Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town
Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town
It was dinnertime on October 30, 2024, when police handcuffed Brittany Patterson in front of three of her four children and drove her to the station in
A woman who saw him walking alongside the road—speed limit: 25 in some places, 35 in others—asked him if he was OK. He said yes.
Nevertheless, she called the police.
So it was all that Karen's fault...
A family friend got a police visit because she lets her kids ride their bikes out of view of home. Like they go a couple streets over and ride around but apparently that's neglect now
No. It was liberal busybodies who enabled this sort of thing to happen in the first place.
And if that statement pisses anyone off, ask yourself this: Do you think this sort of thing was championed by conservative people?
I'm liberal as hell in most opinions, but this is exactly the sort of government overreach conservatives despise.
Nah, this isn't a political thing, it's an asshole thing
I'd imagine that the odds of that person being conservative in a town of 300 people are like 99%.
Yes I do think it was championed by conservative people. And if that statement pisses anyone off, my evidence is that Fannin County GA, where this took place, voted 82% for Trump.
I still see children walking alone where I live, but I'll admit that I can't compare it to when I was young because I don't pass by elementary schools before/after school to be able to see them.
I could definitely see it championed by some conservative people. Both ends of the political spectrum can have tendencies towards government control, depending on the topic.
Conservatism is often built upon fear. Also consider all of the studies linking right-wing political views to physiological differences like bigger amygdalas (which play a role in fear).
Some people will be fearful that children need to be protected at all costs, so they'll do things like this.
Just remember which side is doing things "for the children" as a scapegoat...hide the gays for the children, no drag story time to protect the children, no sex education (even books) to keep the children innocent. No walking alone outside to protect the children.
I'm not saying this particular Karen was Conservative, but I'm saying that she could be. I'm not sure why you're blaming Liberal people, but I'm sure you have explanations like I do (and I'd be curious to hear them), but I'd wager that the problem is not exclusively tied to either side of the political spectrum.
This is what 24/7 news does to the brain. It completely fucks up people’s sense of how risky things are.
As humans we tend to assume that the probability of something happening is proportional to the number of times we can remember hearing of it happening.
Many people think children walking or playing alone are at high risk of getting abducted because they hear about it “all the time” on the news. Yet they don’t think twice about sticking their kids in the car and driving somewhere.
Statistically though you’re orders of magnitude more likely to kill your child in a car accident, than have them abducted by a random stranger while allowing them to play or walk somewhere unattended. Car accidents are common so they rarely make the news, Child Abductions are extremely rare And frequently make the news. The mom in the story could have literally driven the child to the town and put the child at a greater risk in doing so then letting the child walk there alone.
Both the cop in the story, and the Karen that called him, Have a completely distorted sense of how much risk this child was in, And it’s all because the news media makes us think the extremely rare is relatively common.
In recent years, the media has told stories in fear mongering ways in order to drive more ratings, Which is only the amplifying this effect.
Why aren't the kids going outside anymore lol
OMFG I KNOW RIGHT!?! XD
I grew up in the 90s.
When we got to 2nd grade, we became eligible to take a road-sign test. (Left, right, stop). If you could demonstrate that you knew what that meant, and show them you owned a helmet, you could then ride your bicycle to and from school.
I was 7.
This was more than a decade after the term "stranger danger" had been seared into the American psyche.
I worry of the future.
People think kids can do less and less. I was ten when I was allowed out in a rowboat by myself on the lake my grandparents had a cottage on in the 90’s. Walk a mile? We went all fucking over. I don’t get it. Shit the rule at school was if you lived within half a mile you walked to school.
In my school in Sweden the blanket rule was that once you were ten you got to bike to school.
Now this was in the suburbs north of Stockholm and the streets were calm, but we did have to pass a rail crossing.
I remember the day before school school was starting, my mom walked me and my sister to school to show the way we should walk to school, and then we walked to and from school unsupervised from when I was six.
your kid goes for a walk? believe it or not, straight to jail.
What the fuck.
While I'm a big parental rights fan I actually tentatively am siding with the state on this one.
Patterson had driven her eldest son to a medical appointment. Her youngest son, 11-year-old Soren, intended to come along but wasn't around when it was time to leave.
It's one thing to intentionally raise your child in a free-range way, I think that should be allowed to a certain degree. It's a completely different thing to neglect your child by driving away from your home after you can't find him at the house and you don't know where he is.
Trump voter believes in small government. Also that the state should be able to legally compel you to electronically track your children and that 11-year-olds shouldn't be able to walk around outside without constant surveillance and sides with parents being arrested for allowing it. Believes "some" parental freedom should be "allowed."
