8 ms·

Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

• bethekidyouwant 1mo ago
  Reminder when talking to any authority: yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir else you a liable to get the boot. (Bonus: don’t be black)
• neaden 1mo ago
  This is one of those frustrating things. You're just not allowed to not be scared with kids. If you aren't scared of letting your kid walk to a pond, you get punished for it. If you're not scared of the kidnappers, you have to be scared of the police. None of it is rational, it's different how many of us were raised, yet if you try to opt out the law gets involved.
  • johndhi 1mo ago
    I'm sympathetic with this sentiment but surely it's pretty rare the law actually gets involved? Our kids play outside a lot and no cops have ever raised an eyebrow (except for at our crazy drunk of a neighbor, where eyebrow raising is appropriate).
    • thewillowcat 1mo ago
      It's rare, but if it happens it is catastrophic. You will be paying a lawyer 10's of thousands of dollars and if you do have to plead out, the charges you plead to may look very bad on paper on a background check.
    • flatline 1mo ago
      It’s Foucault’s interpretation of the panopticon. If we know that we may be watched — and punished — we self-police into following the norm, even if we do not know when we are being watched or that someone is necessarily monitoring us individually. When I was a kid in the 80s none of this was an issue and I was free to roam. Starting in the 90s this became an issue and not only will parents not let their kids roam but the kids themselves have less interest because the norm is to stay in or only go out when supervised. You know you are doing something slightly wrong. It only takes occasional reminders like this to reinforce the rule, once established.
  • softwaredoug 1mo ago
    Stranger kidnappings are basically unheard of. It's never been a safer time for kids in terms of crime like that.
    • goda90 1mo ago
      They're heard of because it's so rare that media loves to broadcast them far and wide for the views. Like it's good to get people watching out for the kidnapped child as quickly as possible, but the media sensation causes paranoia in unaffected viewers.
      • xboxnolifes 1mo ago
        A lot of the ones that do get broadcasted still end up being a relative too, but you wouldn't know unless you look into it after it get resolved and stops being talked about.
        • pibaker 1mo ago
          A lot of them are not even kidnapping in the colloquial sense. We hear "kidnapping" and think about being tied up in the trunk of a car but many of the actual kidnapping cases are more like "Bobby went to his divorced daddy's place for the weekend and hasn't been back on Monday." It's about the parents' custody and not about the kids' safety.
    • null_shift 1mo ago
      Genuinely curious…is it rare because there are less kidnappers, or because parents are more vigilant and there is less opportunity for them to commit the crime?
      • mrguyorama 1mo ago
        It's rare because almost all kidnappings and other harmful things done to children are done by people who aren't strangers: Aunts and uncles, parents, coaches, family friends, community leaders, religious leaders, day care employees, etc They never seem to even acknowledge that, let alone care about fixing it. This was known from the statistics even before these people insisted every school teach children about "Stranger danger" because these specific people are utterly incapable of overriding primal fear, fed by "news" they insist on watching, with factual reality.
  • throw83930489 1mo ago
    [flagged]
    • deleted 1mo ago
      [deleted]
    • ghostly_s 1mo ago
      Your attempt at sarcasm really fell on its face. It is not reasonable to be categorically afraid of dogs.
      • throw83930489 1mo ago
        [flagged]
      • magicalhippo 1mo ago
        Yet my SO is. No idea why, but she's really scared of them, especially dogs she doesn't know. Even a chihuahua is terrifying.
      • JohnMakin 1mo ago
        Dogs can attack with no indication or reason, some breeds take more of a lion's share for that than others. It is entirely reasonable to feel fear in the presence of a dog, especially if you've been the victim of an attack or seen one before. The conversation around responsible dog ownership is really delusional.
    • JohnMakin 1mo ago
      > Being scared may trigger a dog and then you would be responsible for attack! This is victim blaming bullshit irresponsible dog owners love to spew
  • WarmWash 1mo ago
    I swear human brains are programmed to have a "fear bank" of things to be scared of, and an allocation of fear that must be spent on items in the fear bank. As society has weeded out all the things to fear over time, more and more far flung things get put into the bank, and more and more fear is allocated to the dwindling amount of things to be scared of.
    • x-complexity 1mo ago
      Following this hypothesis, it would be rationally beneficial to release a wild bear every 6 months or so, just to make sure that the 'fear bank' is occupied by things that warrant actual fear.
      • DangitBobby 1mo ago
        We do have this whole global climate crisis going on. Maybe people could try being afraid of that
        • x-complexity 1mo ago
          > We do have this whole global climate crisis going on. Maybe people could try being afraid of that It's too conceptually big for some people to put into the 'fear bank' to be relied upon. For the threat to be near-universally relied upon, it needs to: (a) have a physical presence, and (b) be within 2 orders of magnitude of size to trigger physical alertness (tick -> herd of elephants), but also (c) not be (immediately dangerous/lethal that the only solution is to never meet it)
  • giancarlostoro 1mo ago
    Here in Florida there's no just letting my 4 year old wander to a nearby lake, it might be the last time I ever see her. There's an assumption that alligators are in every lake, and next to my house I have two lakes visible the moment I come out of my front door. If it's not the alligators, it's the careless older kids in e-scooters or e-bikes, if you're rolling your eyes, just note that one of those careless kids drove into my neighbors four year old, who went flying back because some kid was not paying attention, he was also by chance wearing a helmet because he wanted to ride his bike so he did not hurt his head, but he definitely had a bruise on his lower back. Do I think there needs to be laws around this? No, though, should a child suffer because they have negligent parents? Also no. It hurts me more to think that having these laws is the only way to get some people to pay attention as parents.
