Free Range Kids

[O Really]

The couple "neglecting" their kids by letting them walk home from the park is harassed again, and is now going to sue... http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/free-r ... ?ocid=iehp

I wish I had expertise in that area and a Maryland license. I'd do it for them pro bono.

Free Range Rules!

(from somebody who rode a city bus to school in the first grade and remembers the only rule to be "be home by dark")

[Mr.B]

This is a real for sure conundrum. Who do we determine who is right? Maybe this should have been posted in the 'Big Brother is Watching You' thread.

There was a statement made in the article that read thusly:

“We must ask ourselves how we reached the point where a parent’s biggest fear is that government officials will literally seize our children off the streets as they walk in our neighborhoods” As a parent, I would also ask:

“We must ask ourselves how we reached the point where a parent’s biggest fear is that a sexual predator will literally seize our children off the streets as they walk in our neighborhoods”

Again, who do we determine who is right? We all saw the video a few weeks back where the pedophile snatched up the little boy right in front of his sister. If I were the parents of those kids, I'd be paranoid.

[Colonel Taylor]

This is a real for sure conundrum. Who do we determine who is right? Maybe this should have been posted in the 'Big Brother is Watching You' thread.

There was a statement made in the article that read thusly:

“We must ask ourselves how we reached the point where a parent’s biggest fear is that government officials will literally seize our children off the streets as they walk in our neighborhoods” As a parent, I would also ask:

I would have been picked up every day of my life. At 5 years old I was walking two city blocks to school, then when we moved I was walking two blocks on what we called the highway but was like 64 is now to a bus stop.

“We must ask ourselves how we reached the point where a parent’s biggest fear is that a sexual predator will literally seize our children off the streets as they walk in our neighborhoods”

Again, who do we determine who is right? We all saw the video a few weeks back where the pedophile snatched up the little boy right in front of his sister. If I were the parents of those kids, I'd be paranoid.

I started to allow my oldest to get off the bus at 10 and wait till I got home, a total of 20 minutes and a nosy neighbor called the law on me and DSS got involved. THEY went to the school and interviewed him and his teachers without my consent and decided he was to young and I was forced to put him in after school car at a cost of $80.00 a week for less then half an hour, the shittiest part was having to drive 1/2 hour in the opposite direction of my youngest daycare everyday to get him. Ahh the good ole days!

[Mr.B]

When you and I were kids, we did walk everywhere, and with no fear. The biggest thing I feared was dogs....big dogs!

Nowadays, with sexual predators becoming more and more emboldened by their perverse lusting for children, and the slim chances of their being caught, more and more kids are being snatched from their own neighborhoods.

I really don't know how to begin to address this situation; I do the authorities and neighbors involved are genuinely concerned about the kid's safety given what society is today; yet I see the parent's side of teaching their kids personal responsibility.

As stated...a real conundrum.

[O Really]

It's a totally fabricated and unsubstantiated fear that kids will get snatched off the street by perverts. Some do, and those relatively few cases are told and repeated ad infinitim. Let's see what some numbers might be:

According to a variety of sources, part of "Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement",
U.S. Department of Justice

"Adults were the offender in 60% of the sexual assaults of youth under age 12. Rarely were the offenders of young victims strangers. Strangers were the offender in just 3% of sexual assaults against victims under age 6 and 5% of the sexual assault of victimizations of youth ages 6 through 11.

Acquaintance perpetrators are the most common abusers, constituting approximately 70-90% of all reported perpetrators.


• 89% of child sexual assault cases involve persons known to the child, such as a caretaker or family acquaintance.


• 29% of child sexual abuse offenders are relatives, 60% are acquaintances, and only 11% are strangers.


• For the vast majority of child victimizers in State prison, the victim was someone they knew before the crime. 1/3 had committed their crime against their own child, about 1/2 had a relationship with the victim as a friend, acquaintance, or relative other than offspring, about 1 in 7 reported the victim to have been a stranger to them.

• 3/4 of the violent victimizations of children took place in either the victim's home or the offenders home.

Statistically, the kids are safer on the street on the way home from the park than they are at home or the neighbor's house.

[Colonel Taylor]

It's a totally fabricated and unsubstantiated fear that kids will get snatched off the street by perverts. Some do, and those relatively few cases are told and repeated ad infinitim. Let's see what some numbers might be:

According to a variety of sources, part of "Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement",
U.S. Department of Justice

"Adults were the offender in 60% of the sexual assaults of youth under age 12. Rarely were the offenders of young victims strangers. Strangers were the offender in just 3% of sexual assaults against victims under age 6 and 5% of the sexual assault of victimizations of youth ages 6 through 11.

