10-year-old walked less than a mile to a dollar store, prompting a passerby to call police, who arrested his mom for reckless conduct.
A boy in north Georgia went for a walk. It landed his mother in jail | CNN
They do. This story is just because backward ass red state. In my neighborhood there are kids playing around all the time.
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.
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.
O' the land of the free
Cannot even smoke weed
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.
Seriously, I regularly did 12 miles round-trip on my bike down roads with no sidewalk or bike lane at 12 to see my friend who lived in the bad part of town. I guess my parents would be felons by today's standards.
Edit: hi again! I'm not stalking you, I promise!
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.
When I was in primary school in the early 90s we used to get offered a lift by the local milkman who often used to be on the way past when we were walking home.
There'd be at least 4 of us. We'd throw our school bags in to the gap between his insulated box on the tray (full of milk) and the head board of the cab, then jump up and hold on the headboard so our legs would hold the bags in place. Off we'd go down the main road - heads sticking over the cab, wind in our hair - hitting 60kph with nothing between us and falling out but the fact we were holding on to the headboard.
I see front page news blasting parents for their kid sticking their head out a sunroof in a carpark and I'm like... man, our folks would have been arrested back in the day.
I hate today, I hate yesterday, I hate tomorrow.
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
Why did you stop at 1980? It wasn't until cellphones became so common with kids that things changed. Even the in early 2000s pagers were still more common with kids/teenagers in my experience.
I used to be allowed to take a rowboat out by myself at 10. What a bunch of pussies we are becoming.
Independence of any level is discouraged in the surveillance society we've built.
Land of the free
My kid took the bus to the other side of town by herself when she was 9.
How is prison treating you?
Lol her classmates were going to the shopping centre alone before that. Norway is different.
Your comment confused me a bit as I first understood "took the bus" as in "drove it".
Things have gone too far. Fuck Cops and fuck Karen too.
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.
By the time I was 13 or so my mom didn't know where I was more than 50% of the time. And I think at 13 my hormones probably made me do dumber shit than when I was 10.
I should definitely have not been left unsupervised as a teenager either lol. And yet, my mom wasn't even in the same state some of the time lmao
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.
I was walking to school since grade 1, I was 6. We checked it out with my parents beforehand, did some test walks iirc, and none of it was along American style stroads. But it was more than a mile. Twice every day.
Lots of kids still do that here in the US. We have crossing volunteers at any street crossing near the school to shepherd the kids across.
Many years ago (I'm old), a friend and I biked 20 miles from Orange County into Los Angeles, to East L.A. Had a hell of a time, visited my friend's cousins, got tacos de lengua, got a guy to buy a 6-pack for us, chugged down the Modelo then rode back home.
We were 12.
We literally roamed the neighborhoods in feral packs on bikes
Granted I was 100% almost kidnapped once but still
We raised our kids feral in the late 90s/early 2000s. They're all resilient, self-supporting adults now. We had neighbors who bitched at us, and were overprotective of their little darlings. Both of their kids are now dealing with opiod addictions.
When I was a kid people still described things as removed
/s
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.
Same. Walked and took buses to school from around 6-7 years of age in the late 90s. My parents were divorced, so I also commuted a lot between their places as a child.
Perfectly normal thing that all the other kids were also doing. I remember one mom being a bit afraid for her daughter, so I was asked to take the bus and walk together with her, but that’s it.
I walked to middle and high school cuz it started too early for my folks. People getting in the car to drive a block will never cease to amaze me
“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.
Bro by that age I was driving 4 wheelers through uncharted woods. People need to chill
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.
I’m an older millennial. My gen x mom let me go wherever I wanted. If I wasn’t back when she said to be, she’d come find me and beat my ass.
I fortunately grew up in a neighborhood with sidewalks, but we went well beyond our neighborhood.
Shit, I walked 10 miles to a gas station along the railroad tracks to meet girls and steal beer when I was 12 years old. Eventually one was built right in front of my house and I didn’t have to go that far anymore, thank goodness.
I wouldn’t have learned to navigate people if I hadn’t had such freedom. I can see trouble coming from a mile away. I would imagine inexperience will make for some naive people when it comes to knowing danger.
i dont get why
Because control. It's all about control.
If i do t know it it must be bad. Ic i dont control it it must ve dangerous. Its like an elemental kernel level xenophobia.
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.
If they're going to do tests, why not just check for the presence of illegal drugs?
Some people do abuse it. I didn’t get how for a long time. I’ve been taking it for a decade or better now and I swear I get nothing from it but avoiding withdrawal.
An old friend shot it up though and died from a heart infection because of it.
But then thry woukd just be observing, not coercing.
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.
It's all nuts, but I'm okay with the idea of, hey, there's a young kid, can we check on him. Cop rolls up, you okay kid? Yes. Cool, have a day. The idea that this would escalate beyond there is insanity.
Why is this kid walking, he should have a car. This is the USA, we don't walk here.
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.
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.
That’s funny.
1 kid goes missing, all of America changes how they act.
100s of kids die in school shootings, America does nothing.
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.
This is very odd for US to not return to normalcy.
Just read this as never heard the name, the guys conviction was overturned, I mean is America turning in the land of the free pedo? Wtf?
