrigerator. Depending on your location, a warrant may be automatically approved by a judge. The thing with the refrigerator is particularly absurd. It's not as if you can't feed children without one. You could even eat out every day! If the agency's workers find moldy food you forgot in the back of your refrigerator, they will presume that the children are being fed moldy food. If you haven't been shopping recently and the refrigerator is mostly empty, they will assume the kids aren't being fed. The agency benefits greatly from people's reluctance to talk with friends, news media, and so on. So much of the malicious activity occurs in private. These investigations have lasting effects. Years later, one can snap awake in a panic due to a nightmare about kids being grabbed out of the home. You can forever lose your feeling of safety and security in your own home. When the report is anonymous, you can no longer trust anybody you know.

graeme 9y ago

A lot of posts in this thread are not understanding the point of the law. Sentiments such as: "Why need a law? Just let your children be free and independent. They need that." "If anyone threatens to call CPS on me I'll tell them to fuck off." That's why the law is needed! Currently, in a lot of jurisdictions, do either of those two things and your kids can arbitrarily be taken from you, legally, by the government. This law makes it so that allowing children normal independence is legal. Because slowly administrative agencies started to take a stricter view on what was "safe".

doitLP 9y ago
Very true. I used to volunteer with an advocacy group that helped parents whose kids were wrongly taken by CPS and what I saw of the system scared the crap out of me. It does some good work but the sheer stupidity of some of the employees, the arbitrary powers and lack of due process was the stuff of nightmares.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  There's a number of stories about children being taken from parents for dubious reasons, who end up dying in foster care: Removed from parents because the father smoked marijuana at night when the child was asleep, child murdered by foster care parent with a history of violations: http://fox43.com/2014/11/06/2-year-old-taken-away-from-parents-because-they-used-marijuana-killed-by-foster-mother/ http://fox43.com/2014/11/06/2-year-old-taken-away-from-paren... Removed from parents for "drug use and homelessness", died from neglect in foster care: https://www.abqjournal.com/1113809/caregiver-arrested-in-death-of-11-month-old-foster-child.html https://www.abqjournal.com/1113809/caregiver-arrested-in-dea... Removed from parents because baby had a bruise from when he bumped his head while feeding, died in foster care: http://fox40.com/2017/08/17/after-baby-dies-in-foster-care-biological-family-wants-answers/ http://fox40.com/2017/08/17/after-baby-dies-in-foster-care-b...
  - zzzeek 9y ago
    I read that last one and I'm not sure the "free range parenting" bill would even cover that. That was a case of, baby had a bruise and a doctor arbitrarily decided it was a willful injury by the parents. A process as aribtrary and random as that seems pretty broken and after that the foster process failed catastrophically. But I doubt "free range parenting" shuts down the entire process of removing kids from environments that are detected (rightly or wrongly) as directly physically abusive.

lewis500 9y ago

so cool they are finally gonna let the parents wander around freely.

bunderbunder 9y ago

I'm glad to see some sense coming back, after having seen things get to the point where most of what's happening in the Charlie Brown Chrismas special would be unthinkable. ("He bought a Chrismas tree? Without adult supervision!?!?")

kolpa 9y ago
So? Charlie Brown is a cartoon that mostly erases adults from the plot because they are boring. It's not a documentary of the 1950s.

coding123 9y ago

For this thread, you have my permission to be temporary republicans. edit: Oh man, come on that was a 3-layer deep joke that had at least one paradox.

hathawsh 9y ago

The news is about Utah SB 65: https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html Look specifically at the underlined additions on lines 309-325. This is simply a refinement of the definition of "neglect".

banned1 9y ago

When I was 12 years old, my friends and I used to bike about 8 miles to the airport to see airplanes take off from a nearby hill. The hill was federal land, delimited by simple wire fencing, so we would climb it to get to the hill. The path was clearly there, so we must not have been the only ones there. As long as we came back before the light came on, we would be fine with my parents. Once, we had to cross a freeway and a truck hit our dog, who died. There was nothing we could do for it, so we left it there. We never went back after that. If a kid was caught doing that today, it would legally be taken away form his/her family by Children Protective Services, the parents charged, tried, and probably convicted of child neglect and endangerment. Some of the best memories from childhood for me are those trips. How sad that kids have to be home playing with their iPads today.

kolpa 9y ago
> it would legally be taken away form his/her family by Children Protective Services, the parents charged, tried, and probably convicted of child neglect and endangerment. citation needed. > Once, we had to cross a freeway and a truck hit our dog, who died. Your parents negligently put you in charge of a dog that you negligently killed. That should be legal?
- banned1 9y ago
  "citation needed" http://www.masslive.com/living/index.ssf/2015/01/maryland_parent_investigation_raises_issue_what_age_to_allow_children_free_range_to_walk_stay_home_a.html http://www.masslive.com/living/index.ssf/2015/01/maryland_pa... "Your parents negligently put you in charge of a dog that you negligently killed. That should be legal?" Shit happens. The truck killed the dog, not me. Maybe you come from another continent or country, but America is a free country, so we don't care about what is legal, because the law establishes what is illegal, and everything else is legal. It is not illegal to run with your dog.
  - tomasdore 9y ago
    This is genuinely a fantastic comment. You dealt with a cold, rude comment with grace and calm, then provided an easily understood statement of what defines a country with both freedom and rule of law.