Acquaintance perpetrators are the most common abusers, constituting approximately 70-90% of all reported perpetrators.


• 89% of child sexual assault cases involve persons known to the child, such as a caretaker or family acquaintance.


• 29% of child sexual abuse offenders are relatives, 60% are acquaintances, and only 11% are strangers.


• For the vast majority of child victimizers in State prison, the victim was someone they knew before the crime. 1/3 had committed their crime against their own child, about 1/2 had a relationship with the victim as a friend, acquaintance, or relative other than offspring, about 1 in 7 reported the victim to have been a stranger to them.

• 3/4 of the violent victimizations of children took place in either the victim's home or the offenders home.

Statistically, the kids are safer on the street on the way home from the park than they are at home or the neighbor's house.

When it does happen it's replayed endlessly till the next news story comes along. Before 24-7 endless news you may of heard it once and that would have been in a local paper then it was gone.

[O Really]

When it does happen it's replayed endlessly till the next news story comes along. Before 24-7 endless news you may of heard it once and that would have been in a local paper then it was gone.

That, and the constant fear-mongering. Every newscast on every station will always have at least one story in which they say "something bad happened in West Boondock. Stay tuned and we'll tell you how to protect your family." Nevermind that what happened in West Boondock was unusual, possibly unique, and in any case highly unlikely to happen to anybody else. If it's not "all crime all the time" or "if it bleeds it leads," it's "all fear, danger is near."

[Mr.B]

The kidnap/rape/death of one child, regardless where or by whom, is one too many.

I'd much rather see children of that age group be accompanied by an adult; if I were the parents of children in that age group and I cared one iota about their safety, I would accompany them.

The sickening part of all this is the basis of this article; that there are people out there who view small children merely as sex objects, something to satisfy their perverted lusts...and then thrown out as trash.

[Boatrocker]

. . . If it's not "all crime all the time" or "if it bleeds it leads," it's "all fear, danger is near."

Remember the McMartin Daycare circus back in the early 90s? Media jackels, ignorant cops and some prosecutors running for office ruined several lives and businesses over purely made-up, wildass tales of satan worship and pederast orgies in daycare centers. And it was all bullshit.

[Colonel Taylor]

. . . If it's not "all crime all the time" or "if it bleeds it leads," it's "all fear, danger is near."

Remember the McMartin Daycare circus back in the early 90s? Media jackels, ignorant cops and some prosecutors running for office ruined several lives and businesses over purely made-up, wildass tales of satan worship and pederast orgies in daycare centers. And it was all bullshit.

he Wee Care case that sentenced Kelly Michaels to prison for 47 years was typical of the child-abuse hysteria that gripped the United States in the 1980s.

[JTA]

Free range kids taste infinitely better than factory farmed kids.

[Mr.B]

"Free range kids taste infinitely better than factory farmed kids."

Like your avatar says...."You are (definitely) bewitched!" Hansel and Gretel much?



Banni...can I get out of the brig and get my commander's rank back..? I ben a goot boy! (lately)

[O Really]

. . . If it's not "all crime all the time" or "if it bleeds it leads," it's "all fear, danger is near."

Remember the McMartin Daycare circus back in the early 90s? Media jackels, ignorant cops and some prosecutors running for office ruined several lives and businesses over purely made-up, wildass tales of satan worship and pederast orgies in daycare centers. And it was all bullshit.

Yeah, that was a mess. And, maybe to a lesser degree, it still happens. I'm all for doing a thorough investigation of allegations of child abuse, but I seem to remember something about an "innocent 'til proven guilty" phrase somewhere. I know it's a broken record (whatever that is), but I still want to know why a parent can be prosecuted for leaving their 5-year old at home while they go shopping and nobody gets hurt, but get by with an "opps" when the kid shoots his sister (as long as they're home when he does it).

[Seth Milner]

We live in a one more totally screwed up world.
What used to be right is now wrong.
What used to be wrong is now right.

Brings to mind remember when air was clean and sex was dirty?
Now they're both totally filthy, so is human attitudes and trust.

[O Really]

We live in a one more totally screwed up world.
What used to be right is now wrong.
What used to be wrong is now right.

