By JOHN STOSSEL
What does it take for a parent to get arrested?
Surprisingly little.
Scott and Heather Wallace of Hewitt, Texas, encourage their three boys to play outside on their own to build independence.
One day, driving home from karate practice, 8-year-old Aiden misbehaved. So, half a mile from home, Heather stopped the car and told him, “Walk the rest of the way on your own.”
He’d done it before. But this time, before he got home, someone called the police.
“There’s a little boy walking down the sidewalk,” the individual told 911. “He’s a perfect target for somebody to kidnap!”
Police picked Aiden up and drove him home.
“You weren’t worried about [Aiden]?” I ask them.
“Not at all,” says Heather.
Scott adds, “It’s a safe neighborhood.”
It’s true. Based on data from the FBI, their town is among the safest in Texas.
Nevertheless, the cops arrested Heather! They kept her in jail overnight.
“It was terrifying,” she tells me. “I was just waiting, crying.”
The cop told her, “To have an 8-year-old … walk by himself, that’s a big problem. … We don’t know who’s in that white van.”
That’s just dumb, says Lenore Skenazy, author of “Free-Range Kids.”
“99.99% of white vans are guys coming to fix your toilet or mow your lawn.”
She says ignorant media misleads us about what’s really dangerous. News reports cite Justice Department data and claim “460,000 kids are reported missing every year!”
But that just means: “460,000 children are late for dinner, stayed at school and forgot to tell their mom. … The definition of ‘missing’ is missing for an hour!”
Kidnappings by strangers are extremely rare. Just being in a car is 400 times more dangerous.
“You don’t see people saying, ‘I could put Johnny in the car, but what if we’re T-boned?” Skenazy points out. “We’ve come up with a culture that sees a kid outside and fantasizes not just something bad but the very worst-case scenario.”
The officer who picked up Aiden argued the worst-case: “You have a lot of crazy people out here,” he told Heather. “I don’t trust my child out of range [of] about 20 or 30 feet from me.”
20 or 30 feet?
“It was a lot of his opinion,” Heather tells me.
Police officers can act on their opinions.
Local prosecutors went even further. They indicted Heather, claiming she placed her son in “imminent danger of death” and acted “against the peace and dignity of the state.”
Really!
When her employer heard that, Heather lost her job.
Good thing officials weren’t this obsessed with stranger danger when I was a kid. I walked half-a-mile every school day.
Crime was much worse then. Even including recent upticks, crime has dropped sharply over the past 30 years.
What’s changed is media hysteria. Any dramatic incident, anywhere, appears instantly on our phones. Frightened, gullible, math-illiterate officials say, better safe than sorry.
Now Scott and Heather say that, too.
“Will you drop your kids off again?” I ask.
“No!” says Heather. “We’re scared.”
“It’s not that we don’t think it was the right decision,” says Scott, “But what they decided for us was not very affordable. [Now] we don’t even leave them in the car to go into the convenience store.”
“Not because someone’s going to take them,” Heather adds, “but because someone’s going to see and call the police!”
Lenore Skenazy has persuaded eight states to pass “childhood independence” laws. They clarify that letting kids do things on their own isn’t abuse.
“You don’t want the government telling you when you can let your kids do things,” she says. “You know your children better than they do.”
Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Cops have become social enforcement clowns.
Can’t walk home can’t put up politician sigh can’t wear certain clothes can’t have an American flag can’t say what’s on your mid
GO TO JAIL.
Rob a store shoot at someone steal a car assault someone and you get a slap on the hand.
What a great country this was as the cops are enforcing political views and putting people in jail and causing thousands of dollars of Financial harm to innocent people .
I had a police officer come up to me at the river on Chena Pump, he drove right up and walked past 16 trucks with trailers to ask me if I paid the $5 parking fee. I said no, I just let my dogs out to pee and pick up trash before I go to work, do I need to pay for that, and he said it was a $500 fine if I didn’t. What a joke. It was credit card only to pay. He left right after, and I looked. Not a single one of the trucks had paid parking fees either, and they will be there for days when they are out hunting. THey just saw a little old lady as an easy target to harass. He spent 30 minutes explaining how my fee helps pay his salary so he can come ask me for a fee. How about you clean up this broken glass, or get the GIs to stop trashing it at night, patrol it then! Oh no, they want a 9-5 where they harass old women and make $200K.
