Somehow, seeing a naked 4 year old running around in front of his house (that is, the kid in front of the kid’s own house) conjured up worst-first thoughts in a neighbor, even though, if the neighbor paused a second, he’d have a hard time articulating exactly what “crime” he thought he was witnessing.
The story out of British Columbia, as reported by the CBC, is this:
Ian McIlwaine of Squamish, B.C., said his family is “shaken and very upset” after RCMP, responding to a complaint by neighbours, visited the family’s home because his four-year-old son was playing in the yard naked.
On Sunday, McIlwaine took advantage of the warm weather to wax his car outside his home, with his two sons, Tyler, and Conner, 6, playing nearby.
“First hot day of spring, and they’re itching to get outside after a long Canadian winter and first thing they want to do is have a water fight,” he told The Early Edition’s Rick Cluff.
Tyler got his pants wet and McIlwaine told him to put on some shorts. Instead, the boy emerged from the house naked.
Well if that’s not a crime, what is, right? So a few days later when the dad happened to be out of town, the cops showed up at the family’s home:
The police were at the house for more than half an hour, telling [wife Margita] her that there could be “further action” if the child is found outdoors naked again.
Further action pertaining to what? There’s no evidence of abuse, no evidence of neglect, no evidence of anything except an uptight neighbor and a giddy kid. The cops told the parents that they “had” to respond because the call involved a child.
But once they responded and saw that the incident was, just like the boy, plain as day and completely innocent– why wasn’t that it? In Canada as in the U.S.: Just because the police are called to investigate a family, that doesn’t make the family worthy of investigation. – L
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The real kicker here is that apparently their house was broken into a couple years back and the cops couldn’t investigate that because they ‘didn’t have enough resources’:
“My house was broken into in the middle of the day, while my wife and two then-younger kids were eating lunch. The police never even came,” explained McIlwaine. “Yet, when someone is ‘offended’ by a naked 4-year-old, they drive on out here (and) spend over 30 minutes basically saying we are parenting wrong.”
That’s from the article on the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/04/29/ian-mcilwaine-squamish-naked-son_n_7175482.html
So the cops have time to investigate a harmless bit of fun on a hot day but not a burglary in broad daylight? Hmm…priorities seem to have been mixed up here.
The neighbor probably believed the naked boy escaped from the clutches of sex traffickers. Because children couldn’t possibly be naked for any other reason, could they?
It’s astounding that the Victorians, whom we think of as very prudish, were perfectly fine with little kids swimming and frolicking naked. They saw naked kids as innocent while we see them as porn fodder. There’s something very sad in that.
Where is Tom Lehrer when we need him? We could really use a spirited little ditty called, “Parents, Don’t Ever Let Your Children Be Naked” right about now.
I feel sorry for the police. They have to play ‘step and fetch it’ to a crazy neighbor that is bored, wants attention, and likes to get a response like and 8 month old baby that keeps throwing their spoon of the ground in order to watch mommy pick it up.
They are blocking access to this article on Facebook. Tried to share and it wouldn’t allow
This is the kind of crap that scares me. My four year old runs naked through the house all the time (usually on his way to/from the bathroom or the tub). When we were potty training him, he was naked in the (fenced in) backyard all the time, slathered in sunscreen. To him, it was fine and normal and, quite frankly, I agree that it’s fine and normal. Granted, I don’t want him running around the front yard naked but it could happen, especially as the younger one gets bigger.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/squamish-rcmp-respond-to-uproar-about-complaint-naked-child-not-the-issue-1.3054599
There has been a huge uproar in the local media about this and the police have apologized to the family and closed their file. Still wish this had never happened, but at least it looks like this is an end to it.
I saw a kid about 5 or so outside naked once in front of his house. Funny story. His older brother was yelling at him to go back in the house and put clothes on or he was telling their parents. The little boy said “No you can’t because they are in their room taking a nap with the door locked!” LOL meaning they were having sex.
I thought it was hilarious. It was summer. There was no danger. The neighbors across the street were hanging out watching out for him and its a safe neighborhood.
Best part- the said Dad of that naked little boy? A cop.
Renee- I also let my twin boys take their pottys out in the yard when they were potty training in summer. I told them to pull their pants down and go right there if they need to in the front yard. Not exactly classy but hey, it got the job done.
Absurd. I hope I don’t get the cops called on me when I change a diaper outside so I don’t have to haul all the older kids in the house (older like 2 and 3 on a main road with no fence). Or when I have had them change out of their swimsuits outside to keep the water out of my house… Or let them go swimming naked in the creek at my grandparent’s house. People are way, way to uptight.
