184
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
184 points (98.9% liked)
News
39146 readers
2140 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
My son is 8 and we live about a 5 minute walk from his school. The entire walk is down a lively pedestrian mall, he has to cross one, narrow, 30kph, crosswalked road that's constantly being crossed by other kids and parents as it's the main route to get to the school from all of the nearby flats. The teacher got visibly agitated and shocked when I suggested the possibility of him walking to or from school by himself and said she vehemently disagrees with it and that she didn't even let her 4th grader walk alone. He has a locked down smart watch he can use to call us if there are any issues.
And I'm not even in the US, I'm in central Europe. These people are honestly kind of batshit insane.
IMO we are what we incentivize and right now we’re incentivizing a low-trust society which “requires” a nanny state to remediate thanks to the anxiety ##% of the populace feels thanks to the constant fear mongering used to induce FOMO. Nowadays you can’t convince anyone you’re a normal, capable human being without proof. What that proof is differs from person to person of course.
From the age of 6 I rode my bike to school by myself. Mum had work responsibilities and we lived rurally so there was no bus. The ride into town was along a main highway, on the grass siding, then when I got into town I’d just use the footpaths. Other parents at my school would often offer to drive me home because they were so worried.
That was in the 80s. Crazy to think back on, now.
My family and I lived in Switzerland for several years, and had a child there. We were shocked to find out that as early as kindergarten, it is REQUIRED that the children walk to school by themselves, to teach them independence. Completely different mindset.
I walked to Kindergarten on my own and it was definitely longer than 5 minutes.
But yeah, traffic plays a role. Sounds like kids these days are protected a lot more.
That is definitely a fair point. Big difference letting a kindergartner walk to school on a sleepy side street versus a fast arterial.