a poem that sums up the Free-Range world view, sent to us by a reader Jennifer Daly, who describes herself thusly:
“I live in Shrewsbury, MA. I work in Engineering and IT. I have a 6 yr old and a 2 yr old. I have 17 yrs of Aerospace and Defense consulting with 6 yrs of being the dept IT manager in Engineering for BAE land and Armaments (combat vehicles). My husband is a fire engineer and volunteer fireman. My husband has two degrees. I have none. I am dyslexic and very innovative. I found a way to learn and grow, despite the education system’s inability to teach people who don’t fit in their standard ranges.I grew up Free-Range. I ran around the neighborhood. I let my daughter do the same. I am sure I could be criminalized for many allowances I give my children and I think that is a crime. Most of these laws are absurd and based on someone’s grief who thinks all accidents can be prevented and someone’s misguided view that we should protect with lots of laws to save our families and children from predators.So punish the predators, clean up the laws, retrain and build a CPS system that works better with the needed staff, training and family focus it is missing. Stop criminalizing parents for making informed and intentional choices for their children’s boundaries and growth. Have officers be community members that do ask and check on kids – but not something to be feared if my kid is playing at the park with friends or alone.
I had to get the words out
I had to say
We are not allowed to swim in the ocean anymore
Someone was bit by a shark
And now it’s the law
.
We can’t send our kids to the park today
Someone was kidnapped
And now it’s the law
.
There are no monkey bars today
Someone fell and broke their arm one day
Now it’s the law
.
My son was taken today
He had a bruise from chemo today
CPS couldn’t explain it they say
So my son was taken today
It’s the law
.
We can’t go sledding today
Someone hit their head on a tree one day
The town could be sued they say
No sledding today and it’s a law
.
We can’t go to the pharmacy today
Our little girl has a fever
And can’t be around other people
I am home alone
Daddy is at work
We have to wait 6 more hrs to get her meds today
I can’t leave her in the car
I can’t go in with her
I have no one to watch her
So we have to wait today
As she is sick today
As she gets worse today
Because it’s the law.
-By Jennifer Davy
23 Comments
Well said, Jennifer. If the powers that be are serious about protecting kids, they will first outlaw traveling by car, our most frequent high risk activity. If they are not willing to do this, then the criminalization of parents for thoughtfully allowing reasonable risk activities will never be anything but wrong and ridiculous. What is the ultimate value we seek to uphold? Safe kids? Capable kids? Can the convenience of using cars negate the pursuit of safety? I am only asking the question to throw the absurdity of these decisions into a brighter light.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/georgia-senate-passes-hot-car-bill/nkHzT/
This one is just a law encouraging people to break car windows any time they see someone inside who “might” be suffocating. And we all know what experts people are when looking through tinted windows through a filter of mindless panic.
By the way, LEAVE THE WINDOWS ALL THE WAY DOWN if you leave your kid in the car. DON’T leave the engine running and the A/C on. The safest thing to do is leave the windows open. Fear not random molesters and abductors. It’s better that everyone see your children clearly in the car, and clearly capable of remaining there comfortably for a few minutes.
This is AWESOME!! so true!! The problem is: how do we get back to sanity?
If you really think school rules have anything to do with safety, take a look at this:
http://www.jems.com/article/news/california-principal-blocked-a
That was in 2010. So what happened to the principal, Liz Seabury? She remained at Del Mar HS until 2012 and is now principal of Sir Francis Drake High School in San Aselmo, California.
From the JEMS article:
“I was told not to let vehicles onto the field,” she said.
Well, there you have it. People trust this moron to educate their kids.
By the way, don’t most states have laws against impeding emergency responders? In CT we certainly do.
Bad laws do not allow for common sense and this poem well expressed that.