  • Henchman21 1mo ago
    This is proof to me this world is Hell.
• xutopia 1mo ago
  If that's the boundary then I must have been a really neglectful and abusive parent.
• nicechianti 1mo ago
  [dead]
• daxuak 1mo ago
  And to add more nonsense, iirc collecting (possessing) bird feathers, that they shed naturally, is illegal in the US under the name of protecting migratory birds.
  • petcat 1mo ago
    That is a matter of practicality of just enforcing the laws around protecting migratory birds. You can't possess the feathers of protected birds, and it doesn't matter how you got them. Research the massively destructive bird feather trade in the 19th century if you want context for why the law is that broad.
    • kbelder 1mo ago
      Of course. If you find a bunch shed by a protected species, there's a good chance they're ill-eagle feathers.
  • triceratops 1mo ago
    How do you prove that feathers were shed naturally, without harming a bird?
• taeric 1mo ago
  I maintain my, "what is abundance good for, if we can't make it safe for kids to walk places?!" stance. :(
• ragazzina 1mo ago
  In the US a kid cannot walk half a mile on their own inside a gated community patrolled by security guards? This sounds more dystopian than all the AI talk. "I told [the authorities] that kids need to be able to take reasonable risks," he says, "in order to grow up non-anxious." I guess the system prefers to breed anxiety.
  • dionian 1mo ago
    Have you ever taken care of a 5yo? They are certainly safer in public alone than a 3yo. How much more, hard to say.
  • KPGv2 1mo ago
    The article really glosses over the fact that the kid was 5yo walking to a pond. It mentions it at the very start and then never brings it up again. That's the part that got me: the mom gave her 5yo permission to go to a large body of water unsupervised. I'm a parent of three and strongly believe in letting your kids roam around (indeed, I live on acreage and taught my kids about the venomous snakes and spiders in our area, and then let er rip). But a 5yo who specifically asks to go back to a large body of water unsupervised is a bit too much for me. Reason always strikes me as an opinionated libertarian media outlet, and this article really feels that way to me, where they keep playing up the "walking on the street" type stuff, the "we're too afraid of kidnappings" part, but not the fact that a 5yo unsupervised at a pond is by far the most dangerous part of this entire story. Even as a kid of the 80s, I never saw 5yos out and about unsupervised, let alone by a pond. 5yo is possibly preschool. Religious conservative, likely politically so, whose college degree was in family science at BYU—a degree Mormons steer their daughter into for her Mrs Degree—with experience in conservative politics at the state level who is responsible for passing a law giving parents a lot of freedom to let their little kids run around by basically saying "unless they're in immediate danger, YOLO"? So of course a reasonable judicial system tried to find a way to stop this wild behavior perpetrated by a woman with self-dealing political sway. Article does not pass the vibe check. Letting your PRESCHOOL age kid go to a pond alone is pretty damn irresponsible, and Reason is trying to gin up anti-gov't feelings when this is probably the best possible outcome. Mom gets slapped on the wrist for fucking up in a way that just barely skirts a law she helped get passed and politicians were too stupid to think about before passing.
• jryan49 1mo ago
  I mean I wouldn't let me 5 year old cross busy streets by himself in my neighborhood... People drive while staring at their phones going 45 mph in a 25... Maybe we should start punishing people who make the roads so dangerous in the first place...
  • bewareofscams 1mo ago
    [dead]
  • LorenPechtel 1mo ago
    Phones, 45 in a 25? I was taught that pedestrians are invisible. 99.9% of cars will stop, but not all--don't take the risk. Cross only when you can see that nobody's coming.
• jollyllama 1mo ago
  > Parkinson's attorney, Andrew Gordon, took the case pro bono and argued that the only real "evidence" against the mom was that Sam was 5, and that, hypothetically, a host of horrible things could have happened. You get what you pay for, I guess. > David DeLugas, founder and executive director of ParentsUSA, a nonprofit that provides pro bono legal help to parents wrongly accused of neglect, scoffed at the charge. Sounds pretty cool; do they have a better record of legal wins?
• add-sub-mul-div 1mo ago
  This is unfortunate because boomers love to extrapolate weird outlier headlines into a comfortable imagined reality.
• p1esk 1mo ago
  The main lesson here is: don’t be confrontational with cops.
  • thesuitonym 1mo ago
    That sounds like a reasonable thing to say in a free society.
    • math-man 1mo ago
      Everything is fine as long as we obey.
    • p1esk 1mo ago
      I have no idea what "free society" means. Honestly.
  • benji-york 1mo ago
    This is true; we should strive for this not to be true.
  • calgoo 1mo ago
    She was also 8 months pregnant, her 5th kid, and studying to become a lawyer... Thats a lot of stress right there....
  • pcan77 1mo ago
    this is not the lesson lol. Why should the cops be allowed to enforce such a dumbass rule with no consequence?
    • p1esk 1mo ago
      Because it's their job to enforce rules. Don't like the rule? Go vote for someone who will change it.
• nakedrobot2 1mo ago
  [flagged]
• smallerize 1mo ago
  Five is too young. Sure they can do the right thing most of the time, with their mom watching. But they don't have good judgement and are easily distracted. Especially with a pond involved. I would never let my kids around an open body of water alone.
• armchairhacker 1mo ago
  How does this happen? There’s no silver lining which makes this conviction reasonable. If they can’t appeal, I hope they use Streisand to get the town or state of Virginia to vacate everything.
