But she did have choice. She's the one who asked to spend the day at the park, instead of hanging out all day at McDonald's, which is what she had been doing. The option was always there for her to go back there if she was tired of being at the park, as far as I can tell - apparently she did go there for lunch.
Mom Arrested for leaving 9 yo in park
- Thread starter Devil Ledbetter
- Start date
But she did have choice. She's the one who asked to spend the day at the park, instead of hanging out all day at McDonald's, which is what she had been doing. The option was always there for her to go back there if she was tired of being at the park, as far as I can tell - apparently she did go there for lunch.
Those are a pair of shitty, lonely choices to stick a kid with.
I guess I will just have to agree to disagree with everyone who thinks it's great parenting to leave a 9 year old all alone all day in a park that is a 25 minute (for an adult, mind you) walk from where the parent works.
Free range! Whoo hoo! Funtimes being left to fend for yourself all day! Who needs parents when there's cell phones?
I don't think it's a great parenting choice. However, the mother probably doesn't have great choices available, and I don't see how it's criminal behavior, either.
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2011
- Messages
- 6,543
- Reaction score
- 511
I think we may indeed have to agree to disagree on this one. "Free Range" sounds a bit too dismissive for my taste, so I share your dislike for that.
But I don't see a playground as all that awful a choice. I have not seen nor sought pictures of the park, but if several dozen people partake of it daily, then I doubt it's a needle-infested urban blight zone. In other words, she seemed to enjoy being there. I don't have a problem with half an hour's walk to reach Mom. I don't even see crossing a major traffic artery as an automatic problem.
NO ONE has said this was great (or good) parenting. In fact, I think everyone agrees it was bad. Should the mother have provided some kind of supervision? Yes. But does it rise to the level of a crime? Does the mother deserve jail time, and loss of custody? So far, no.
I just don't see what you see here.
Last edited:
If the kid winds up missing or dead, does it then rise to a level of a crime? Or is it still OK to dump your 9-year-old off alone at the park while you work as long as they survive somehow?
I'm not convinced jail/foster care was the best approach, but it seems getting a caseworker assigned so that this parent could find adequate childcare resources (they do have them in North Augusta, there is a link in one of the articles) and learn what her actual legal childcare responsibilities are could not hurt the kid or the parent.
And Rob, did you click the Google map and actually look at the Google Earth image of the highway that child would have had to cross alone? When I was 9, I saw my 5-year-old cousin get hit by a car on busy road that was only 2 lanes (she survived but it was terrifying). I can't even fathom being OK with letting a little kid cross 9 lanes of highway involving multiple turns.
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2011
- Messages
- 6,543
- Reaction score
- 511
Another trick question. Who is the criminal in that case? Dead. I watched a kid climb a tree after an errant football. He came down. All wrong. Turns out there was a powerline up there. One of those features of your local environment you sort of stop seeing after it's always been there. He died. Was that a crime? Would it have been MORE a crime if mom and dad were both working? Or that kid less dead? Move that tree a mile from Mom or Dad's workplace. Same questions. More a crime now? The child less dead? More dead?
Which, I think, is what everyone else agrees on. My only disagreement with what you just said is that based on what we know so far, I'm convinced that jail and removal of custody are wrong. New evidence can show up, but as presented, this.
I'm not sure how to respond to this. I've said, three times I think, that this was a bad choice. I don't know how you keep reinterpreting that as OK with it.
Based on that, I'm going to have to bow out. We're repeating ourselves, and clearly something in my posts isn't getting across.
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2012
- Messages
- 5,425
- Reaction score
- 1,911
- Location
- Denver, CO
- Website
- www.badfoodie.com
But, she didn't.
As pointed out, a kid can be kidnapped or killed in your front yard, or in their own bed. Riding in a car is statistically one of the most risky thing you can do with your child, yet there is no law against it.
There was some risk to the child, but there is some risk to the child in any situation. Was it more risk than I would have taken? Certainly. Did it rise to felony levels? I don't think so.
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2007
- Messages
- 22,289
- Reaction score
- 1,491
Looking at the weather of this city the mother was arrested in -- Jesus Christ! I don't care if there's a "splash pad" and shade, leaving a child outside unsupervised for eight hours in 90+ degree heat seems pretty irresponsible to me. I am surprised that nobody else has questioned this, and apparently the only danger to this child is stranger danger and traumatic injury.
I was one of those free range kids back in the good old days of yore. Ran wild in a couple of different countries, getting two concussions, a few scars, and causing a pretty bad car accident along the way. I also got a lot of exercise running away from dirty old men and bullies. What fun! (sarcasm) Had to depend on the kindness of complete strangers twice when I was lost. And I got lucky with who I approached for help.
Wasn't at all unusual. My mum wasn't considered particularly neglectful. But it's not what I wanted for my kids. Call me a worry wort, if you will. I'm rather too familiar with the dangers of too much freedom at too young an age. *shrug*
I feel bad for the mom in the OP. I wish there was a middle ground, an alternative to police and CPS involvement. Assistance with child care, a free recreational program for kids, or some kind of option that would keep the kid safe and the mom able not to worry. Is it too much to ask that a minimum wage job pays enough that a parent can actually afford to pay someone to mind a child?
Wasn't at all unusual. My mum wasn't considered particularly neglectful. But it's not what I wanted for my kids. Call me a worry wort, if you will. I'm rather too familiar with the dangers of too much freedom at too young an age. *shrug*
I feel bad for the mom in the OP. I wish there was a middle ground, an alternative to police and CPS involvement. Assistance with child care, a free recreational program for kids, or some kind of option that would keep the kid safe and the mom able not to worry. Is it too much to ask that a minimum wage job pays enough that a parent can actually afford to pay someone to mind a child?