A legal adage is “Corner cases made bad law.” The wiki article is interesting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_cases_make_bad_law
I still say, FEAR IS PROFITABLE. As long as people can make money off of people’s fears, insecurities, and paranoia, there will always be the perpetual conditioning of these people to keep being fearful and ignorant. These are multi-billion dollar industries. That’s more than enough incentive to mess with people’s minds.
Somewhere, somehow, someone is benefiting from all these ridiculous rules and laws popping up. It’s easier to deal with what they have without spending money for training, retraining, and infrastructure to accommodate a free range society, like we used to have. Than it is to actually do what is necessary for what is best for the children. NOT what they think is best. Money saved, goes into these people’s pockets.
I also never understood the mentality of these authorities that make one blanket rule for ALL children. When each children are different. The smart, resourceful, adventurous children are held back because rules and regulations are catered to the fearful, and timid children who are fearful because they learned to be fearful from their parents and other adults who would influence them.
“Never again!”
That’s the battle cry I always hear whenever these new laws and suggestions come out. As if it makes up for the mistakes of the past, but the problem is no one is willing to argue against most of these in the heat of the moment because emotions run high and if you go against grieving parents you come off as heartless. It’s too bad we can’t have a grace period for these things so grief dies away and you can have a serious debate about these laws.
The town I grew up in banned ice cream trucks. Because one time someone’s granddaughter got hit by someone driving around the truck when she ran into the road. I learned real early how stupid laws get made.
@TM
“The town I grew up in banned ice cream trucks. Because one time someone’s granddaughter got hit by someone driving around the truck when she ran into the road”
That’s like banning transoceanic flights because Charles Lindbergh’s son was kidnapped and killed.
Nice poem, Jennifer. I would like to add one more if I may:
My 17 year old son’s girlfriend sent him a nude photo of herself yesterday.
Her parents found the photo in her phone and contacted the police today.
My son will be a registered sex offender which will prevent him from living in on-campus housing next year and will limit career opportunities for him today, tomorrow, and the rest of his life.
It’s the law.
Lenore,
Like the book series “——— for Dummies”.
We need a “Civil Disobedience for Free Rangers”.
TM- ice cream trucks aren’t allowed in my hometown either but to our knowledge (and my folks have lived there since 1980!) it’s because the sound is annoying and not because of any accident!
“If the powers that be are serious about protecting kids, they will first outlaw traveling by car, our most frequent high risk activity.”
I get really tired of this argument. A car accident may be more common than abduction, but it is absolutely not a common occurrence. At least not a serious car accident. The fact is that most people will travel by vehicle multiple times a day and extremely few of them will ever die in a car accident.
@TM
“The town I grew up in banned ice cream trucks. Because one time someone’s granddaughter got hit by someone driving around the truck when she ran into the road”
They should also ban children running into the road.
———–
I agree. Except for the part about CPS. When there is a bureaucracy that runs on public funds, that is rewarded for the more “work” it does, that uses it’s power to punish those it deems guilty of something, there will always be corruption and abuse of power. And considering the little feuds and spats that go on in my little town, I can’t even see volunteers being able to “check on others”. Well, maybe, but I doubt it. Used to be people did this without being nudged to. Now we have two extremes: busybodies who stick their nose in where it shouldn’t be or not knowing your neighbors at all and not caring. And a public that tries and convicts in the court of “public opinion”.
I also have to add that some “children” know that CPS is a weapon.
Children who don’t know the pandora’s box they are opening when they become involved.
I know a male gym teacher who quit his job, because a 14yr old threatened to report him for sexual abuse if he didn’t buy her beer. Never mind that he’s innocent, he’d be guilty and put through the wringer fighting that. And lose everything in the process.
Every 10 yr old knows that the system is broken and can be used against an adult they don’t like, and because they are children don’t know the repercussions of their actions.
@Donna A car accident may be more common than abduction, but it is absolutely not a common occurrence.