  • alasano 1mo ago
    I'm not sure if this just bias from news stories but in general it feels like absurd things which would be avoided with just common sense from authorities tend to happen in the US.
  • garciasn 1mo ago
    They charged her criminally instead of civilly, because in 2023 VA passed a 'free-range parenting' amendment to allow for actions that appropriate for the child's maturity and are not done in a grossly negligent manner that endangers the child. This is likely why the defense asked for comments from others on the child's maturity. The criminal definition apparently has no such modification. E: removed a double ‘likely’
    • cucumber3732842 1mo ago
      >They charged her criminally instead of civilly, Joke's on them because now she has rights. I'm being a little hyperbolic but not nearly as much as I wish I was. The .gov can make just about anything stick if it's civil. Criminal is where your rights really kick in.
  • thewillowcat 1mo ago
    It happened because a neighbor was so disturbed by a child walking alone to report it, the police thought it was serious enough to refer for prosecution, and a prosecutor decided it needed to be charged using their office's limited resources. All insane. The part that really gets to me is that the neighbor was so "concerned" about the child's safety that they called the police, but for some reason, in their urgent concern, they didn't take the simple step of approaching and talking to the child to see where they were going or if a parent knew where they were.
• dionian 1mo ago
  a 5 yo walking around in a neighborhood without a guardian or supervisor doesnt sound like a great idea to me.
  • VBprogrammer 1mo ago
    You should check out a Japanese show called "Old Enough!". I have a 7 year old and a 4 year old. The 7 year old started back at school after the summer holidays and some of her friends had to be taken into class early, showed signs of having anxiety attacks and distress. While I'm slightly hypocritical here, we live on a busy road so it's not really suitable for them to go wandering alone, we do try to give them as much autonomy as we can. I'm pretty sure the societal pressure to helicopter around children constantly is a net negative to their well-being.
• CamelCaseName 1mo ago
  In China, I would see kids who must have been 7 years old running around the streets or on public transit without adult supervision. It seems like a much healthier way to live than in constant fear.
  • em-bee 1mo ago
    depends. my kids school in china didn't allow me to let my kids bike to school without supervision. (well, actually, they couldn't stop me from sending them to school alone, but they would not let them out unless i was there to pick them up. (there was only one crossing on the route, and that was close to the school and didn't have a lot of traffic) in germany on the other hand, there was a case where parents demanded a school bus for a 7yr old, but the court said the kids could take the public train to school on their own.
  • softwaredoug 1mo ago
    In the US, if you are in a residential neighborhood with a lot of kids, its also fairly typical for them to be out finding their playmates. I would say if you're in a neighborhood where there's just like 1-2 kids, it may not be that typical. The kids parents might do more scheduled playdates. Unfortunately in the US there are people that get annoyed about kids playing. And they are also the same kind of person that escalates things to the authorities / complains a lot about trivial things. There's a Netflix documentary about one such sad case https://www.netflix.com/title/82018736 https://www.netflix.com/title/82018736
    • alephnerd 1mo ago
      This. Those of my friends with kids moved to neighborhoods and suburbs where other households of a similar age existed. You see this in SF, with singles primarily living in the Marina, Russian Hill, or Rincon Hill and then upgrading to Mission Bay once they have kids.
• unethical_ban 1mo ago
  >CPS responded, he recounts, that "a 5-year-old child can never be unsupervised." I would immediately move from that neighborhood and that city, if they do not have roots with neighbors or kids' friends. These are people who see her as a bad parent for letting their child outside the house. >The James City County family services specialist assigned to Parkinson's case declined to comment, citing confidentiality requirements. The prosecutor in the Commonwealth Attorney's Office for James City County said the same. So the state doesn't have to answer to the public about why they interpret their laws to mean a 5 year old can never be alone. Show me the statute where there is an age cutoff. Feels like these people made enemies, except that too many separate groups came down on her at once. What awful people.
  • briffle 1mo ago
    I would have also immediately asked for their policy on how long children of different ages can be unsupervised.
  • softwaredoug 1mo ago
    I feel even if CPS or cops got involved, they can just take the kid home, no need to escalate things to charging the mom. That said, there may be details we don't know here. This particular article is written from one bent, and the officials didn't comment on the case as is common in child-related prosecutions.
  • r_lee 1mo ago
    CPS type agencies all around the world wield immense power and are staffed by power hungry narcissists who get off on threatening to take parents' kids and coming up with demands they must follow
  • lotsofpulp 1mo ago
    Oregon pushes it all the way to 10. https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_163.545#google_vignette https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_163.545#google_vignet... >A person having custody or control of a child under 10 years of age commits the crime of child neglect in the second degree if, with criminal negligence, the person leaves the child unattended in or at any place for such period of time as may be likely to endanger the health or welfare of such child.
• zeroonetwothree 1mo ago
  I don’t think this should be a criminal charge but 5 seems a bit young to walk that far while crossing streets. At 7 I would be more comfortable
  • deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
  • thesuitonym 1mo ago
    Here's the thing: It doesn't matter how comfortable you are, you're not the child's parent.
    • freejazz 1mo ago
      Yeah, and? Being a parent doesn't entitle someone to do anything they want
  • beej71 1mo ago
    I walked to school alone when I was 4, crossing several streets. I bicycled when I was 5. This was typical of the time.
  • cataphract 1mo ago
    Really depends on the kind of upbringing of the child. In Mongolia 5 year olds are teaching their younger siblings how to ride a reindeer.
    • r_lee 1mo ago
      it shows how far we've come wrt infantilization in the west, it's really sad to see imo.