Facebook isn’t blocking access, there’s a platform-wide bug: http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/30/8525239/facebook-bug-links-scraping
@Helen, your article hints that there might be something fishy with the complaint itself:
“However, as for the explanation that the complaint was originally about “child safety,” McIlwaine said he didn’t see his boys playing in the street.
It’s not clear why the neighbour, who has not been identified, waited three days to complain to police if the concern was indeed about safety.”
Especially the fact that the complain was apparently filed 3 days after the fact is very strange. I suspect there were ulterior motives behind the complaint and the police should investigate that. In Canada wasting police time is a criminal offence and it definitely includes wilfully misleading the police into entering an unnecessary investigation.
Don’t all kids go through a naked phase? I once let my then-2-year-old run through a public (grassy!) park wearing nothing but sunscreen, a Pull-Up, and a hat. Hey, she was happy.
Years ago I was in our front yard with two younger cousins 5 and 8 I think. A neighbor saw the 8 yo do a base ball slide, and scream. Then I grabbed him up and start stripping him to his underwear. Neighbor’s reaction – run across the street, grab the hose, and turn it on him.
Cousin’s baseball slide had landed him in a fire ant bed. They were all up in his clothes.
I’m glad things weren’t this bad the summer my 21yo was 5. I could NOT keep that boy in clothes, and was at my wits end how to deal with it. I think every neighbor on the block saw him in his birthday suit.
I would like to see a story done on the affects that having the police or cps or even a security guard stop a child and call the parents or even arrest the parents have on the child, the long term damage these things do to a child is horrible, I know because I am living it with my son and yet I don’t see any story’s about what these things do to our children all for being allowed to be kids and play at a park or go into a store and pay for their things with their allowance they earned, when is this gonna stop, when is there gonna be a line that’s not crossed, let the parent decide what the child can do not the police, http://www.gofundme.com/mykq5s there’s more of my story & Lenore wrote about it few wks ago, does anyone think or care what’s this does to the child.
>>Don’t all kids go through a naked phase? I once let my then-2-year-old run through a public (grassy!) park wearing nothing but sunscreen, a Pull-Up, and a hat. Hey, she was happy.<<
I think most people would consider that MORE okay than "completely naked," because she was wearing some form of underpants. Still, I agree that a four-year-old boy running outside naked, doesn't warrant police intervention, especially when those same police previously "didn't have enough resources" to deal with a break-in at that same house. Maybe the police force was tapped out arresting another parent of an exhibitionist, or detaining school-aged kids who were playing outside without an adult.
A few years ago, I was on a streetcar excursion in San Francisco. Heading inbound on Market St., I saw two young men walking the other way on the sidewalk. At first I thought they might be wearing something really skimpy, like Speedo swimming attire, but nope, they were as naked as the proverbial jaybirds. They weren’t even “streaking”, just walking along enjoying the pleasant weather. There was no sign of the local police force racing to the scene, ready to deploy blankets and hustle them off to the calaboose. Nope, just another day in Baghdad by the Bay (as Herb Caen called it).
Happy to see in the comments on these articles my fellow Canadians bashing the heck out of the nosey neighbour and the RCMP on this one.
“When it involves a child, we HAVE to respond….”
Yeah, here’s an example of “respond”: “Sorry to have bothered you, clearly there’s nothing wrong here!”
Instead of, “Well, if we hear about this happening again, we’ll have to take further action.”
GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH further action on what???? Kids playing???? GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
If just one naked kid requires a police officer then they’ll probably have to send the whole SWAT team to our street once summer comes and the sprinklers come out.
What the article left out is that the child was placed on the sex offender registry for life. Because we all know that naked 4-year-olds are perverts.
Apparently this would have been me as a kid, my mother used to love reminding me that in summer I’d end up running naked in the yard at almost any moment, and the fact that in every house around us there were mostly daughters of various ages.
I guess in this day and age I’d probably be in CPS’ hands already…
I married a woman – many years ago – with 2 children; 7 yr old girl and 4 yr old boy.
My son, like so many 4 yr old boys, had more energy than sense and little concept of propriety.
That is why one day I found myself chasing him down the driveway with him both naked (it was bath time) and calling out “Mommy, Mommy” as my wife drove off to work.
So I am a grown man chasing – in public – a young naked boy yelling for his Mommy – and I am not his father.
Funny then…scary now.
I sincerely hope Mr. McIlwaine’s neighbour is so embarrassed by this whole situation that he/she thinks twice before ever calling the police on anyone again. I also hope Mr. McIlwaine is more forgiving than I would be, as I would find it very hard to ever talk to or look at that neighbour again.