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.
Eh idk, I was nearly snatched off the street by a stranger, very similar to the Morgan Nick case, back in 1998. Virtually every park in the US has creeps patrolling it looking for homeless, especially kids. See Emily Perez case - she ran away to a local park and was taken from there by an unknown person who likely monitors the park for such things.
World isn't as safe as you'd think.
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.
You need plausible deniability and proximity to get away with abuse of kids, and parents have the most of both.
However, I was groped thousands of times as a kid in lines by strangers. And I mean THOUSANDS. To this day I do not like strangers standing behind me.
I was almost nearly abducted off the street as a kid.
So yes, strangers can still be an issue, even if parents and other people with more proximity are more often the bigger issue.
The mistake is that the kid forgot to open carry his gun. Remember this is Murica.
They were under 21 so it's gotta be a rifle at the very least.
(Local gun laws in my neck of the woods say you gotta be 21 to get a handgun)
I think that's federal
Once again the rest of the world wonders how a whole country can be so... unreal
I did this frequently when younger without issue. Fucking insane.
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.
I'm with you on this one, the situation would be almost comical, if it weren't so pathetic. When I was really young (Grades 1-3), busybodies in my neighbourhood petitioned for buses to be started because of 'hazardous traffic' caused by the expansion of a nearby arterial route. The irony being that the road which was being rebuilt (widened) was not in between the neighbourhood and school, but on the the very far bordering edge, and would not be crossed by any students on their way to school.
So it was that I, and dozens of others, started getting bussed 5 blocks to school 'for safety reasons'. I now know people whose houses border the field adjacent to the school at which their children attend, who drive them to the front doors every single day.
Almost 50 years ago I started riding my bike to school, 1.4 miles away, at 7 years old. I had a cross a relatively busy road but there was a light and crosswalk. I was a little younger than probably most parents would allow that much freedom but it certainly wasn't anything people would consider criminal. The fact that the mother in this article got arrested and charged is crazy to me.
47 year old American. When I was 10-11 I would ride my bike multiple miles to a friend’s house and back, including a section along a busy highway. As a parent, I had my kids walk a little over a mile to their elementary school starting at ages 6 and 8.
43 year old American who at 10 would ride a bike over a mile to school and spent my summers pretty much going wherever I wanted on my bike or walking. But things have definitely changed.
People have forgotten their own childhood and see kids on their own as troublemakers. Or like in this case, they feel they know better than parents.
We've also given up what little walkability we had to wider streets with higher speed limits. The small town where I grew up has significantly more people and more and larger intersections. Many of the roads have also been widened.
Finality, policing has changed. At least where I grew up officers were members of the community. They were there to uphold the law and would rather take you home or talk to your parents than charge or detain you. It would have been national news for a cop to handcuff and detain a 10-14 year old, now it is expected and celebrated. IMO policing is a profession that has lost its humanity. They are enforcers, not peace officers.
Sixty-year-old American here. Same for me, but I only remember walking with the other kids. There was a group of us, and we picked up other kids on the way to school. I didn't ask questions, that's just how we did it.
By this logic, the movie "Stand By Me" should be rated X.
This is from December 2024.
Ah, after reading the headline I was like "Again?"
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
How it that cop's behavior not reckless conduit?
Because pigs are not held accountable for their conduct.
Big the state can abuse you for no reason and there is nothing you can do about it.
Fuck everything about this. My kid has been roaming the neighborhood since he was like 7.
"Ohh hell no, how dare the mother not with her child always? As a good citizen i will now make sure the child will be separated from her mother." - Karen McDoofus
In the year 2002 at age 10, I rode my bike 2 miles to school every day and 3 miles to hang out with friends in town.
People still do this.
Ridiculous. I used to ride 5 miles each way to school for years on some really busy roads. I can’t say that I’d be happy to do that again with all the cellphone distractions drivers engage in these days, but a kid walking less than a mile to a store shouldn’t be a problem unless they’re walking on a freeway or something.
I wouldn't let my kid walk alone in that gun infested shithole country with murderous cops that also handcuff children or pepper spray them
Fair.
Something something back in my day...
Oh man, my parents should have been arrested so many times.
be a devil's advocate
in the US this was justified for a citizen to be concerned about hell did not let my kids go farther away from the house than could see them
in the US driving laws are not enforced and the majority of drivers are going over the speed limit by five miles or more but mixing in unsupervised kids to this mix on roads without sidewalks either and BAM!
just north of Georgia in South Carolina one state up crossing guards are refusing to go work because driving laws not being enforced and crossing guards getting hit
The devil's got plenty of advocates, no need to do it for him.
Children should have the freedom to traverse the world independently (and their parents the freedom to let them) as they're able to do so responsibility. Don't let the carbrain win, this is a reason to change infrastructure and laws for cars, not for children. There's way more than enough "think of the children" alarmist nonsense out there.
You follow this logic deep enough an no one would leave their home because cars are too dangerous and scary.
I grew up when drinking and driving was legal. I walked a mile to and from school at 7 years old.
People back then had less anxiety and a worse grasp on odds.
in the US driving laws are not enforced
Lol you've never been outside Europe, have you?
It's almost like kids belong to the state, now. "Parental rights" lol