  • r_lee 1mo ago
    I don't know how old you are, so maybe you've forgot how it's like to be that old, but by 7 you're way past that age... crossing streets is not like going to war.. I think this is probably the reason why these cases come up people age and then they think that a 10 year old is a toddler, and then they enforce that belief upon them
• comrade1234 1mo ago
  Here in Switzerland children start walking to school at around 5-years. Parents aren't allowed to bring them to school. If a parent escorts their children to school they'll be told not to. If they keep doing it they'll get a letter from the school and probably a police visit. And if they continue (I never heard of it getting to this stage) they may be fined. It's funny in the morning. One child walks to another child's home then they walk to another child's home and so on until you have a big group of kids walking to school together. In Austria they call it something like a children train. Twice a year you see the children practicing crossing streets. The police are out at the intersections and show the children how to do it. It's very cute. Also how to ride bicycles properly.
  • MrWiffles 1mo ago
    This is the way.
  • jeffbee 1mo ago
    Pedibus. So civilized. People in California don't believe half the things I tell them about life in Switzerland, such as "if you try to drive your kid to school the cops will chastise you" and "if you drive 40 in a school zone you'll automatically get a year in jail" and, of course, "gas is nine bucks".
    • teekert 1mo ago
      The US is extremely car focused, which they often don't really realize. Things that are normal here (like everybody has a bike) conflicts with their cyclers vs drivers culture. Such a distinction simply does not exist here. Instead we have roads that are red with signs "Cars are guests". Or indeed city centers where cars aren't allowed. When I go to the US I'm often surprised that you can't get to things that are only a km away by foot because a road is blocking you, no way to cross it.
      • WhatIsDukkha 1mo ago
        The US has very low standards for its lifestyle. We're told we are number ONE in everything but in fact its usually 40 or 20 when you actually go look at things that matter. We never really notice because we think filling a big house in the suburbs with garbage from Costco is living the dream.
• rahuldracula 1mo ago
  One of the worst aspects of modern life. The most paranoid person decides what the right thing to do is.
  • PeterHolzwarth 1mo ago
    American modern life. Vast swathes of the rest of the planet doesn't suffer from our unfortunate pathology.
  • gblargg 1mo ago
    The person who thought they cared about the child's welfare turned out to be the actual danger, and made the child's life much worse.
  • rahuldracula 1mo ago
    Well, I actually live in Gurgaon, India. It is very modern, and it's pretty much the same. Everyone lives in these gated complexes with a tiny militia guarding them from no real threat. Children are driven around everywhere and are always accompanied by a nanny or grandparents inside the gated complex.
• voidfunc 1mo ago
  Letting a 5yo wander off unsupervised to a large body of water is pretty dumb.
  • jryan49 1mo ago
    I wonder if people who are down-voting you actually have children. I even know someone who's kid just died in a pool when no one was watching... My kids almost drowned themselves multiple times when they were below 5 yr old and they are trained to swim... My brother fell into a pool when he was little, and had to be saved... the list goes on and on... edit: Apparently it's the leading cause of death for 1-4 year olds...
  • deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
  • Fred27 1mo ago
    I agree. The word "pond" is what immediately got my attention.
• cdelsolar 1mo ago
  my dad and mom grew up in Peru and they tell me that at that age they were basically outside all day, getting lost in the woods, taking buses to the soccer stadium, etc etc. IDK - my son is about to turn 5 and we do helicopter him a bit, ... there needs to be a healthy balance.
• victorbjorklund 1mo ago
  This is so sad. America is really messed up. In other countries it is normal for a child to be allowed to walk on their own
  • qwerpy 1mo ago
    American here, it seems to vary by location. I walked to school as a grade school student (Midwest) and where I live now (Orange county, California) I regularly see swarms of kids biking to school. This particular situation seems ridiculous. I’d be furious if I lived there.
    • gogobio 1mo ago
      The average income of Orange county California is over double the national. Safe to say this kind of lifestyle is reserved for the rich and not for the people.
      • cousinbryce 1mo ago
        I was shocked that it happened to a white woman. I guess that’s why there’s an article about it
      • nobody9999 1mo ago
        >The average income of Orange county California is over double the national. Safe to say this kind of lifestyle is reserved for the rich and not for the people. The average income where I lived when I was five was not (nor was my family's) "double the national" and I walked to school (kindergarten and first grade) along this route[0][2] every school day. In fact I tried to go to school during hurricane Agnes[1] and the strong winds actually pushed me back up the hill, so I went home -- no big deal. In fact, I haven't even thought about that in decades. Ahh, childhood memories! [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Directions+from+5800+arlington+avenue+to+5550+riverdale+avenue+bronx%2C+ny&t=ftsa&iaxm=directions&start=what%3A5800%2520Arlington%2520Ave%2Cwhere%3ABronx%252C%2520NY%2520%252010471&end=what%3A5550%2520Riverdale%2520Ave%2Cwhere%3ABronx%252C%2520NY%2520%252010471&transport=walking https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Directions+from+5800+arlington+ave... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Agnes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Agnes [2] https://www.ps81.org/ https://www.ps81.org/
• 0cf8612b2e1e 1mo ago
  People should watch the Netflix version of Old Enough! - it is a Japanese show where young (!) children 3-5 year old walk around the neighborhood doing chores. The one scene I recall was where a child was supposed to carry a fish to the butcher and was being followed by hungry cats.
  • math-man 1mo ago
    I think I've seen that anime.