Brings to mind remember when air was clean and sex was dirty?
Now they're both totally filthy, so is human attitudes and trust.

Standards change - "right" and "wrong" require a context - neither is absolute.
Air in lots of places is cleaner than it once was. Been to Pittsburgh, NYC, LA lately?
Sex is neither clean nor dirty except within the mind.
Do you have a point here, somewhere?

Welcome to the forum.

[rstrong]

We live in a one more totally screwed up world.
What used to be right is now wrong.
What used to be wrong is now right.

When I was growing up, we lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation. Not any more. While there are brush-fire wars, they're wars that - lacking cool same-day video and whatnot - would have been barely noticed in the west 40 years ago.

Just a few years earlier, blacks had to go to the back of the bus in parts of the US. Other forms of government-allowed racism still existed. But not any more, not by a long shot. And now another battle for civil rights - same-sex marriage - is essentially over. Civil rights won, and we're just in the clean-up stage.

Crime rates have been dropping steadily for decades. Yes, those selling news services or political parties will try to convince you otherwise, but they've been dropping. Divorce rates have been dropping for a generation too.

The biggest pollution messes are left-overs from generations past, rather than being created today. Cars are far, FAR cleaner. Coal is used much less, and even then with coal scrubbers.

Medical technology is better than ever. Some scientists believe that the first person to live to 150 is not only alive today, but is already a senior citizen.

In many ways, we're living in a golden age. The media lets us notice the remaining problems more.

Let others praise ancient times; I for one am glad I was born in these.
- Ovid (43BC - AD18)

Now they're both totally filthy, so is human attitudes and trust.

An Assyrian clay tablet dating to around 2800 B.C. bears the inscription: “Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.”
- Smithsonian.com

[Seth Milner]

Thank you.
Yes, I have a point namely to do with the original question posed here. Who is right and who is wrong.
You said (from somebody who rode a city bus to school in the first grade and remembers the only rule to be "be home by dark")

I too used to roam freely when I was a child, from the age of 6 until I got my license.
I thought nothing of being gone from home hours at a time.
Mama never worried about me or the kid who lived next door who was my best friend.
Nowadays, as a grown man I hardly will walk anywhere by myself.
I think the neighbors in this case are concerned with the safety of the children as well as are the authorities.
Yes standards change, so do people. I really don't know what is the proper way to express this. The parents have rights, the kids have rights,
but it's like turning your kids loose in a jungle, and sometimes it can be like taking your life in your own hands.
I would hate to read in the news one day that the parents won their case, and later read that the kids were harmed by the evil
that's prevailing in our society. That's my point.

[Seth Milner]

testing

[Seth Milner]

Why am I getting this message when I post? I've never gotten anything like that in any other forum.



This message has been submitted successfully, but it will need to be approved by a moderator before it is publicly viewable. You will be notified when your post has been approved.

[Mr.B]

"Crime rates have been dropping steadily for decades. Yes, those selling news services or political parties will try to convince you otherwise, but they've been dropping."
I disagree with that, rstrong, but to be fair, where do you get your source of information that supports that? Maybe it's because the news media chase stories such as this more fervently, but it appears that sex crimes against children have dramatically increased over the last few years. Even well-known celebrities are being involved in crimes against children.

"Divorce rates have been dropping for a generation too."
Well I guess they have....."ain't no body gettin' married anymore, they're perferrin' to shack up together"

"The biggest pollution messes are left-overs from generations past, rather than being created today."
I dunno if that's totally true either, depending of course on what part of the world you're in. Some folks from our church went on a mission trip to India not long ago...family toilets in some areas was a limb hanging over a creek. Use your imagination about the brand of toilet paper.

"Cars are far, FAR cleaner. Coal is used much less, and even then with coal scrubbers."
Agreed

"Medical technology is better than ever."
Ain't God good!

"Some scientists believe that the first person to live to 150 is not only alive today, but is already a senior citizen."
Uhhhhh...what?

"In many ways, we're living in a golden age. The media lets us notice the remaining problems more."
Yep, less caring, lazy, gimme, gimme, gimme, etc. Yep, you gotta love "People of Walmart"

"Let others praise ancient times; I for one am glad I was born in these- Ovid (43BC - AD18)"
Agree

Now they're both totally filthy, so is human attitudes and trust.

"An Assyrian clay tablet dating to around 2800 B.C. bears the inscription: “Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.”
- Smithsonian.com
".....one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."