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In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
“I stopped to ask him if he was okay and he needed help, and he lied, and said that his mother works here at the post office,” the caller said. “And then he just took off away from me.”
Which is exactly that id want my kids to do, if some random person pulled up next to them in a vehicle. When in doubt get the fuck out of there
Yeah. Literally a smart kid. Quick thinking.
Sounds like he was taught about stranger danger. Good parenting.
You lot really hate walking don't you
I used to walk to my elementary school (roughly ages 5-10) which was a mile away. Lots of kids in my town walked to school.
I drive by a school to go to the gym in the morning. There are tons of kids that STILL walk to school. I think these Karen cases are few and far between.
The elementary and high schools in my neighborhood pay the students if they walk rather than take the bus, as both a costsaving and environmental measure. It's a pittance sure, but in a country of 350 million people its extremely easy to find singular examples of any behavior to further any narrative. This article would have a point were it an examination of broad trends, but one example of the cops being the cops does hardly a well-founded narrative weave...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Etan_Patz
This was the case that really changed the way kids were treated in the US.
Before this, it was normal for kids to travel great distances on their own.
Laws are waayy to often based on single cases of something. Same with the whole "dont microwave your cat" stuff. So many have to suffer because some idiots or a random case of crazy or bad luck.
And may have helped launch it, but no one did more to further it than the father of kidnapped child Adam Walsh.
Adam's father, John Walsh, became an advocate for victims of violent crimes and is the host of the television program America's Most Wanted. He has also hosted The Hunt with John Walsh and In Pursuit with John Walsh.[3] Convicted serial killer Ottis Toole confessed to Adam's murder, but was never convicted of the crime because evidence was reportedly lost and Toole later recanted his confession. Toole died in prison of liver failure on September 15, 1996.[4] No new evidence has come to light since then, and police announced in December 2008 that the Walsh case was closed and that they were satisfied that Toole was the killer.
Once again the rest of the world wonders how a whole country can be so... unreal
Everything about this is insane. Making it illegal to walk, calling cops on kids, arresting people for any fucking reason. People created a hell hole they have to live in now.
Why is this kid walking, he should have a car. This is the USA, we don't walk here.
By walking, that kid was stealing money from oil and car corporations
I want to laugh at this but it sounds like something US leadership would say with a completely straight face.
I am currently babysitting a 13 year old boy almost every day. Why? Because CPS says he can’t be alone.
He’s mature. He’s smart. He’s quiet. He is COMPLETELY capable of taking care of himself. His dad works 6 hour shifts at most.
The issue is, his dad went to jail for drugs. He’s been sober, he’s been working, he’s been fighting like hell to provide a decent life for his kids.
He’s not allowed to have his girlfriend around them, so he’s paying for two apartments and they can only spend time together coming up when the boy is in school.
I mean, sure, the dad hasn’t been a saint. But man oh man, they’re doing everything the can to make sure he fails.
He was taking suboxone, got the shot instead, realized he wasn’t experiencing withdrawal and dropped that. Well, now he has to prove that he will have detectable amounts in his system for up to a year, and then they’re going to MAKE him go back on suboxone to keep his son.
It’s madness the hoops some people have to jump through, meanwhile a childhood friend was starved and beaten regularly and they wouldn’t remove him from the home until his parents burned down a neighbor’s house and went to prison for arson.
When we were kids and we’d discuss what we wanted to be when we grew up, his answer was, “my mom’s murderer.”
When she did pass, he cried his eyes out for never reaching out to her and was one of the pallbearers.
I don’t get why things have to be such a mess.
The War on Drugs isn't about helping people stop using. It's about feeding the prison industry and all the parasites that bleed parolees dry.
What bullshit. I was told by CPS in Oklahoma after my boys had to move in with me after their mom had a mental health crisis and couldn't stay with her anymore. The guy had to check out our house make sure it was suitable. He told me that if kid can make food in the microwave that at 10 they can be home alone.
Also, say what you want about Oklahoma, but my kids been walking to the store by themselves since they were 8 and 6. I am sick of the fucking nanny state motherfuckers. Like that mother years ago in Florida her kids playing in THEIR front yard. She goes to jail because she wasn't watching them. By the way that woman was white so its not all a race thing. This has been a slow build for the fascist police state.
We need to fucking change the fucking laws and make cities and small towns safe for our kids to walk in. Not to mention that kids are safer now then when I was a child. At least my kids have phones. I have Life 360 on all their devices. Hell when I was a kid they had to run ads at 10pm asking "Do you know where your kids are?" Because parents didn't pay attention to what we were doing. Shit I roam the whole town of Sulphur Springs Texas and not once did anyone stop and ask what we were doing. And trust me their were times that I was up to no good. Plus you were more likely to be snatched up then compared to now.
My kids walk the streets and sometimes might be outside past dark. And we have shit for sidewalks. They don't even have sidewalks leading to the schools. But every school year tons of little kids are walking to school. It's up to the drivers to pay attention. Example there is a Daylight Donuts right across the street from the school. Also a red light. You have to be careful because these kids are dumb and will just start crossing the road not looking at all. I at least told my kids. The cemetery is full of people who had the right away.
I am sick of nosey people that won't let kids be kids. I like to blame boomers but they're Genxers that have that mentality to.