My sister and I walked a mile to school everyday in the beginning. She was 6 and I was 5. When I got home, I would play outside. Sometimes I would walk to the laundry mat 4 blocks away and crawl around in the fuzz behind washers and dryers looking for dropped coins. A pack of gum cost five cents back then. People are the same today as they were then as far as bad guys, it’s some parents who have become woke. I believe it’s what helped us win two world wars. It helped me become independent and not afraid to get off the front porch.
When I was 8 years old, I walked a mile each way to school in Wrangell.
I was killed several times by strangers, and also suffered lifelong injuries from having to walk 2 miles a day, instead of getting healthy and in shape.
Oh….wait, no I didn’t.
I did walk the mile each way, but I escaped unscathed. (*whew! Wipes brow)
This modern infantilization of children is why we now have young people entering the workforce who are totally incapable working unsupervised, or coping with the most basic aspects of adulthood.
I’m talking about the young people who are constantly posting videos of the most mundane, everyday things happening to them, and part of their narration is that “I was literally shaking” in fear.
They are in Texas, not Wrangell. Does Wrangell have drug dealers, child traffickers and pedophiles that just hopped the border? Wake up. These parents are just lazy.
No, you wake up.
With the likely exception of traffickers, yes, even all small towns have drug dealer and pedos.
But kids nowadays do not walk anywheres, and it shows in the epidemic of childhood obesity and poor metabolic health.
Now they all either ride the bus, or their mommy’s drive the tender little dears to school, as evidenced by the massive traffic jams near all the schools every single morning.
In 13 years of school (K-12th) I cannot ever recall my folks driving me to school. Ever. Not once, and I have racked my memory, and cannot remember that happening even once.
We either walked if it was a mile or less, or rode the bus if further.
Why did we not get snatched of the streets while walking to school?
Because we were ALL walking, none of us alone, and if the neighbors had seen a pedo trying to get one of us into a car….let’s just say the cops wouldn’t have needed to called, except to come clean up the mess.
You are missing your privileges! How nice it was for you to live right in town, so close to school that you could walk, and that the road was safe! We have had students hit by cars every single week at my grandchildren’s school. Did you know that was a problem? Did you know that four children have been hit by cars and killed, while walking and riding biked in Fairbanks this year? Something to think about, as it seems you have no idea what’s actually going on around you.
Your idea that cops are here to ‘clean up the mess’ is also silly. No, your neigbours didn’t do anything to pedos, the way they don’t now. That’s why every girl in the 60s-90s was assaulted. HOW WOULD YOU KNOW THAT? You don’t know a lot! I am seeing you have a lot of IDEAS which aren’t the same as knowledge and experience. SAD!
There are plenty of kids that walk to the bus stop, but with thousands of kids, they don’t live near the school bozo. Typical ignorant old man yelling at the sky. Shut up!
So instead of your kids learning the ropes independently, keep them in. Hand them a video game! Maybe a cell phone! Let their brains turn to mush in a safe environment.
A little scar tissue isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It builds character and furthers along the evolutionary process. Parents still have to be parents. Can’t or shouldn’t count on the entire village to raise your child.
More of John Stossel, please!
Amen!
The police are militarized it’s actually scary. They are not public servants anymore. I’m not sure what they are.?? Just as a teenage girl with a knife gets gunned down while not endangering anyone but herself. Unfortunately we can’t trust police anymore.
They trained this way in Israel after 9/11. Even though Israel was the reason they sent the planes to America. They said you send bombs to Israel so they kill our children, now we do the same to you.
The police decide if you are allowed to have rights. And forget carrying a gun, if they see it they will shoot you with no questions asked.
No they won’t.
I’d love to see you try it! Ask any of the 2,000 citizens shot every year by police if they were allowed to have a weapon. LOL! Police are the ones who decide if you are allowed to have gun, you simply don’t have the life experience to know better. Spend even two minutes researching and you’ll find the police shot over a dozen people this week that were armed and not doing anything.
Heck when I was 8 I was fishing by myself without a life jacket as often as I could. 59.1/2 years later I’m still here.
I consider us all lucky to still be here. I’ve seen kids in the villages drowned in cesspool’s and/or get washed down a storm drain when they were playing boats in the creek. I could have died easily, many, many times but for some reason known only to God, i’m still here. I don’t think it’s anything we’ve done right or wrong…it’s just life.
There is nothing wrong with keeping your children safe. A lot of alcoholism in the villages, in places like North Pole and Farmers’ Loop. Lots of drugs and people ignoring their kids. It’s actually wrong, it’s not ‘just life’ it’s people are shitty parents and shouldn’t be allowed to have kids.