• speak_plainly 1mo ago
  I guess they're trying to overcompensate for years of brutal child slavery with kids working in textile mills, tobacco processing, agriculture, mines, and factories. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/hiring-out-of-the-enslaved/#:~:text=Employers%20expected%20children%20as%20young%20as%20five%20or%20six%20to%20contribute%20labor%20through%20small%20tasks%2C%20such%20as%20tending%20fires%20and%20small%20livestock%20or%20assisting%20enslaved%20adults. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/hiring-out-of-the-e...
• tiahura 1mo ago
  Was it a bench trial or jury trial? I'm of the generation where one of my responsibilities as a kid was walking to the neighborhood liquor store to buy cigarettes for my dad, so I'm empathetic. But if she was found guilty by a jury, I'm guessing there's more to the story.
• ortusdux 1mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Enough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Enough! Old Enough! is a Japanese reality show that has been aired irregularly since 1991 on Nippon Television. The program depicts, in a documentary manner, the efforts of toddlers going on an errand on their own, buying groceries and delivering packages, accompanied by the camera crew. The American version - https://youtu.be/VhGTtWsW9F8 https://youtu.be/VhGTtWsW9F8
  • giarc 1mo ago
    https://www.netflix.com/title/81506279 https://www.netflix.com/title/81506279
    • Supermancho 1mo ago
      Netflix link above, is correct. SNL parody https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhGTtWsW9F8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhGTtWsW9F8
• dataflow 1mo ago
  That sounds awful. This kind of case doesn't seem like something you should let a single person decide on their own, judge or not. Is she not entitled to a jury trial because it's a misdemeanor or something? If she can find the funds/support somehow it totally seems worth appealing all the way to the supreme court.
  • jollyllama 1mo ago
    Yeah, it's not really clear from the article. Wild that you can get on some list of abusers without a jury trial. Maybe she waived her rights? Can that even happen?
    • OkayPhysicist 1mo ago
      You can waive your right to a jury trial, and it's sometimes a good idea in cases where either A) you're definitely guilty, and the trial is mostly going to be about sentencing or B) your defense is more complicated than "I didn't do the thing", because jurors are not good at making decisions based on complexities of the law. Additionally, you don't have the right to a jury trial for minor offenses that carry a maximum sentence of less than 6 months in prison. Contributing to the delinquency of a minor in Virginia carries a maximum 12 months, but to my understanding it is possible for the prosecution to waive any greater sentencing in order to avoid a jury trial.
• marticode 1mo ago
  It blows my mind that a bunch of adults, prosecutors, CPS employees, etc all decided the fair, reasonable and best thing to do was prosecute and punish this mother.
  • morkalork 1mo ago
    Sounds like there is very little crime happening in their precious gated community that they've got to trump up everything they can to justify the budget wasted on them
    • elgertam 1mo ago
      I live in this neighborhood. I was just kvetching to my wife this morning about how our HOA wastes so much money on excess. That had me in the wrong (or right?) mood to read this. I will say, we have a LOT of elderly retired people who live here. It's not uncommon to hear sirens because someone is having a medical episode, and the security office is helpful with responding to those and helping with EMS. They are also helpful for doing well checks on the elderly when they haven't been responsive to others. That being said, a lot of what they do is run radar and evidently do absolutely atrocious behavior like this. One of the flip sides of the retired population is that many of them devote their lives to reporting their neighbors to The Authorities – generally the HOA or security office. In this case, I guess the informant went straight to the cops.
  • megagpt1 1mo ago
    Prosecuting people is their job. If you don't do your job you get fired.
    • cindyllm 1mo ago
      [dead]
  • Simulacra 1mo ago
    Sometimes the government feels like it needs to make an example. And once the government decides something like this, they can't back down, so they have to march forward. No matter how bad it looks.
• lifestyleguru 1mo ago
  That's what happens when there are few children and many adults all with strong opinions on how the few children should be raised. Back in my days (millennials) there was abundance of children and they knew that adults are a danger to be avoided.
• giorgioz 1mo ago
  On top of this is a pregnant mother of 5. With all the decrease in fertility, maybe the woman that managed to make their children independent enough to allow them to have 4 siblings should be given a freaking medal.
• jandrewrogers 1mo ago
  I walked myself to and from kindergarten every day. Approximately the same age, same distance, and it went through a park with water. That was normal. The extreme neuroticism toward children having any kind of agency these days is unhealthy for everyone involved. Social media turned being neurotic into a virtue.
• busymom0 1mo ago
  This is insane. I grew up in India and I used to walk 10 minutes after school to get home everyday.
• stego-tech 1mo ago
  I hate this comes from Reason (along with an opinion piece at the bottom about regulation is always bad), but the story itself is disgusting and a complete government overreach. On the one hand, we tell parents they’re accountable for their kids, which is fair and reasonable. Then we build a society where parents cannot dedicate themselves to being effective parents because they both must work, unless they have enough wealth and privilege to afford (and find) child care services or can have one parent stay at home full-time. Then if said lucky-ass parent decides in their wisdom that their kid is mature enough to roam a secured neighborhood with active security patrols on their own, they get prosecuted criminally for daring to let their child develop confidence and independence. It’s nauseating, and I’m tired of this “stranger danger” bullshit along with the societal hostility towards adults and children alike. We can - and must - do better than this shit.
• cmiles8 1mo ago
  Honestly by modern “standards” all parents from probably the 90s and earlier would be just be thrown in jail. Pre cell phones kids of all ages would just disappear for the whole day and show up back home for dinner. Nobody knew where they were. Nobody cared. Could be in the woods somewhere, off at the mall. And it was fine. Kids built bike ramps in the woods and jumped off them, sometimes someone broke an arm. Nobody sued. The nanny state stuff is out of control.
