Getting government out of our families and the raising of our children may well be one of the most important issues facing freedom in our lives.

My mom and dad said, "See you at dark for dinner". Now I never see kids playing basketball, baseball, or football in pickup games like when I was young in the 1970s and 1980s.

A co-worker of mine was not able to leave his 10-year-old son at home alone without that being an arrestable action. I told him that when I was 10, we went on vacation to Brazil (retirement trip for my father). After talking to some of his friends who lived there, my folks let me wander the streets of Rio de Janero alone. I had to check in with them every 3 hours.

So, please contrast: a 10 year old boy not able to stay in his home while his dad goes to work vs a 10 year old girl allowed to wander Rio de Janero in 3 hr increments.

Yes, there has been a philosophical change in child rearing. No, I do not think it is for the better.

Jan

What ever happened to the days when the Police, even small town Police, were public servants? Or neighbors were looking out for each other? In my youth the neighbors would have brought me home, Dad would have disciplined me, and it would never happen again. In the absence of the neighbor knowing where I lived, the Police would have taken me home, looked the home situation over, and given Dad a warning to watch out for the kids.

These days, the Police act more like Gestapo. There are always consequences for our decisions! Then Child Protective Services get involved. Then it snowballs. You go to court, the court deems you unfit, the kid goes to Juvie, the family is broken up....all because the kid thought it would be more fun to hang out at the Family Dollar store. I believe that is the local synopsis for Progressive Utopia. It takes a village to raise a child.

We believed in freedom when I was a kid in the 40's and 50's. Our fathers got on boats then landing barges and died to defend it. That we could get hit by a car (my cousin liked to walk in the road and was hit several times) possibly molested by a pervert (they were around and you knew to avoid them), get bit by a snake (rare but it happened to people I knew), fall off of a cliff, into a mine crack, getting bit by a wild dog or even mauled by a bear were realistic dangers. A buddy and I were 4 years old and we climbed the ladder to sit on top of the water tank and were afraid to get back down. There were fathers searching for us and we watched them pass because we knew we would get a whipping so we hid. Finally it got dark and we were more afraid of the dark than the belt so we called out and were rescued. Despite all of those things, we survived and were let out to run barefoot throughout the town. One day, on a dare, I was walking the top rail of a pedestrian bridge over the railroad, fell off to the bank, breaking my arm and landing on the tracks. A local train was sitting on the side track waiting for an express to pass and a man (maybe Jeff Daniels ;>) drug me off the track and went for help. I was out the next day doing something else. When we had bullies our fathers taught us how to fight. None of any of this ever involved the government and didn't need to.

There's a basic premise here that is at the root of the problem. During the last 20 years, plus or minus, we have become convinced that the world has become an incredibly hazardous and sinister place that is not suitable for children. There are supposed to be "sexual predators" waiting on every street corner to pounce on the nearest kid. A check of crime statistics will show that this sort of thing does indeed happen....but it always has (there are between 50 and 75 stranger abductions of children per year, and that has been a constant for as long as records have been kept). There is no epidemic of kidnappers out there waiting for the first unattended child to come along.

When I was a child we were told not to talk to strangers and especially to stay away from any stranger who asked us to get into his car or tried to give us anything (there was, supposedly, a plague of perverts out there eager to give children candy and then do who knows what). We were also warned about drugs and told that drug users would try to offer us thing. Thus warned, we went out and none of it ever happened. Sure, it was all good advice, but we were trusted to follow it. And we did.

I believe the same would be true today.

I think I wandered around playing with the other kids at that age. My parents said to come home when the street lamps came on.

Our society has gone insane IMHO about protecting kids. The idea is if some precaution saves even one kid, it's worth it. That leads us to locking our kids in a bubble.