Ahh, at that age you should still get away with indecent exposure 😀
I got a Facebook “security check” for trying to share this story!!!! Geez, our society has become hyper-Victorian about “naked boy” or something. Ugh.
You know, the very people who complain about kids nowadays being “sexualized” are actually doing the sexualizing of kids themselves. They’ll look for something that’s not there. A while ago, I was watching a talk show on TV where they were discussing the selling of two-piece bathing suits to < 5-year-old girls. Now little girls have been wearing two-piece bathing suits for years but this particular bathing suit ruffled the feathers of the panel because the bottom part had a tie string. They were saying how creepy it was and that we were "sexualizing" our children and inflaming the passion of pedophiles. Personally, I believe it was this panel of ladies who were doing the sexualizing. Goodness, little pre-school girls have absolutely no cleavage whatsoever. Many times when they jump in the water, one of the two pieces slides off anyways so what is the big deal about a tie string? But apparently this panel thought the company was catering to pedophiles. Good grief.
In another situation, years ago, the pedophile patrol we have here in the United States was flaming hot at Calvin Klein for "sexualizing" little boys in an underwear commercial. The ad featured about 3 or so little boys jumping up and down on a bed wearing Calvin Klein BOXER shorts. Not briefs mind you but BOXER shorts that almost came down to their knees. The ad was in slow motion so you could see the shine and resiliency of the boxers as the boys jumped up and down. The ad was trying to get across that not only are Calvin Klein Boxers comfortable to sleep in but they're also comfortable to play in right before bedtime. At least THAT is what I got from the commercial. But nooooo, somebody somewhere saw something in that commercial that wasn't there (because the little boys were jumping up and down on a bed) and before you knew it, word was out that Calvin Klein was advertising to pedophiles and the whole country got stirred up about it. This eventually forced Calvin Klein to apologize and pull the ad.
Goodness gracious, what are people thinking and why do they think that way?
One of my cousins did something like that when he was 2 or 3 — ran out of the house stark naked and off down the street (which happened to be a busy thoroughfare). How did the neighborhood respond? It’s just one of the funny things kids do — everyone had a laugh, the wayward child was recaptured, and all went on about their own business.
Apparently kids being kids, and adults unable to prevent every act of kids being kids, are now considered criminal acts by the terminally meddlesome busybodies.
Yet as the first comment mentions — *actual* criminal acts go uninvestigated. I’ve encountered this myself — a bad tenant did $15,000 worth of damage and theft, and I even found some of my property at their relatives’ house, but cops would not even take a report because I didn’t actually witness the theft and couldn’t “prove” that anything had been stolen. A friend’s pickup truck (value around $12,000) got stolen and he even found his truck in the thief’s possession, but the cops wouldn’t investigate … in fact they got rather annoyed when he mentioned that Grand Theft Auto is technically a crime…
But here we are investigating wayward toddlers, in case their parents might have thrown them out naked on the lawn, and thereby might make a nicely spectacular case for the District Attorney to capitalize on come the next election.
There was a problem with Facebook yesterday; it rejected almost anything with a link. I don’t think it had to do with the word “naked”.
@John,
“A while ago, I was watching a talk show on TV where they were discussing the selling of two-piece bathing suits to < 5-year-old girls. "
And here I was thinking that two piece suits and with stringed bottoms sounded like an innovation to make it quick to get a little kid out of wet clingy fabric, or allow them to do it independently, so they could *gasp* use the potty, instead of winding up peeing on the floor. Haven't any of those people been in a seconds count potty situation?
@Bob…that’s because until very recently it was legal to walk around naked in San Francisco. My girls’ dad lives in Oakland so they’ve spent quite a bit of time there with him. They love to share the story about the time they were in SF and they saw a man walking around naked. They were probably around 10 and 7 at the time yet somehow they aren’t damaged by what they saw. They giggled about it for a long time and went on with their lives.
When I was potty-training my very stubborn almost 4 year old, I had him running around naked for almost 2 weeks. Thank God I’ve got awesome neighbors.
The truth is, when we stayed in Britain (exactly Wales) 17 yrs ago, I was warned by our acquaintance that it is considered “inappropriate” to let your toddler run naked outside (we are talking about a beach now) or pee outside. If not warned, well, I could be in a trouble, though British police, in my experience, is nothing comparing to some tough US guys…
Kids with sensory processing issues tear off their clothes any chance they get, but for that matter, my parents loved to tell the tale of how I “streaked” out of our yard and across our street before I was intercepted. Oddly, I don’t remember anyone mentioning CPS. And when my toddlers were nearing the age for potty training, but not there, I would take them to park and pull off their pants and diapers for some nakey butt time to try to help their diaper rash. All the parents seemed to understand why I was doing it. Kids love being naked. I can’t believe the police even did anything.