• truthbe 1mo ago
  As a victim of an extremely overprotective parent growing up, it was all the media's fault for getting us there.
• djtango 1mo ago
  "they" like to gaslight us that cities are safer than ever. That it's social media scaring us into thinking our cities are less safe. But in actually safe countries (Japan, Switzerland, Singapore) kids are already taking themselves to school around 5 years old and parents aren't getting criminal records for letting their children explore their independence. Food for thought...
  • tavavex 1mo ago
    Your reasoning makes no sense. Laws are not indicative of how dangerous being outside is, the only indicator is getting into danger. The child did not get into any danger. The point you oppose still works - "they" made you (Americans) terrified of cities/other people/the idea of children leaving your house, so you all start passing helicopter parenting laws.
• basisword 1mo ago
  >> A mom of five was convicted last week of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Her offense: allowing her 5-year-old son to walk about a half-mile by himself in their gated community. Surely allowing your children to roam freely would be a major benefit of a gated community?
• anon291 1mo ago
  Should have said it was post preschool psychosis
• deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
• josefritzishere 1mo ago
  Legally mandated helicopter parenting? Small government amirite?
• bradthebeaverfa 1mo ago
  [flagged]
  • AnimalMuppet 1mo ago
    Nice outrage bait, but completely unfactual. If she avoids conviction, it will be because she was mentally not competent at the time of the murders, not because anyone approves of murder.
  • asmodeuslucifer 1mo ago
    I think you're looking for newsmax dot com, not news dot ycombinator dot com.
• jopsen 1mo ago
  > Parkinson admits now that she is embarrassed by her confrontational demeanor. Which was the real crime. To be fair, many places outside the US not respecting the police is a illegal -- but genuinely not enough that an office would be justified in as much as indicating that the officer is armed (which usually counts as use of force).
• MobiusHorizons 1mo ago
  I am struck by the fact that arguments for or against within this thread are only about perceived safety (something hard to know at a distance) and not the substance of the law involved. Does Virginia actually have laws prohibiting unsupervised 5 year olds? If so what is the minimum age at which children are allowed outside unsupervised? Does it also apply to leaving children at home unsupervised? The charge of “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” would suggest the minor’s behavior had to be illegal, which does not appear to have been discussed.
  • softwaredoug 1mo ago
    FWIW - Virginia has a free range kid law. And does not have a minimum age for supervision. They charged the mom with delinquency of a minor to get around this. Usually reserved for teenagers that commit crimes. We don't really know all the facts, and we only get one side of the story here. So we all need to keep that in mind too.
• acomjean 1mo ago
  Honestly it depends on the situation and saddly the common sense of everyone. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and in the neighboring town a child went missing. Pre internet there was still a lot of worry. We got talked to by my parents who were too busy to change their day to day. Being kids we weren't very concerned (I don't think we thought it could happen to us) It was a rural/suburban type area (my high-school walk home from the bus was 1 mile). I was given free range, and did a lot of exploring of trails and things unsupervised with my brother and friends. It was probably too far in the other direction with lax supervision. We never ran into big trouble, but cellphoneless us last century, we had to be hard to track. But that was the way things were. Playground games were rough too (I had a dislocated elbow that says maybe too rough sometimes..) but we got through.
• jensen42 1mo ago
  It's things like this that tell you the real state of your country.
• rexpop 1mo ago
  [flagged]
• stuaxo 1mo ago
  This is insanity, I thought "gated communities" were sold on safety - the child should absolutely be safe there.
  • cucumber3732842 1mo ago
    The problem with gated communities is the kind of people who are attracted to them. It's literally a parallel world.
• lokar 1mo ago
  What seems odd to me whenever this debate comes up is the failure to differentiate between: - the child must never be unsupervised - I/we think the child should never be unsupervised We have less and less space between an opinion or recommendation and legal requirement. On a wide range of subjects people go straight to “require”, unwilling to simply express their opinion and move on.
  • thewillowcat 1mo ago
    I agree. It's one thing to think her action was riskier than you would like for your own child. It's another to think it should be a crime.
• marcocampos 1mo ago
  I started walking to school alone once I started 1st grade (at around age 7) and did it for about 5 years until my parents moved our family to a place outside of town where it was impractical to do so. I just checked Google Maps to be sure and it is about a 1.2Km / 0.75 miles, so a short walk for either an adult or a 7-year old. A few months ago I had a heated argument with my father, stepmother and wife because I (half-joking/serious) told my almost 8-year daugher that next year we will start practicing her going to school by herself. You would not believe the stink all of them raised telling me I was irresponsible, yadda, yadda, what about child molesters/ kidnappers, yadda, yadda, too many cars and the usual non-sense you usually hear about this. Again I went and checked on Google Maps just to be precise and the walk between our house and my daughters school is... 500 meters / 0.31 miles. In a single generation we went from "your starting school for the first time? time to fend for yourself, you will do fine" to "you are a snowflake that needs to be protected at all times and must not be allowed to alone in any circunstances". PS: To give more context, I don't live in the US but in a small EU country with a low crime rate, on a town that indeed is busy but very safe.