I could add some stories too, but I think we got enough young boy situations covered already, at least the one's we'll admit. Things are much different today, this thing about the arresting cop is just another extension of political correctness. Political correctness will go down in history as one of our more dangerous endeavors ever. It can only lead to more loss of liberty and life learning in the case of the children. The story didn't say, but I'd be willing to bet the cop had no kids, especially not a boy(unless he's under age four). I wonder if he would have arrested the man if the boy was age 10, or 11, or 12, or 15, 16-1/2, etc..

When I was young on Long Island (NY) I used to wake up at sunrise, hop on my bike and ride all day long. My mother had only a vague idea of where I was. There were no cellphones and I would seldom, if ever, have a dime to call home to let her know where my kid brother and I wandered off to. Its a different world today thanks to 24 hour news coverage. What innocence we had as human beings has been desensitized thanks to the never ending quest to fill time and get TV ratings.

I grew up in Shirley NY. I rode my bike to Fire Island (Smith Point beach), Yaphank lake, Cathedral pines park and the Long Island Game farm regularly in the summer. Each were all day trips and I never worried about danger. Somehow me and my siblings managed to get here. My children do not know this freedom and have never experienced the enjoyment of exploration. Sickening.

I grew up in Ohio, walked to school every day, wandered the neighborhood for at least a mile from home all weekend, home by dark. But when we pulled a stunt like that 8-year old, we got paddled... and we didn't do it again. Now, a parent can get arrested for paddling, for almost anything including a child making a comment at school. I'm one of those "40's" babies, and I feel sorry for today's kids, who are wrapped in cotton wool (oops, today it would be polyester) and protected right out of growing as independent human beings.

Children will do what children do. As a kid, did you ever disobey your dad and get into trouble? Should your dad have been arrested? As a 7 year old I and a the kid from downstairs wandered off and didn't come home. We explored new neighborhoods and got lost. I walked into a barbershop and got instructions to get to my home. Meanwhile, my frantic Mom called the police. Me and the kid arrived just as the police did. Should my Mom have been arrested? Of course, me and the kid from downstairs paid for our little adventure. Have we gotten to the point where children must be within sight of their caretakers every moment of their lives until they are 18? I can understand it if we are talking about ghetto neighborhoods where everyone is in danger and where strangely enough, the children are less supervised than elsewhere. But is this what child care has devolved to, when a disobedient child gets his father arrested? Or is this a scene from a Mack Sennet comedy?

Well....when I was eight years old my mother was fond of saying: "it's too nice outside to stay in the house all day" (presumably because she did not want us underfoot, which I can understand of any mother). So we went outside and "wandered" wherever we wanted--she didn't sit outside and watch us. When we weren't riding our bikes somewhere, building forts, or...doing some "urban exploration" on houses that were under construction (which was where we got the wood and the nails for the forts).

Sounds like the exercise of free will both for the parent and the child. : ) However, an 8 year old needs to have some supervision lest they get in trouble or worse, abducted. It should not be my responsibility to watch out for your kid so it is the parents responsibility. If the parent shirks that responsibility, the parent should be reprimanded. Arrested? Nah. A fine perhaps for making authorities watch out for the child? Yeah, why not? Typical overboard approach to dealing with people today though IMHO.
This reaction is what I term "The great squeeze". Governments', local or otherwise, continual push or squeeze on the good folks in the name of "protecting children" or protecting the environment or whatever freedom restricting term du jour they might use. So, fight back by calling the sheriffs office and complain. If we don't, they think it's ok to constantly restrict our right to be treated fairly. Fear not, they have no more rights than the rest of us, they just need to be reminded constantly. Study the law as I am beginning to do. That is their weapon against us but it is ours too.
: )

I was lucky to grow up in Redondo Beach, California in the 1950s. I walked a "mile" to elementary school, two "miles" to the Alondra Plunge (swimming), shot BB guns and bows and arrows in the strawberry fields half a mile away. We played "chase" all over the neighborhood, in and out of backyards and alleys and went home when we were tired of all that effort. I Google Earthed the distances and found it was only 800 yards to school and 1000 yards to the plunge and 200 yards to the strawberry fields. And in that time "Don't get in cars with strangers" was the only warning from parents. The only scary thing that impacted me was a non-fatal stabbing in a bathroom (didn't know the victim or circumstances) when I was 16 with six friends at the Rhodium Drive-In movie in 1959. Sad these days.

