[imagesource:needpix]
A Georgia mother was recently arrested after her son walked a mile by himself in their small town of Mineral Bluff.
As ludicrous as the statement might seem to anyone who lived through the pre-2000s childhood glory days, the story has reignited the debate about so-called free-range parenting.
Brittany Patterson was captured on police body cam video being handcuffed and taken into custody after her 10-year-old son, Soren, left home alone and was found walking in the street.
“I was shocked, surprised, disbelief,” Patterson, 41, said.
“Couldn’t really understand what was going on or why. “They told me to put my hands behind my back and then I had to ask to tell my children goodbye.”
According to authorities, they found the boy walking alone after a concerned resident called police. Police took Soren, who was unharmed, home, but a few hours later they returned and arrested Patterson in front of her children.
The warrant claims she “…willingly and knowingly endangered her juvenile son’s bodily safety.”
Patterson has now been charged with reckless conduct.
News of her arrest soon featured on news sites and talk shows and even received unnecessary opinions from celebrity parents.
Apart from the social media noise, parenting experts like Dawn Friedman also weighed in on the subject of free-range parenting, saying “The crime was that she didn’t know where her kid was for a little while, and to her surprise, he didn’t stay home. It’s just so normal. And to make that into a crime is insane.”
“We used to allow children some freedoms that we no longer allow them. And I don’t think that’s to their benefit or to ours.”
David Delugas, Patterson’s attorney, is also crying bulls**t.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children are typically ready to walk alone safely without adult supervision at age 10. Delugas further says that Patterson did not engage in any illegal activities.
To make her parenting even more ‘controversial’, Patterson has also declined to sign a “safety plan” proposed by Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services, which included using a GPS tracking app on her son’s phone.
“If you call a document a safety plan, maybe what’s in it ought to make the child more safe,” Delugas said. “That assumes he was unsafe in the first place, which he was not. Part of why Brittany declines to sign it is he wasn’t unsafe.”
Which makes this a case of helicopter policing? Parenting never had to be 24/7 until now,” says blogger and co-founder of “Let Grow” Lenore Skenazy.
“I don’t blame the parents. I blame this culture that talks endlessly about the impact of every parenting decision in every atom of their kids being.”
Skenazy can relate to Patterson’s story. Back in 2008, she was accused of being “America’s worst Mom” after allowing her 9-year-old son to take the subway by himself in New York, and then publishing an article about it.
“I finally realized that my real crime was trusting my kid to do something without me,” Skenazy said. “Being independent, being out in the world. That was the charge against me.”
“You’re allowed to be imperfect if that’s what we’re going to call it because perfection has never been a requirement for being a parent or a kid.”
How this over-regulation of children’s freedom will shape the way they interact with the world is a mystery, but I can’t help but agree that we’re not doing the kids any favours by stifling their independence. It gets even worse if you have the police telling you how to raise your child.
Sometimes I wish everyone could have experienced growing up in the eighties. Back then everyone seemed so much more chilled towards parenting, for better and worse. At least we got to live a little more.
[source:abc]
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