190
When Mothers Get Arrested for Mothering. Raising independent kids shouldn’t be this hard.
(www.theatlantic.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2026
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She allowed a 5yo to go to a pond on his own.
No five year old is mature enough to understand and recognize the dangers involved.
Drowning, sure. But also, I’d be willing to bet there’s at least one person there who would harm that kid. There’s also the potential for traffic and getting lost on the way home; if trying to eat something dangerous and all manner of other things.
I think the mother is better qualified to make that call than you.
Children eventually become adults, and they don't magically become autonomous on their 18th birthday. It's something responsible parents teach, and it starts young.
There's a long running Japanese show called "Old Enough" where kids younger than this go off and do errands.
You know there's at least one adult watching that child as they go off and do errands, right? the child isn't unsupervised.
And the key word here is "starts". The leading causes of death of children between 1 and 19 are mostly things that that child could have encountered.
they include:
And before you're like "But they were in a gated community!"... I've worked security for gated communicates. people still drive like shit, and people are still people, and I've never met a 5 yo that was old enough to know the difference between a sweet tart and rat poison tablet- at least not before chomping on it.
Yes, common causes of death are things that are common in life. This is not insightful.
Maybe there's something in the water where you live? It would explain a few things.
Are you trolling? You just perfectly summed up everything that's wrong with the US
For the TV show, of course the kids are being followed by the camera team. But kids are safe to do these errands because the rest of Japanese society takes the responsibility of keeping an eye out for children as a whole. Children in Japan are always an arm's length away from an adult stranger who will keep them safe from danger when necessary.
So even not on the show... they're... supervised by trusted adults. You understand the distinction here? Also, the mother doesn't live in Japan.
I understand there's a distinction but that's not the case here. It happens with or without a camera on the child.
being run over
I feel like I am in a Monty Python sketch right now. She "contributed to delinquency" because he could have gotten in trouble that he didn't get into if things had gone entirely differently?
Yes.
The government decided that children that young should be supervised. She failed to provide that supervision.
The child coming back safe that time doesn’t count- it’s a dangerous world.
But they didn't charge her with endangering him, that's a different thing.
Edit to add: And I suspect they didn't because he was, self evidently, not in danger. So I remain confused about why this became an entire affair.
Because prosecutors are elected in the US, they do all kinds of stupid things.
And we all know that the government is always just and never gets it wrong.
did I say the government was right?
the good news here is that, as part of that government by means of voting, you can go and change yours.
That was heavily implied by what you wrote, yes.
I live in a well governed country, this case would never get as far as prosecution where I live.
You're making a statistical claim and the statistics don't support you. Although you personally are paranoid, in reality, children have gone around the neighborhood almost entirely safely for almost all of human history.
Of course there is some element of risk. That's true for life, for everyone, forever. But until you have solid data that says the kids shouldn't be able to go a very short distance to a place that they know how to get to safely, then you're speculating about what could possibly go wrong. And that's just a waste of time from a public policy perspective.
Sheltered much lol?
I've seen a 5 year old competently handle a BB rifle and an actual handgun with proper trigger discipline. The BB rifle was his practical toy he practiced with and the real handgun was his father's which he wasn't allowed to use until he'd proved himself for a couple of years with the BB (only handed under supervision).
He was also gaining fluency in 3 languages and his friends would spend their free time from school climbing up and down actual mountains.
Take a wild guess where it was.
The incidence of kidnapping was WAY higher in gen-x days with no cell phones to rat out the pervs. And even when it was way higher, most child abuse happened by someone well-known to the victim. Stranger-danger was unbelievably rare.
My entire school in the 4th grade (so 9yo) lived next to a busy highway used by full 80t logging trucks, dump trucks, semi-trucks with full loads, in an area where snow is common in winter. We'd trudge down the boulevard of the highway, alto sax or trombone cases in hand, lugging it all to school and back. The whole class would. All grades would, from 4-7, hair and clothes flapping in the wind as a semi would roar past.
Then from the 8th grade we'd attend the school in the next town over. We'd get ourselves to the bus stop and disappear for 8 hours, completely out of contact, the eldest child with a house key and no ID, no phone, no tracker watch, no geofencing.
Tell me again how modern life is dangerous.
Damn, have you interacted with any 5 year olds? They're smarter than you think.
I don't agree with everything the mother did here but I do not agree that she's criminally liable in any way.
would that change if the child did get hurt?
No. I used to ride my bike all over town when I was around 5 years old. I definitely remember falling and scraping my knee or whatever. I got hurt a bunch of times. I figured it out one way or another, before cell phones were a thing. It's called life, and "rubbing some dirt in it" has some merit and helps you grow as human being. Getting hypothermia as a boy scout after my canoe capsized was scary as fuck but it "built character" or whatever.
Kids are smarter and more resilient than anyone gives them credit for. This kid was fine to walk the few minutes from the house to the pond, let's be real.