  • Markoff 1mo ago
    > too many cars they are probably right and I can certainly bet my money there are way way more cars in small EU country than there were 30 years ago (assuming you had her at least at 30, if later, then the difference will be even starker) my kids school is ~1.1km walk, son is walking to/from school by himself maybe from 3rd grade (8.5yo) with classmate(s), I still walk my 4th grade (8yo) daugher to school in the morning (unreliable/inconsistent slow classmate living nearby), at least I get some exercise working from home (if I didnt have time to walk them and help them with backpacks I would probably let them go by themselves earlier) the main reason I still walk her is crossing the road, because I consider Prague roads dangerous even for adult pedestrian, let alone for kid, too many crazies driving here cars other big reason is heavy backpack when they have to lug tons of books/workbooks on the way back they go home either with classmates or together already for years, used to pick them up only in 1st and maybe 2nd grade
• TheChaplain 1mo ago
  If this was the same in the 1970's my parents would have been executed and me and my siblings in a orphanage. Actually the village would probably enjoyed that, I was a real "Swedish Emil" as a kid..
• tedggh 1mo ago
  There’s plenty of ways to trust your very young kids and raise them to be independent. Allowing them to walk alone for half a mile crossing roads is not one of the them. Kids can behave very differently when they are with their parents or other adults. So you can’t assume because they do something with you all the time they will stick to the same behavior and rules without supervision. At 5 years old their brains are still way too mature, they lack any judgement and impulse control, it doesn’t matter how smart you think your child is. Once they reach 9-10, that’s a different story.
  • stormbeard 1mo ago
    This is your opinion.
• shaunxcode 1mo ago
  this is the definition of bullshit authority
• Whatarethese 1mo ago
  If I were the cop I would have cited the person who called the police for being a nuisance and went about my day.
• eudamoniac 1mo ago
  Reminder that Utah has laws preventing this outcome ("free range parenting laws") and other states can follow suit with enough outcry. Utah is the best state to raise children for this and many other reasons.
• insane_dreamer 1mo ago
  American society has become paranoid, and as a parent I find this extremely disheartening. It was refreshing when a family from Europe moved in down the street and their kids would come over by themselves and knock on the door to see if our kids could go out and play. Very few American families do that (gotta set up a whole play date in advance, drive over even if it's a few blocks -- which all seems way over the top until you read about something like this and don't want to risk get accused of neglect by some stupid neighbor who sees your kid walking the neighborhood and decides to call the police. I blame the media, mostly, for the fear / paranoia that seems to have captured us in the past decades. Sure, media was always sensational, but it was local. Now stuff travels through social media and the internet and so you might be in Maine but hear about every weird thing that happens in Florida or Arizona.
• MasterYoda 1mo ago
  Cant american see how really fucked up usa have become in soo many ways? Or way have america become how it is today? They was a great country in many ways, but nowdays everything is just fucked up. The sad thing is that they dont seem to see it themself, the majority atleast. They just see them self as the bigest and greatest country in the world, so the dont look outside, and dont see how the rest of the world passed them long time ago in many ways and how much greater things is, like in Europe. And how people support trump is unbelievable. He is just a trojan horse that have trown usa under the bus. His agenda is not make amerika great again, just make trump great/rich again and the goverment is just a joke. Usa is just crazy, like kids cant play alone outside without parents gets called police on and gets sentenced. We see usa as crazy, but one american that lived here in Europe told, its much crazy than we think. Then its really bad. At least there is some americans that still is sane. Sorry for the rant, but it is so crazy to see the severe self-harming behavior usa is doing to themself.
• jawns 1mo ago
  I'm no lawyer, but I can't see how the judge is able to square this with a plain reading of the law. Here is the Virginia code on contributing to the delinquency of a minor: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter5/section18.2-371/ https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter5/secti... The only portion that is even remotely relevant is: > (b) renders a child delinquent, in need of services, in need of supervision, or abused or neglected as defined in § 16.1-228; However, here is that section: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/16.1-228/ https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/16.1-228/ Paragraph 2 is the relevant one: > No child whose parent or other person responsible for his care allows the child to engage in independent activities without adult supervision shall for that reason alone be considered to be an abused or neglected child, provided that (a) such independent activities are appropriate based on the child's age, maturity, and physical and mental abilities and (b) such lack of supervision does not constitute conduct that is so grossly negligent as to endanger the health or safety of the child. Such independent activities include traveling to or from school or nearby locations by bicycle or on foot, playing outdoors, or remaining at home for a reasonable period of time. I would think that in order to justify a conviction, prosecutors would have had to overcome the above by showing evidence that this particular child is INCAPABLE of safely walking to a nearby location within his neighborhood, or that the child ACTUALLY DID put himself in danger, i.e. by entering the pond. Something tells me that evidence does not exist, and the judge ruled based on something other than a correct reading of the law.
  • megagpt1 1mo ago
    They will simply call it grossly negligent, triggering the exception.
  • Simulacra 1mo ago
    It's not impossible for a judge to rule based on public opinion.
• JungleGymSam 1mo ago
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• theropost 1mo ago
  [flagged]
• ffsm8 1mo ago
  This in the same week that a women murdering her 3 kids is being called innocent by thousands of women on the Internet. Very "interesting" times, indeed.
  • deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
  • margalabargala 1mo ago
    I've not seen anything calling her innocent. Even the defendent agrees she is guilty of killing her kids. Have you seen this personally? Or are you repeating it blindly? Or do you not understand the difference between NGRI and innocent?
• wetpaws 1mo ago
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• zaptheimpaler 1mo ago
  I think the logic behind most of this trash is law enforcement gradually ridding themselves of all responsibility or accountability. They don’t handle theft or burglary anymore, they dismiss stalking or harassment even when people end up in danger, they stand by afraid in school shootings, they take reports of whatever happens and then do nothing about them. Every crime is either too big or too small for them. Kidnapping is a serious sensational crime that would make the news, and they’ve learned they don’t have to deal with that either if they just force children to be indoors or supervised all day.