Why is the RCMP investigating and not the local police? Is this a National crime or is it such rural area that they have no local police?
I took my kids camping the other day, we spent a night at a caravan park and as I was setting up the tent I looked up to see my 3yo, some distance away, run past naked. I stopped what I was doing and found her, and there was my 5yo also naked.
I gathered them, and their clothes, and walked back to the tentsite. My husband took one look and shook his head. These girls are much happier being naked.
We have a rule at our house – you are not allowed outside the house unless you at least have undies on, a rule I have great difficulty enforcing!
*shrug* So much less washing, and sometimes at the end of a weekend we will realise that our kids haven’t worn a stitch of clothing in 2 days – oh to be so free!!
My eldest (5yo) is starting to understand our culture and the kids at the caravan park teased her a little for her nakedness. I wanted to step in an tell a 10yo boy that my kids are still too young to understand, or at least to loudly proclaim “well I wish I could jump on a trampoline naked too, because it looks fun!!” Ha, but I didn’t, though I did tell my daughter, who was confused by his comments, that I would prefer a naked kid over a rude kid any day of the week.
1. NEVER call or talk to the police.
2. If they show up anyway, ask for a warrant, and don’t let them in unless they produce one. Ignore any threats or things like “do you have anything to hide?”. Read the warrant and unless it is correct, tell them to stop trespassing.
3. See #1, but also explicitly assert your right to remain silent and ask for a lawyer. It will be better to end up in jail and have your attorney sue the city and state into bankruptcy than to say one wrong thing and lose your kids forever.
4. If you are doing FRK, then find a family attorney, spend a few bucks discussing for an hour and have him ready to defend you when CPS shows up. This is a complex legal game. You wouldn’t try to remove your own appendix, so don’t play lawyer.
There are a few good cops, and CPS workers, but the majority have declared war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
It is unfortunate but this isn’t Mayberry and the officer isn’t Andy Griffith. They are more like the fake in Terminator 2. Things may change, but today you must think like you are a Jew in 1939 Berlin.
I am with a company called Legal Shield, we have a Family Plan that Protects the family against stupid and frivolous issues like this. I think that everyone needs our service just to protect the child when a police comes up to our home with C. P. S. in tow and try’s to take our kids away. We have 24/7 access to an Attorney so if my child is walking home at 9 PM and is kidnaped by a Cop and taken to the police station, my child can call his or her Lawyer and let them talk to the Police.
CLamb,
B.C. is one of those provinces without a provincial police force. Instead the provincial government pays the RCMP to act as the provincial police force, and if the area does not have it’s own municipal force, it falls on the RCMP.
In Ontario we have the O.P.P, and in a lot of rural areas they are the local police.
The sight of a naked child could be traumatic for some confused people who think exposed genital organs are a crime against nature, even though humans are the only mammals who hide the genital organs. The most intelligent mammals – chimps, bonobos, dolphins – even have sex in public.
What if someone took a picture? There are so many child pornographers about just waiting for a random child to play outside their house naked. I’m being sarcastic.
Had to laugh. More than once, when I was 4 and my mother was very pregnant, my 2-year old twin sisters escaped while they were being bathed. My Mom could not run, so I was delegated to chase them down (they always headed for the door and down the street. The neighbors thought it was very funny.
If this were me, the cops would be at my house all the time. We recently potty-trained my 2-year-old by stripping her naked and letting her roam the house and backyard. A couple of times she followed me out the door when I went to water the plants on the porch. Once she realized being naked was an option, she decided clothes were for suckers.
We also let male friends hold her when she’s nude. We figure, with a 2-year-old that still only sort of has control over her bodily functions, it’s more dangerous for them than it is for her.
I used to lifeguard as a kid in the late 80’s. About 2 years in we were instructed not to help kids in the changing rooms, not to help them back into their wet bathing suits after the bathroom. Sad really as the kids couldn’t manage to get back into them (and we really appreciated that they got out of the pool to use the restroom!). What was more traumatic? Calling a lifeguard or bathhouse attendant to help you or parading around the pool area with your bathing suit all discombobulated and sticking all over except to the parts it’s supposed to? So apparently, the tide had already started to turn back then.
