group called Empower Kids Maryland was formed in response. The idea: To raise awareness among parents about encouraging “children to become independent, confident young adults with sound, non-fear-based judgment about the level of risk that will surround them in today’s world,” according to their website. Initially the group was focused on changing the laws in Maryland that were used to punish parents like the Meitivs. As cofounder Russell Max Simon explained it to me when we spoke in 2015, his kids play at the same playground as the Meitiv children, and he wants to raise independent children without government oversight or intervention. “Enough is enough,” Simon told me. “Our focus is going to be working through the legislative process” to change the rules about children outside unsupervised. “This [issue] should cross political lines. It is a parental-rights issue not a right-left issue. I would think that parents would have more control over their kids. And I would hope that the politicians would agree” that the response to the Meitivs was “a waste of resources.”
The case exemplifies the extent of the problem because Maryland authorities felt unrestrained enough to interpret the Meitiv’s “crime” from words that aren’t part of the applicable law. The rule had stated that children under 8 are prohibited from being unattended in a dwelling or car and that a person must be at least 13 years old to supervise a child under 8. There is no reference to being outside, and in this case there was no “supervising” going on. The 10-year-old was walking with his 6-year-old sister, not babysitting her.
On the bright side, the attention paid to the Meitiv case has been positive for the family; they’ve heard from CPS that they’ve been cleared of charges from the initial intervention. But any relief has to be tempered by the realization that it was only through very public and hard-fought resistance of the state authorities that CPS was pushed into doing the right thing. How many parents are going to have the self-confidence to reject state intervention? It is important to recognize that the Meitivs’ got more attention than most of these cases. More often than not, CPS isn’t forced to defend itself in the media, so reform is often slow or nonexistent. It is also good news that the advocacy group cofounded by Simon has now been renamed Empower Kids America and has broadened its mandate to include the rest of the country. The growth of groups and grass-roots activists in favor of parental discretion is all to the good. And there is other important work being done as well.
In Illinois, an organization called the Family Defense Center researched the issue of “inadequate supervision” child-neglect claims—similar to the charges against the Meitivs—and concluded that the Maryland case was both unique and typical. Unique because of all the media attention, which most families caught in an unnecessary CPS investigation don’t receive. And typical because there are so many of this same type of accusation. The Family Defense Center report effectively stated the problem:
The range of cases that may come to the attention of child welfare authorities is so broad that child abuse reporters, parents, and their advocates, as well as judges and policy makers are unable to clearly and consistently use existing law and policy to distinguish reasonable parenting from child neglect. . . . [P]arents are swept into the system and labeled at fault when they have made reasonable parenting decisions. Child welfare system resources are currently being devoted to the investigations of neglect allegations, such as inadequate supervision, where children are not at risk. This means fewer resources to investigate and indicate the serious cases of neglect or abuse.15
When definitions of a problem get too vague, more and more cases will occur; and when the laws are badly written or misapplied, innocent families are the ones who suffer. (We’ll discuss problems with CPS lack of transparency more in Chapter 6.)
Back in Maryland, criminalizing parents for using their own discretion seems like something of a sport. A woman named Anna from Rockville wrote to Skenazy about being threatened by her daughter’s school principal for letting the 10-year-old ride the city bus to school.16 As the mom asserted to the busybody administrator, hers was a thoughtful decision. “We did a lot of planning and preparation before we allowed L. to ride the bus. As a parent I feel that it is my job to advocate for her right to practice this new skill, for as long as she wants to do it and for as long as we her parents continue to feel it is safe.” But that wasn’t good enough for the school, and the principal threatened to consult with local Child Protective Services to decide if allowing the girl to ride the bus was approved by those authorities.
As this mother pointed out, the saddest part of this whole affair was questioning a decision that was important for their daughter’s development and growth. As a result of riding the bus each day, she’d developed a whole new set of relationships with adults who rode with her. As the girl explained to her mom, the adults she was referring to as friends weren’t “kid friends.” Instead, she defined them as “people friends.” The mom learned about the Chinese lady, the lady with a baby that cried a lot, and the grandma who got on at the next stop. “In a few short weeks,” the mom reported, “my daughter had surrounded herself with a community of people who recognized her, who were happy to see her, and who surely would step in if someone tried to hurt her.” Isn’t this exactly the type of safety that we hope our kids achieve when they leave our care? And shouldn’t we embrace this girl’s independence rather than make her parent feel as if she’s done something wrong to allow it?
CRIMINALIZING PARENTS FOR TEACHING RESPONSIBILITY
In other states, parents have run afoul of the babysitting rules. One mother in New Canaan, Connecticut, was arrested and charged with “risk of injury to a minor” for allowing her older children to babysit for younger ones.17 Consider that a basic aspect of families is that members are supposed to care for one another. Is the law designed to contradict what are natural bonds? And why is the decision of who is responsible enough to babysit one that the government makes?
But arrest isn’t as bad a losing custody of your kids. The Atlantic’s Colin Friedersdorf reported in July 2014 on a mother who had lost custody of her four children because she left them home alone together while taking a class at the local university.18 She fought for four years—four years—to get her kids back, and as she told Friedersdorf, her whole attitude has changed.
An unexpected knock at the door still makes my heart beat rapidly. I’m more conscious of strangers’ stares and comments when I go out with my children. Ultimately, I found this ostensibly well-meaning system of child protection to be an exercise in often baseless finger-pointing, pitting neighbor against neighbor, family member against family member. As people vie for power and victory, it all becomes so much less about kids’ best interests and more about adults’ selfish interests. In criminalizing previously culturally normal activities, such as an unaccompanied child playing at a public park, we open the door for any unorthodox parental decision to be subjected to similar unfavorable scrutiny.
The Washington Post’s Radley Balko notes that from his perch as a chronicler of “the increasing criminalization of just about everything and the use of the criminal justice system to address problems that were once (and better) handled by families, friends, communities and other institutions,” he has noticed a growing list of stories highlighting “those themes intersecting with parenthood.”19 Balko was upset by the Harrell case in South Carolina, as well as the arrest of Jeffrey Williamson of Blanchester, Ohio, for “child endangerment” because his son skipped church and went to play with friends instead. As with so many of these cases, nothing had happened to the boy.
Balko’s criticism of these types of nanny-state interventions is right on; these problems used to be solved without police or child protective services, whereas today’s overreaction is going to cause both parents and their children undue harm.
You needn’t approve of the parents’ actions in any of these cases to understand that dumping them into the criminal justice system is a terribly counterproductive way of addressing their mistakes. (And I’m not at all convinced