• ElijahLynn 1mo ago
  "I told [the authorities] that kids need to be able to take reasonable risks," he says, "in order to grow up non-anxious Who would have thought that the actual anxious inducing situation came from trusted authorities, although well intentioned, causing harm to their community. Very sad story. I hope this gets appealed.
• lern_too_spel 1mo ago
  I'd take this story with a grain of salt. Judges aren't heartless automatons. There's another side of the story that Ms. Parkinson hasn't told the ever-gullible Reason, and Ms. Parkinson herself is a known agitator: https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/01/immigration-crackdown-protects-americans-from-murderers-and-rapists-biden-released-into-the-streets/ https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/01/immigration-crackdown-p... Look up her law firm, Holtzman Vogel. It's infamous.
  • JuniperMesos 1mo ago
    Maybe right-wing agitators should make a point of trying to get Judge Brian J. Smalls of the 9th Judicial District Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court of Virginia under formal legal scrutiny for abusing his authority as a judge and imposing punitive sentences on people who work for law firms that have an immigration restrictionis political stance. Certainly if he imposed a prison sentence, even a suspended one, because he didn't like what Parkinson said about US immigration policy, then he should not serve as a judge and possibly should go to prison himself over it.
    • lern_too_spel 1mo ago
      Where is there any evidence he did that? My point was that the one side of the story presented by Reason came from a clearly unreliable and outrage-seeking source and that judges are not inclined to throw the book at pregnant mothers under the circumstances claimed, more so if the defendant is herself a lawyer who would know how to argue her case effectively. Hence, the recommended grain of salt.
      • JuniperMesos 1mo ago
        Perhaps the judge in this case thought the same thing you did - that being a lawyer in a law firm that at one point took a public, pro-immigration-enforcement political stance makes you a "clearly unreliable and outrage-seeking" person, who is unsympathetic and deserves to be taught a lesson. I'm not familiar with Holtzman Vogel as a law firm other than the article you linked, but if having a byline on that article makes you think that this makes Parkinson an unsympathetic defendant, then maybe the judge thought so as well.
• theturtle 1mo ago
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• elgertam 1mo ago
  This happened in my neighborhood, and I've met the "perpetrator." She's a sweet person, and I'm convinced she was absolutely acting in the best interests of her child as she saw it. Kids as young as elementary school age in our neighborhood frequently go to the various ponds for fishing, watching the wildlife or even sailing remote control boats. Five years old without a buddy might be on the younger end, but it's hardly criminally negligent. And given the several close calls I've had with elementary & middle school-aged kids on e-bikes and scooters this summer, I hardly think this is even close to the most serious youth safety problem here.
• pvaldes 1mo ago
  pond != school. Ponds are notoriously unsafe and even treacherous for small kids. In any case this is law enforcers overreaching and creating unneeded and useless trauma in the family just because they can. Should never went so far.
  • LorenPechtel 1mo ago
    Yup, this is the part that bothers me. 5 year old kid who has been properly trained walking alone--I have no problem with that. My mother was blind, I was taught safe street crossing from an early age. I do not recall when I was crossing residential streets unsupervised, I do recall I was crossing major streets (at traffic lights) alone at 7. I'd take the bus to go visit grandma--no escort on either end. But 5 year old unsupervised at a pond is another matter. Unless they have plenty of swimming experience that disturbs me.
• GuestFAUniverse 1mo ago
  The most dangerous things for that child in that gated community, apart from its citizens, are the _three_ golf courses: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2833716 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... Yeah, sorry kid, play inside. It's indeed safer there: you'll become a couch potato with anxieties and heart disease, but at least you won't get poisoned that much. /s
• ctenb 1mo ago
  While I agree with the overall sentiment in this thread, it should be clear that any body of water is highly dangerous for kids until they can swim. It is not disclosed in TFA if the kid was able to swim, but the average 5 year old in the USA is not.
• SMAAART 1mo ago
  This cames to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantilization And with that also Agency, or lack thereof. This is sad, very very sad.
• casey2 1mo ago
  Parenting "pros" don't break the law. If everyone did this we'd have similar number of drownings and vehicular homicide as we did in the 60s about 4000->1000. Argue the law all you want, just don't break it or try to rationalize it after breaking it. The title is misleading, she was sentenced for neglect, not for "allowing" her child to do something. She told him to go to the pond unsupervised putting him at substantial unnecessary unreasonable risk, that's intent. Furthermore when officials informed her that she was going against local regulations she doubled down and didn't want to hear it. "Point to the exact statute that says I can't do this insane thing" Ma'am please, nobody here does that.
  • AngryData 1mo ago
    In my state saying kids can't go anywhere near a body of water unsupervised is saying kids can't ever be outside without full time supervision.
  • margalabargala 1mo ago
    > She told him to go to the pond unsupervised putting him at substantial unnecessary unreasonable risk This is your opinion. Presenting it as fact creates more problems.
• welzel 1mo ago
  There are two ways to interact with authority: being respectful and acknowledging it or being an idiot. This Mom had multiple chances to avoid this escalation: "Yes, thank you for bringing it to my attention. No, will not do it again." - Instead she decided to go full Karen(TM) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_(slang) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_(slang)) and went insane on the security, police, and child protection service. You can argue that she had every right to be an idiot; but play stupid games, win stupid prices.