Most kidnappings occur by a parent of the child, fewer than 350 children are kidnapped by strangers every year.
Anyone notice how many food related recalls are happening, it’s the same amount as it’s been the last few years except the media has decided the make news of it now.
School shootings were lower than they were previously when they started highlighting them in the news, a school shooting isn’t as common place as the news makes it seem.
Children playing or walking outside used to be a healthy activity, now it’s so bad that parents must be punished…
I like John Stossel, he’s a believer in common sense.
i thought illegal immigrants were everywhere. Hiding in the ditch waiting to kidnap and sex traffic our children. This thing reads like a facebook post. I really do not understand reposting it. Anyway good to know crime has dropped sharply in the last 30 years.
You are dead wrong about school shootings. There were 8 from 1900 to 198p, and over 200 from 1980 to now. Guns are easy to get a hold of, especially if you have bad parents.
BJ,
8 school shootings from 1900 to 198p (1980) and over 200 from 1980 to now? There’s no way you actually believe that…well I guess there is a way, but please provide a source for your belief since it’s remarkably absurd.
Ask yourself when school shootings started to hit the national conscience, was it suddenly in 198p (1980) or was it all of a sudden in the 90’s? When was the reason a school or mass shooting changed? Do they ever count intercity schools in these findings?
All of which is besides the point, there was a peak in school shootings and it happened before reporting of them reached their peak.
I get your point though, parents are bad especially those with guns. We should have government raise our children because government doesn’t have guns or handle them irresponsibly…sheesh.
If you knew what you were talking about, you’d realize that parents with guns are the reason why kids have guns, bob. A 14 year old kid shot his three siblings and then himself off Farmer’s Loop a few years ago, do you think that would happen if he had responsible parents? My guess is no. Guns are one of the #1 killers of kids in Alaska, if you had kids or cared about them you’d know that. I am so sick of all these idiots full of wind. SHUT UP!
Your idea that if we don’t report on things they won’t happen is just your ignorance showing. Why do stupid men think they have something to say? There is a reason no one likes you STeve!
My wife and I had this conversation last night without reading this article. I could go on & on advocating for a return to these freedoms by telling stories about the adventures my brother and I had and the benefits of that freedom and an only hope that somehow we can get back to it for the benefits provided!
We need to pay attention to data. The fact is, the kid was safer walking than riding with his mother in the family car. However, this story is one-sided. It would be interesting to hear the cops and prosecutor attempt to justify their apparent dramatic overexertion of authority.
How many kids do you think live close enough to school to walk? There are four in my kids’ school. FOUR. My grandkids live 15 miles from school. Please use common sense LOL
Sounds like bad parenting to me. Letting your children run free in Texas is as stupid as they come.
Living in Texas is as stupid as they come, but that’s besides the point. Letting kids run free isn’t the problem.
It IS the problem if you live in a dangerous place. Alaska isn’t safe for girls to walk alone, glad you don’t have any you care for because you are too stupid to get that!
Most police officers and local prosecutors in Texas are afraid to walk home by themselves.
I was thinking the same thing. Not in Texas, I wouldn’t let the kids roam.
If the parents didn’t keep a close eye on their child during the disciplinary walk, this is a form of negligence. Thanks to millions of unvetted new citizens from all over the world (courtesy of Biden/Harris), no neighborhood is safe. It only takes seconds for a child predator to drive up and snatch, then the child is gone forever.
THANK YOU JIM. There is no way in hell my 6,9 and 12 year old granddaughters are walking anywhere! Men are disgusting and they harass girls when no one is around. I was waiting for my 15 year old granddaughter to pay at Walmart and a full-grown man that was behind her in line started trying to get her number. He was being creepy and I stepped in and said “what do you think you are doing? She is a child!” and he said I was jealous. That’s who we are dealing with. No, my children will NOT BE PREY.
We have men excusing and protecting these pedophiles at every turn as well. This is why we don’t support TAMMIE WILSON. She’s a pedo excuser extraordinaire.
Boy wouldn’t these Karen’s have cow going to the villages even today. Kids run all over town basically unsupervised.
Unfortunately it has come to the point where I decided to use Heritage Defense organization as initial legal protection from these “in my opinion you’re wrong” type situations.
The villages are safe (not for girls maybe). Texas is not safe.
Those who would sacrifice their freedom and liberty for safety deserve neither. Benjamin Franklin