Interestingly, we were at the beach in Maine last summer. My daughter noticed a little girl — about 8 or so — swimming & playing in just a pair of white briefs. She was horrified and asked about it. After telling her not to stare, I asked her if she noticed that the family was speaking German. I explained that different cultures view things different and that no one in Germany would think twice about a little kid running around the beach with next to nothing on because there was nothing to see. We as Americans tend to be a little uptight about those things. Interestingly though. . .the family was there the same week we were and we saw that girl quite often. Not once did I witness police intervention and though I am sure people took notice, no one seemed outwardly concerned.
@Jen: For all you know the girl might usually be nude at the beach… You know, Germany, Freikörperkultur…
I’ll never understand why people make a fuss over nude babies/toddlers, or indeed young girls without bikinitop at the beach. Why cover body parts you don’t have yet??
Silly.
I was raised in a family with 2 special need siblings and there was a lot of naked wandering outside. We liked to make bathtime challenging when my mom was out for the evening. (Sorry Dad!) Once my brother ran away with only a shirt on. Wandered into the neighbors house, sat down on her couch, read a book. When she got out of the shower and saw a half-naked toddler on her couch, she called the cops to report a missing kiddo. I had already called to report my brother missing (3 years old, disabled, probably half-naked!) and the cop just picked up my brother a couple blocks away and brought him home, no questions asked, no judgement. Make sure everything was fine (we were with a babysitter and my other sibling had a medical emergency), and continued on his way–truly helpful!
If my family would have tried to raise their kids in today’s crazy society, my parents would be in jail. They already had a tough time with 2 disabled kids in the 80s and 90s, glad we had a wonderfully helpful and understanding community.
kids should be kids i did that once and my neighbor saw me he didn’t call the cops, but a 4 yer old running naked in his own yard is not against the law.
“You know, the very people who complain about kids nowadays being “sexualized” are actually doing the sexualizing of kids themselves.”
Of course. The morality police are the real perverts… They’re so singlemindedly focused on sex, they see it everywhere including where it doesn’t exist.
And it’s not just parents with children suffering from it, being because their kid runs out the house in his/her birthday suit, but people wearing revealing clothes, a woman wearing a dress that doesn’t work with underwear, or a nudist wanting to catch some rays in their own garden.
They’re now trying to ban bikinis for ADULTS here because “they’re too revealing and invite rape”. Never mind that it’s been shown time and again that rapists don’t take attire into account when selecting their victims, they grab someone at random (at least most of them) or select their victims based on race or religious affiliation.
It’s now illegal for parents to make photographs of their own children at school sports events because “a pedophile could get their hands on the photos” and a child wearing sports clothes is apparently something pedophiles want (how the moralists know this, if they’re not themselves pedophiles is never revealed).
I guess I was lucky growing up. We lived out in the woods with a big garden, no neighbours nearby. I could and did play outside naked quite a bit. Loved it, and that wasn’t just a “naked phase” either. Nothing more liberating than being outside naked in nice weather, sadly it’s become something of the past…
Last year, as I was walking the dog, I saw a mom and dad walking into the parking lot by the park with their little boy holding their hands between them. The boy was butt naked except for a pair of red rain boots. It was so cute, it made my day. The parents gave me half embarrassed grins when they saw me giggling. I just assumed there was either a potty incident or a stubborn little boy who decided he wanted to feel the breeze.
Cops no longer serve and protect, they enforce and collect. The media exploits this fact by engaging in fear mongering and sensationalism of crime. They do this for profit because people who are afraid will look to the media to tell them what is happening. Narcissists who believe that crime today is worse than ever are given validation by the media and this results in people who believe they have the moral authority to police everyone else. The 21st century sucks.
So, I have a 10 year old who is severely intellectually disabled. I couldn’t even count on both hands how many times he has gone outside without pants or completely naked or done so WHILE we were outside. And then one day, when my middle child was 4 years old and had to pee while we were outside, he dropped his drawers in the driveway, then a school bus drove by. Face-palm. My youngest, who is 3, did this very same thing the other day, except a school bus didn’t drive by lol! At that rate, I would say the trigger happy police would have taken them all away by now.
I’ve been in this situation. My Connor is 4, he has sensory issues. If anything-I mean even a drop off water drops off his lips- gets on his pants he will immediately take them off. I’ve tried to keep tabs on this but sometimes I don’t catch him in time or sometimes I kind of don’t care as long as he keeps underwear on. But I’ve had neighbors call the police on me BC of Connor running out with out bottoms on. Last week, I was nursing the baby on the couch and without any warning and for the first time in over a year… Connor walked out the front door, took his pants off and peed in the yard.
I overreacted yelling at him. Later I realized my reaction was based on my fear of the neighbors, not actual anger at my son. I apologized to him. We are moving to Oregon next year and I’m praying for a house with land and few neighbors!!