fzeroracer 9y ago

Last I checked, it's generally a bad idea to leave pets alone in a car so I'm not sure what the political or parental benefits are of leaving children alone in a car. This just reads of something done purely for face-saving reasons rather than solving the greater issue of safety in America. Never mind that the concept of free range parenting in America is something mostly for the white and wealthy.

hanbura 9y ago
Leaving children in the car for short periods has occasionally practical benefits, just as with pets. And both humans and animals do just fine in cars as long as you make sure that the interior doesn't get too hot. In this instance it's more about making sure harmless behavior isn't accidentally outlawed. >Never mind that the concept of free range parenting in America is something mostly for the white and wealthy. How is that? The US isn't Norway, but it is still very safe. I don't see why helicopter parenting should be required?
- fzeroracer 9y ago
  Because the occasional practical benefits do not outweigh some of the more irresponsible parents leaving children or pets in cars on hot/cold days. I view that as being more of a public safety issue much like seat belts. As for your second point, it's because for a lot of the poorer parents they don't really have the ability to let their kids roam freely. Either due to proximity, lack of funds and so forth. Not to mention the institutional problems minority kids face on a daily basis (see: black children being shot by police). It's not about requiring helicopter parenting but rather that laws like this don't really solve the actual problem for the majority of parents in the US. It's effectively lip service and I guarantee the wriggle-room left in the law will be used to harm minorities more than anyone else.
  - kolpa 9y ago
    Cars have air-conditioning, heaters, and openable windows.
9y ago

eco 9y ago

Child abuse and neglect laws started in the 1940s after a series of articles were published by a doctor with accounts of children with injuries clearly caused by adults and by the 1970s most states had passed them. They were well meaning and only intended to protect children from real harm. The problem is they are (somewhat necessarily) vague. They didn't think the laws would be used for trivial things but words like "endangerment" can easily be applied to letting your kid walk home alone. This is the first real attempt that I know of to scale back some of it and I suspect we'll see more of this in other states as society realizes some of this has gone to far. It should also be said that this is just codifying what was basically already the case. Utah's Child Protective Services supported this law and already considered the behaviors the law protects to be perfectly fine but they were obligated to open investigations anyway. Now they don't have to. It also prevents Utah's CPS in the future from doing some of the ridiculous actions that have occurred in other states if the attitude of the workers/leadership at Utah's CPS shifted.

r00fus 9y ago
I seriously hope other states take the opportunity to review this legislation for similar adoption. As a parent, the shuffle to drive or walk my bike-capable kids 0.5 miles to their school costs us time or money (to have someone shepherd them). These days we have ways to track kids or kids have their own phone, tools like Nextdoor and crime levels are low. Why shouldn't we trust kids to be able to navigate (perhaps in a group) themselves to a local school?

kolpa 9y ago

> Utah lawmakers said they were prompted to pass the law after seeing other states Smells like political posturing.

kolpa 9y ago

Link to the actual law, in case people want to discuss the law and not their own preconceptoins: https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html

hathawsh 9y ago
Right. To clarify what that page is showing, the bill is a proposed change of the Utah code and it's presented almost like a "diff" file. Underlined portions are additions, strikeouts are removals. Lines 309 through 325 contain the important parts.
- bargl 9y ago
  Your comment helped me find the part in question thank you very much.

paulddraper 9y ago

> On the federal level, another Utah politician, U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, added an amendment to a 2015 federal education bill supporting the concept. It said kids shouldn't be stopped from biking or walking to school alone with a parent's permission, and parents shouldn't face charges for letting them. Ah, what? In Florida in the late 90s, my my 2nd grade self and my 1st grade sister walked a mile to school every day. The thought that someone would find that objectionable...genuinely bizarre.

Chris_UT 9y ago

Coming from UT, I remember a lot of teens in high school that had over reaching parents and as a result they didn't get the full experience of being a junior or senior in HS. Luckily for me, my parents had trust in me so in high school I could hang out with my friends without my parents questioning my every move. They just wanted me home before 10.

kolpa 9y ago

This is Utah, where the Mormon church has a de facto near-monopoly on large segments of society. The church (and parents) impose far more oppressiev restrictions of children's freedom than any CPS does.

bcheung 9y ago

What is wrong with people if they need to make a law for this? Seriously, just because a kid is playing outside instead of being confined indoors playing video games is no reason to call the cops.

cwbrandsma 9y ago

Should call this the "let city kids have the same rights as rural kids" law. All the kids on farms are just looking at this like "what the...?" (yes, kids still live and work on farms)

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
This is the part where I make some reply that subtly suggests that everyone BFE is a backwards hick, that there's no economic opportunity there and that kids who don't get out will all turn to drugs. If I really wanna show how out of touch I am I should take pity on anyone who lives somewhere without over 9000 ethic restaurants and bars that serve hipster micro-brews within walking distance and mention startups somehow. (yes, this is sarcasm)

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

As a parent of three it seems ridiculous that we need these laws, but sadly we do to reverse the years of overly anxious people creating a world hostile to kids exploring it without hovering caretakers. I won't move to Utah because of this, but hopefully other states take notice and I'll be lobbying my state to use this as precedent.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

The US has a slow decline where the acceptable level of risk to expose your children to is nil. This is not good parenting; good parenting involves teaching your children to navigate the world with increasing independence and ability to judge and handle risk. It is, however, what people will pressure each other into doing when something bad happens (or looks like it might). You cannot and should not prevent every possible bad thing from happening to your child. It doesn't produce the best outcome.