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2011
- Messages
- 6,543
- Reaction score
- 511
I don't think that 8 hours is a given here. The mom was at work in a McDonald's. How many workers in a McDonald's work 8-hour shifts?
I don't know that answer. It might even depend on whether the store was corporate-owned or a franchise.
I don't know that answer. It might even depend on whether the store was corporate-owned or a franchise.
Rob, I don't want you to think I'm not reading your posts or that I'm "reinterpreting" them. This is what you said that sounded like you really didn't have any problem with the highway issue:
I hope you can at least see how I would take "I don't even see crossing a major traffic artery as an automatic problem" to mean that you didn't see it as problem.
Good point. And it underscores the foolishness of everyone talking about abduction statistics. Child abduction is just one of many things that could go wrong.
That's very reasonable.
Does anyone know what options might have been available to her that she was either unaware of or didn't happen to find as convenient as a the park-drop?
If it were me and I knew of no other options, I'd have kept the kid at the McDonald's with me. Coloring books are cheap and library books are free.
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2011
- Messages
- 5,779
- Reaction score
- 4,989
- Location
- Green Country
- Website
- www.bobmuellerwriter.com
We don't know if or how many times Mom may have tried that before being told by her boss to stop.
Well, the story as I read it was that this is what she was doing until the girl's laptop was stolen. After that, the girl was bored and asked to go to the park alone. I didn't see anything about the boss forbidding her to bring the girl to work.
I'd have found another way to keep the kid entertained close by rather than have her that far away, daily, for long stretches. But that's just me.
The article said the girl stayed at McD's daily, playing on her computer, but the computer was stolen, so she asked Mom to drop her at the play park. She was there something like 3 days before a parent asked where her mom was.
What I don't get is that - assuming this was a neighborhood park - kids go alone to those all the time. What raised the red flag for that parent that they asked where the girl's mom was?
What I don't get is that - assuming this was a neighborhood park - kids go alone to those all the time. What raised the red flag for that parent that they asked where the girl's mom was?
That would be interesting to know.
If you were at a park and a 9-year-old approached you for help with a splinter or a skinned knee, or requested water or food, I think "Who are you here with?" if not "Where's your mom or dad?" would be natural questions. I also think it would come up if your child was playing with the child and brought her over to meet you. It might also come up if the child was alone and crying, or even picking on another child or indulging in unsafe playground play.
But who knows, maybe some random busybody interrogates every single kid at the park to make sure they have parental units close by at all times, and has the police on speed dial.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2011
- Messages
- 6,543
- Reaction score
- 511
To me, when someone says it's "not automatic," that leaves room for additional information to tip it one way or another.
In Chicago, Lake Shore Drive is that many lanes. It has traffic lights, and it also has places where pedestrians can walk under the drive to reach the Lake Michigan waterfront without walking across the road. It is a major, major traffic artery. Crossing it is not automatically a problem.
I admit up front that I haven't used Google Maps (which, by the way, can be up to two years old) to view this. So you very well might see something I haven't even looked at. But there are circumstances where I think a 9-year-old is no more in danger than any other pedestrians, and some of those might be 9 lanes wide.
And if the child is in no "clear and present danger" (like in having alternative means to cross that highway, for one example), then I'm not to use that against the mother. But there's a good chance that this wasn't and isn't applicable.
Fair enough. The Google Earth map that showed no pedestrian crosswalk to the Walmart/McDonald's could have indeed been out of date. For all I know they've installed a pedestrian bridge with free soda fountains and foot massages by now.
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2011
- Messages
- 6,543
- Reaction score
- 511
Fair enough. The Google Earth map that showed no pedestrian crosswalk to the Walmart/McDonald's could have indeed been out of date. For all I know they've installed a pedestrian bridge with free soda fountains and foot massages by now.
Wait... is that... are you... being sarcastic?
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2012
- Messages
- 16,171
- Reaction score
- 3,734
The article says the park is generally crowded. I don't know how the assumption is made that they're 'shitty, lonely choices,' especially as opposed to, say, staying home alone, which people have been advocating as an alternative.
If there are 40 other kids at the park (the number cited), and she asked to go to the park, which apparently had water activities as well as other stuff, I think it's not unreasonable to surmise she'd have had people to play with there.
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2011
- Messages
- 2,467
- Reaction score
- 313
How many of you who think this mother should be criminally prosecuted for her choices are advocating for affordable child care and higher wages?
Complete strangers with no responsibility toward the child are not a substitute for supervision. In fact, the one stranger who actually gave a damn is being excoriated for calling authorities.
Well, I've not called for prosecution assuming she's committed no actual crime, but I do advocate for the above as well as easy access to birth control, abortion and better public education.
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2011
- Messages
- 6,543
- Reaction score
- 511
FWIW, I feel nothing about that one stranger other than curiosity about why she asked. Of course, the answer to that question just might change my opinion of her.
By excoriated I was referring to comments in the media referring to her as a busybody, etc. I probably should have clarified.
And so on.
I find it ironic that the same people (not you, Rob
) who seem to feel leaving her alone in a park for what The Atlantic article described as "all day" was OK because there were "other people around" are the first to point fingers and call "busybody" on the one stranger who (apparently) acted out of concern for the child.
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2012
- Messages
- 16,171
- Reaction score
- 3,734
By excoriated I was referring to comments in the media referring to her as a busybody, etc. I probably should have clarified.
And so on.
I find it ironic that the same people (not you, Rob
I have no idea why she acted.
I was responding in the previous post to your saying the choices were lonely. I didn't say anything about supervised, nor did you.