50 years ago a boy that age would have been given a .22 or at least a BB gun to keep him amused during his travels.

Children are curious, and I think the father and child are fine. Its the local law that is screwed up. We have allowed this to happen, the feeling that no one is save in there neighborhood.

The arrest was completely ridiculous. No mixed feelings at all.
I have no problem with parents who let 8-year old play outside in the neighborhood (or leave the house to get into a church van).

At the age of 5, I would walk across town ALONE to the library basement (children's section) to read for hours.
At age 6 (when my Mother was having one of her "crazy days") my brother and I told her early in the morning that we were running away from home. She replied: "OK. ...Just be home before sunset ". ... and we were.
Later we moved to as rural location and would spend all day catching crawdads by hand in the creek, narrowly avoiding snapping turtles and often coming home with a severe rash from burning nettles.
We survived ... and because of those experiences learned to thrive in spite of pain.

I have heard the elders say that every generation thinks theirs was the best (or the worst) but that essentially they are all alike... Maybe at some time in the past they were very similar but this is certainly no longer the case. I grew up in the 50's and 60's as a child and all the comments stated herein I lived footloose and fancy free. It was very rare ever to hear of a child being harmed.

What has happened to create the reality of today?
You cannot leave a child alone even in a public shopping center full of people. A child today cannot wander around from morning to dark completely unsupervised- no. But why? Are people more cruel today? Are they more sadistic?
Why are children in such danger today? It's not how unlucky can you be, it's how lucky can you be to escape peril as a child today- the difference is not subtle.

This is a disturbing topic and the only reasoning I could come up with is that VIOLENCE is such an integral part of our lives in both film and television. Add video game violence and then ask the same questions. When I was a child you saw the gun fire and then the camera showed the fallen body (usually face down) or the wounded in the arm victim (most always the criminal). No bloody mess, no guts, no gore, no massacre. Now, we live surrounded with violence- extreme in every way. We are inundated with senseless killing and psychotic behaviors as the norm.

You may think that I am exaggerating somewhat but I respond, go watch Gun Smoke or the Ponderosa and compare them to Criminal Minds, Law and Order Special Victims Unit or Terminator and judge the violence.

I do not believe we will be able to "go back" to the innocence of those past times since you cannot regain innocence. But we need to proceed with caution on how to deal with the amount of violence we are exposed to

So Blanchester is in Ohio. Lets all ring them up to file a complaint against "Do gooder" idiot cops not using reason in a situation that clearly didn't require an arrest. Hopefully the judge will dismiss it.

Hi Blarman:
Here is the origin of the data quoted:



Collecting and Sharing Data to Understand the Problem
Through the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), the Injury Center gathers, shares, and links state-level data on violent deaths. The system’s comprehensive, accurate data allow policy makers and community leaders to make informed decisions about violence prevention initiatives.
Through the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), launched in 2010, the Injury Center gathers data to describe the prevalence and health consequences of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence. These data can be used to inform policies and programs; establish priorities at the national, state, and local level; and over time, track progress in preventing these forms of violence.
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Ridiculous reaction from the "authorities" on this one.
Reading the comments on this post brings back fond memories of wandering far and near as a kid in the 50's. As long as I was home for the evening meal, it was okay with my parents. My siblings and I were freer than we ever realized back then.
I guess I'm lucky I survived all the perils, imagined and otherwise, that could have harmed us.

Robbie: check this out... Violence against children has steadily increased:

In the United States...
An average of 13 young people ages 10 to 24 are victims of homicide every day.2
More than 750,000 children and youth are treated in hospital emergency departments as a result of assault each year—that’s more than 85 every hour.4
More than 3 million referrals for child maltreatment are received by state and local agencies each year—that’s approximately 6 referrals every minute.1