Forbidden Parenting
Townhall,
by
John Stossel
Original Article
Posted By: drive,
3/4/2020 7:34:09 AM
South Carolina mom Debra Harrell worked at McDonald's. She couldn't afford day care for Regina, her 9-year-old daughter, so she took her to work.
But Regina was bored at McDonald's.
One day, she asked if she could just play in the neighborhood park instead. "I felt safe there," tells me in my new video, "because I was with my friends and their parents."
"She had her cellphone, a pocketbook with money in it," says Debra. "She had everything she needed."
Regina was happy. Debra was happy.
But one parent asked Regina where her mom was, and then called the police. Officers went to McDonald's and arrested Debra.
In jail, they berated her.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Rather Read 3/4/2020 8:01:32 AM (No. 336412)
I grew up in the late 50's and early 60's. We went everywhere without our parents.
60 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Hugh Akston 3/4/2020 8:11:51 AM (No. 336425)
...all day.
42 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Paperpuncher 3/4/2020 8:26:36 AM (No. 336444)
A bicycle and about a 10 mile radius.
47 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
MOBeef4u 3/4/2020 9:34:42 AM (No. 336505)
Just be within hailing distance of home when the street lights came on.
And kids are actually less likely to be in danger of abduction, etc. today than when we were young.
20 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Clinger 3/4/2020 9:36:04 AM (No. 336506)
By the age of nine I was off to roam the mean streets of frontier suburbia in the morning, checking in at lunch time at one of the designated neighborly feeding stations but most often our own homes. It really didn't matter though the moms were an organized cabal all determined to stifle our flirtations with danger. Then it was off to playing in the construction sites and nearby woods which were gradually becoming a park. There was a natural spring to provide an illicit drink of water eliminating the need to waste time heading home. Then we'd head home for dinner, back out, and home after darkness was setting in. After dark we had to stay in out own network of approved yards until it was time to peel off all the debris acquired through the day. School days were of course different.
And now we can't take them out of our sight without some nosy do-gooder ratting you out to the fuzz.
29 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
earlybird 3/4/2020 9:42:43 AM (No. 336515)
We roamed all the time. All over our neighborhood, day and night. At 11 we were on the bus to the Saturday afternoon matinee at a local theater. One day a girlfriend rode me 6 miles on her bike to the Baldwin Estate (now the Los Angeles Arboretum), which at that time was deserted and used only for occasional movie shoots. (My late Mother didn’t know about that outing.) At 13 we hiked the trail to Mount Wilson.
We were just average kids. Not particularly mischievous. Normal. With normal parents.
27 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
skacmar 3/4/2020 9:54:45 AM (No. 336530)
Surprised they didn't ticket the mother for letting her child play on the playground without a helmet! Its amazing how we all made it to adulthood without helmets, organic food, safe spaces, and all of the other BS that is expected today. Teach the kids common sense (which it sounds like this mother had done) and they will be ok going out on their own. Stop teaching children to be afraid of their own shadows and that every stranger (especially men) is going to kidnap or sexually assault them! People are raising a bunch of kids who do not know how to take care of themselves and are afraid of everything.
18 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
fayebeck 3/4/2020 9:56:50 AM (No. 336532)
No Man is Safe. All Men are potential perverts. Making wimps out of kids and then criticizing them for not growing up. How screwed up is America. Personally I hold women mostly to blame for this hysteria. NOT ALL WOMEN FOR GOD'S SAKE....
17 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Jethro bo 3/4/2020 10:27:15 AM (No. 336569)
My how the world has changed. Good thing the kid wasn't eating a candy bar with a McDonald's soda pop. That would have been child abuse along with abandonment.
10 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
pensom2 3/4/2020 10:32:07 AM (No. 336574)
I've clicked "like" on nearly every comment above. I roamed for miles and miles on bicycles with friends in a large city in 1960-63 when I was 9-12.
It occurs to me that this unfortunate mother might have avoided this had she walked her daughter to the park on occasion and introduced herself to the other parents, explaining that she was working in the McDonald's nearby.
10 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
dbdiva 3/4/2020 10:44:49 AM (No. 336596)
I also grew up in the 50s and 60s when no one had ever heard of helicopter parents. Mine gave me their rules and as long as I obeyed them my mom never worried about where I was or what I was doing. She knew all the kids and moms on the block.
Sometimes when my dad came home for lunch he would pile us all into the back of his pickup (lots of fun but no longer allowed) and take us to the county park where we would spend an unattended afternoon until he picked us up after work. We had tons of fun and never encountered a bit of trouble.
15 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
jlw509 3/4/2020 10:57:04 AM (No. 336615)
Amen to all the above.
Somewhat more recently (20 years ago!) we homeschooled our two boys. By ages 7 and 10 they were going on their own (2 miles and across one set of train tracks and two busy intersections) to the public library, the Hands On Museum, the concert in the park or wherever.
I twice got a friendly visit from the cops about that, but they "got it" and never gave us any trouble. I eventually designed homemade ID's for both of them explaining that they were on a learning assignment with permission. No problems.
I thank God that back then we had sensible police. Because now we have sensible, self-reliant young men.
11 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 3/4/2020 11:02:44 AM (No. 336618)
Instead of berating the mother of this girl, maybe those parents should have taken her under their wing and let her play with their kids. That is what parents used to do back in the day. Isn't that what Hildabeest used to call 'it takes a village to raise a child'?
On the flip side, I can understand the cops, they are the ones who have to look for and retrieve a stolen child, either dead or alive. After awhile I imagine the cops get a little bit tired of that sad part of their job. Today's kids miss out on such a great part of childhood by not having the freedom to just play undisturbed by helicopter parents who are too scared of their own shadows to allow kids to just play.
Maybe some of the local churches in this nation could start providing a safe place for these kids to play after school. Maybe charge a small fee, based on the parent's ability to pay.
5 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Proud Texan 3/4/2020 12:23:05 PM (No. 336695)
Parents raise children to be good people. It takes a community to raise a snowflake. Isn't that what old bag Clinton said?
6 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
earlybird 3/4/2020 2:43:14 PM (No. 336856)
Do kids roller skate on the sidewalks any more? We did. No helmets, no padding anywhere, skinned knees grazed elbows, etc. We fell. We got up. We learned to be more careful.
Bikes. No helmets. I left half the skin of my upper left thigh on the asphalt paving on our street when I skidded off mine. I learned to be more careful.
I jumped a little picket fence I’d been told not to jump. It was maybe about 15” or so high. Decorative. I fell on it and ran one of the pickets in my right inner thigh. (Later, much later, when I was a principal applicant for a liquor license for a new restaurant in California, that scar was my “distinguishing mark”)
Our marvelous school playground had wonderful iron rings. We learned to not get beaned by them. Our swings were heavy wooden planks suspended by heavy iron chains. We were never very careful, but survived. We had blisters all over our palms for what seemed like years from those and our monkey bars. We played dodge ball. Viciously. We were sweaty all the time. So much physical activity. And we never walked when we could run.
8 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
chumley 3/4/2020 5:00:59 PM (No. 336928)
To illustrate another massive change since we were kids...Mom was always home to take care of us and the house, and Dad was always at work keeping a roof over our heads and our bottomless stomachs full. Everyone had a vital (and honorable) role to play and nobody was saying they didn't need the other. I knew two single parent kids my entire school career, and in both cases the parent had died. Our "no spouse needed" culture is total carp.
3 people like this.
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