In any given year there are about 168,000 to 172,000 kids under 15 who are injured or killed in car accidents in the USA. With 61 million kids under age 15 in the US, that is something like a 0.3% chance of any one of them getting hurt in a car accident in a given year. Not terribly common (roughly the same probability as giving birth to identical twins), but common enough to be careful.
Do you have a better analogy for putting these types of fears into perspective?
I get really tired of this argument. A car accident may be more common than abduction, but it is absolutely not a common occurrence. At least not a serious car accident. The fact is that most people will travel by vehicle multiple times a day and extremely few of them will ever die in a car accident.
I’ve always taken that as the point:
Serious injuries and deaths from car accidents aren’t all that common – I’d say I respond to a car accident roughly twice a week on our stretch of I-95, and very, very rarely find serious injuries – yet they’re the biggest statistical risk we face. So stop freaking out about every other damn thing if the rate of car accidents isn’t enough to get you worked up, demanding laws, etc.
I’m not terribly worried that I’ll get into a car accident tomorrow, but it’s still far more likely than that I’ll be burned alive by religious fundamentalists tomorrow.
In short, I didn’t take the point to be “look how many car accidents there are!” but rather that our biggest risk is still small enough that we don’t worry about it all that much.
At the same time, when we have opportunities, we make cars safer. We object to knowingly placing gas tanks in dangerous places on the basis of a comparison between costs incurred from resulting deaths and the costs of putting the tank somewhere else; we have made drunk driving something that just isn’t done and is punished if it is done; we wear seatbelts. What we don’t do is run around like chickens that were beheaded by ISIS about cars – and so we shouldn’t do it about things that are far less dangerous.
The thing that bothers me the most is when a “[Specific Child’s Name’s] Law” is written. I mean, yes, it was sad that one child got lost, or abducted, or injured, or had an anaphylactic reaction because there was a trace of her allergen in the school French fries, but naming a law after a specific child, is a bit much, because kids got lost, and abducted, and injured, and had anaphylactic reactions, and even died from preventable accidents, before that law was written, but naming the law after THAT ONE CHILD implies that they didn’t, and that THAT ONE CHILD is somehow special enough to warrant making a law against whatever apparently caused the unfortunate event to happen. Maybe that child was a great kid–smart, friendly, intelligent, popular, and photogenic to boot, but I’m still not entirely comfortable with the idea of effectively turning a deceased child into some kind of kid royalty, in the name of “safety.”
Also, some of these laws don’t necessarily make things safer. For example, take Caylee’s Law, which makes it mandatory to report a missing child immediately. Now, suppose it’s a typical Saturday morning, and your ten-year-old leaves in the morning for the park, or the library, or a friend’s house, intending to return in time for lunch at twelve o’clock. If you correctly follow Caylee’s Law, and report the child missing if he or she doesn’t return right at twelve, then it’s effectively “crying wolf” and misusing police resources if the child arrives home late but unhurt, for whatever reason–crossed wire, attempted to call/text with the change in plans, but the message didn’t get through, or even just typical kid carelessness. It also gives a very black-and-white definition of “missing,” as “any time your child isn’t physically with you, or at a specific supervised location.” Even during my childhood, a lot of what we’d call “missing” now, would be viewed as “out playing somewhere.” The flip side is true too–Sabrina’s Law, for instance, made it legal for any adult staff member at a school or kid-oriented place, to administer Epi-Pen to a child having an anaphylactic reaction. That’s a great law, but it should have been the status quo right from the beginning. Then it wouldn’t be called Sabrina’s Law; it’d just be called “common sense.”
I would like another stanza added
My kids cannot run barefoot any more
Someone has stubbed a toe
Now it’s the law
Better living through lawyers.
Fear of litigation is manufacturing other fears (real or imagined). Municipalities and all governments enact bad laws out of fear of litigation. Doing nothing somehow makes them more culpable. In our culture, too many people want to remain blameless for their misfortunes and look to affix blame elsewhere (litigate).
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can hardly believe it has come to me thanking you for common sense. But it has. and. Thank you again.