Read this letter from a DC mom who is fighting charges that she neglected her child because the girl and a friend were safely walking just a few minutes from a home – the same home they could give a phone number for where their parents available to pick them up if someone was truly concerned. But some man decided that the best decision was the call the police so that the parents would be arrested for the “crime” of allowing children to play unsupervised.
If you need to bring your blood pressure back down, there’s also this story about a group of parents who decided to stand up to the extremely anti-fun and anti-kid staff at what one parent called “Worst First Play Centre of Gloom” and encouraged their kids to violate all the rules against running and having fun. The parent report says that the staff hid away in the corners when they realized they were outnumbered by people who wouldn’t be strict rule enforcers. When these most obnoxious nannies are ignored and marginalized, they back down. We need to teach more people to stand up to them.
I realize these aren’t directly “gun rights” stories, and they both come out of areas (DC & Montreal) where the parents themselves might be horribly anti-gun, but these are issues related to freedom to live your life as you choose when you aren’t infringing on anyone else’s rights.
I frequently recommend to folks that wish to cage children that they view an episode of “Dragnet” from 1954 entitled “The Big Crime”. It’s got it all: children abducted from a park, creepy adult men, sex offender registries, murder, etc.
The point being, these things were on people’s minds 60 years ago. The world (and the human race) haven’t changed all that much. And yet they didn’t totally freak out about it 60 years ago.
Live in a statist hellhole and don’t be surprised with what happens to your family if you don’t conform.
Unless you fit the “victim” class flavor of the week, that is.
This is why I don’t have children. Because between stuff like this and a child in the public school system, I’d be in prison. Because having my children damaged by people like and punished for doing no wrong would be enough to send me over the edge.
Because this is EXACTLY how I’d be raising my children and sending them out into the world. Because that is what my mother did with me at that age. My mother send us out in the morning and told us to be home by dark. I used to go everywhere. Miles out of town on my bike to the airport and from one end of the city to the other. No one batted an eyebrow.
Today, sending kids out into the neighborhood to disappear for the day without playdates or adult supervision brings out the cries of “Child abuse! Danger! Danger!”. And I have a low tolerance threshold for such busybodies where it is none of their business.
I can’t wait to have children, but… Wow, it’s gonna be trouble unless I can live in the country.
I used to live in the country, surrounded by corn fields, the next door neighbor a half mile down the road, and STILL had to deal with these types of long nosed busybodies.