America: "We will arrest you if you let a child out unsupervised"
Also America "kids sit in front of the screen at home all day."
Also also America " if somebody accidentally runs over your child with a car they will get a 6 month license suspension"
Also also also America "We think crime is way up even though its at record lows and a leading cause of death here is automobile accidents"
I'm 42. I fucking walked for miles all over the place when I was a kid. This being a "problem" is straight up retarded. Shit was actually a lot more dangerous back in the 80s and 90s than it is now. Kids are safer today than 30 years ago.
This being a “problem” is straight up retarded.
It's the criminalization of any sort of poverty.
The problem is that we'll spend an extra billion on police to save a grand on social services.
Maybe it would be safer for kids to walk places if you didn't have pedos embedded in your whole infrastructure
Wow people are just seeing pedophiles everywhere and missing the places they actually are.
I got raped by my mom and people in my group when i did therapy were mostly raped at home or with family.
The walk outside is the safest part of growing up for people at actual risk.
Find another thing to latch onto.
Let's not overblown the issue... The kid is more likely to be murdered by a car and driver getting away than molested.
It seems a lot of times kids are molested parents are in on it or too stupid to see it. Randos molesting kids seems to be rare. It is people in positions of authority who do it most of the time.
As disgusting as that is.
I wonder if children walking home from school are now a problem? That was like my main source of exercise.
My theory is that it's paranoia born out of how the media handles crime, and how isolating suburbia is.
This is what suburban carbrain disease does to a mfker.
Having grown up in Eastern Europe, walking to the kindergarten since 4, walking to the primary school since 7, walking / pubtransiting to mid/high school since 11, the North American suburban carbrain disease is just shocking, even after living alongside it for two decades.
By this logic, the movie "Stand By Me" should be rated X.
I'm in my 40s and now I realize that my Parents would have likely been arrested several times over if I were a kid today. Hell I Imagine most of us would be in the same boat.
I mean on weekends or during the summer I was told to get out of the house, be with friends, have fun and told to be home either for dinner or by the time the street lights came on and if I wasn't going to be home in time then to find a phone and call my parents and let them know. Hell I could be like miles/Kilometers from home at any given moment. I could be in a friends house and their parents offered me dinner.
I was like any kid, I got up to no good. I stole candy sometimes. I once opened a Captain Planet action figure in a store cause I wanted the power ring that was inside. I got in trouble at school cause one time during recess me and my friends just decided to start cussing at the top of our lungs.
I'd hate to be a kid today. hell, I'd hate to be a parent today.
I mean on weekends or during the summer I was told to get out of the house, be with friends, have fun and told to be home either for dinner or by the time the street lights came on and if I wasn’t going to be home in time then to find a phone and call my parents and let them know. Hell I could be like miles/Kilometers from home at any given moment. I could be in a friends house and their parents offered me dinner.
Sounds like what most kids were doing from 300BC up to 1980AD
Swede here, the day before I started school my mom and I walked the route she wanted me to go to get to school.
This route lead across a railroad crossing and several road crossings.
I was 6.
At 10 we were allowed to bike to and from the school.
How do "concerned Karens" not know they are more likely to cause harm than good nowadays?
Because in this case it seems they got "results" and now there are several children without a mom around because the state doesn't want you raising your kids to be capable of being independent
Instead of building sidewalks, they arrest working moms, amazing.
It was very early 1980s and I was maybe 10 or 11. I went on a 10 mile bike ride from my house to a friend’s house in another town. According to Google maps it was an hour bike ride. Pretty sure it took me much longer. And I’d guess my parents had no clue I did it.
Dumbest country on earth. You cannot change my mind.
Two things. One : that is ridiculous overreach.
Two : we shouldn’t accept a society so dangerous our kids can’t explore and have fun..
Pathetic. My sister and I used to explore around the whole city when we were that age. We'd walk streets and roads, explore parks and trails, visit malls across town, get into mischief like sneaking into people's backyards, exploring abandoned properties, and building forts in the woods. Some of my strongest memories are of the adventures we went on.
You know what the worst thing that happened to us was? The occasional scrape or bruise from falls when climbing on shit. We both remembered all the phone numbers we needed to know and my sister, being a bit older than me, was very streetwise and knew the layout of the city like the back of her hand. We did our own purchasing, bought our own food, tended our own wounds, and so on.
My sister grew up into one of the smartest and most independent people I've ever met.
Bro by that age I was driving 4 wheelers through uncharted woods. People need to chill
I used to be allowed to take a rowboat out by myself at 10. What a bunch of pussies we are becoming.
The really weird thing is that back before the 1990s, when it was common for kids to be free range, there was far more stranger abductions and violent crime than there is today. We just hear about everything so quickly and so much that people think they are now living in a more dangerous time. But then that was the plan since 9/11 - have Americans live in constant fear so the government could take over.
My kid took the bus to the other side of town by herself when she was 9.
If this is in America, I honestly don’t blame the cops. There are republicans lurking out there.
Makes me angry that removing the ability for self-sufficiency -- even just walking alone for errands -- only furthers dystopia.
Why most American GenXers thump their chests about being turn-key kids... yet they should be opposing such overreach.