I just rolled my eyes so hard I gave myself a headache.
I don't know if I'm instantly ready to side with the state, but none of the signs are there to think this is some intentional abuse of power. She's a white realtor in a bright red rural county. Unless the cop was some sitcom import straight from "The People's Gaypublic of California" I have to think they saw something that hit them wrong to drill down through the various layers of privilege. I admit I have a sort of reflexive concern about reason.com as a source, as well. Sometimes it's sensible, but often it's just a wankfest for so-called libertarians who have read Ayn Rand and a couple of Austrian-school economics articles.
For Brittany here, I would want to know what she actually told the cop, what her older son said in his interview, what the state of the road is (possibly no sidewalks?), and just generally if there's a pattern of neglect. They haven't even decided if they'll press charges yet, while they play chicken over the signature thing. If they do, here's the statute:
A person who causes bodily harm to or endangers the bodily safety of another person by consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that his or her act or omission will cause harm or endanger the safety of the other person and the disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care which a reasonable person would exercise in the situation is guilty of a misdemeanor.
"I will not sign," she says.
Very good idea. I wouldn't sign anything.
Btw, what did they even charge her with? I mean, don't you have to commit some crime in order to be detained?
The ADA hasn't decided how hard to push it yet, but she was arrested for reckless conduct:
A person who causes bodily harm to or endangers the bodily safety of another person by consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that his or her act or omission will cause harm or endanger the safety of the other person and the disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care which a reasonable person would exercise in the situation is guilty of a misdemeanor.
Yeah, if CPS isn't involved then this is almost surely a lawsuit.
"I was not panicking as I know the roads and know he is mature enough to walk there without incident," she says.
The sheriff disagreed.
"She kept mentioning how he could have been run over, or kidnapped or 'anything' could have happened," recalls Patterson.
Even if his mother was walking there too, it's not likely going to do much to stop a car from running him over. She'd just be some extra mass to fling.
Kidnappings -- and a number of other serious crimes -- are usually done by people who are known, not random strangers.
kagis
There are only between 150-300 kidnappings of children by strangers each year in the US. The other 200,000 kidnappings each year are by relatives.
Even more lopsided than I'd expected.
And as for "anything" happening, I'd imagine that "anything" could have happened at home, too.
I really gotta arm myself for the eventually of a sheriff disagreeing with me.
Free country where a 10 year old kid can’t even walk alone. Meanwhile in Germany parents of 6 year olds are heavily encouraged by school to let kids walk to school alone and stop being such a cry babies because nothing is gonna happen and they should learn to be independent.
Also why did they arrest her? In my country when the state thinks you committed a smaller crime and there’s no reason to believe you’re gonna fly they just send you a letter.
In Japan I saw like 5 year olds taking the morning train by themselves to school
When I grew up in the 80s I had a bike when I was 7, my best friend was 8 and also had a bike, and we just cruised around town all day together having adventures and avoiding the cigarette smoking 9 year olds who had bigger bikes.
Gen-X reading this.
Homie I'm a millennial and I was able to ride my bike to school in the 2nd grade. Just needed to show them I had a helmet and knew my hand signals. I didn't know my hand signals but my mom told me before I went to take the test.
This probably even mortifies older Gen Z folk.
Yeah I'm on the cusp between Millennial/Gen Z; I think I was about nine when I started walking around my small town unsupervised for trips to the grocery store or public library. Might have even started walking myself to school younger than that.
I walked to and from school starting in kindergarten. Solidly a millennial. My parents both worked and we didn't have bus stops unless you were out of town.
I biked to school and walked over a train bridge to do it in the 2nd grade, 1992.
Now that is a vintage meme
What the actual hell is wrong with... Ah wait, its USA so why am I even surprised...
The land of the "free"
We are a backwards people, apparently.
Hey ketchup is free practically everywhere
I grew up on 10 acres in the country in the 90's/early 00's. My mom would literally lock my younger brother and me out of the house to get us to spend time outside and so she could get some work done uninterrupted.
You bet we'd be foraging through the woods, going for 10+ mile bike rides, skipping rocks at the river, catching garter snakes, etc, all day with no supervision and we never had a single problem. We were raised to watch out for "stranger danger" and to let my parents know what we were doing in general, and that was enough.
Only in the US of A.
Only restriction a 10 year old has is 23:00 curfew. Kids here(SE EU) go to school on their own from first grade. Being out 'till curfew without adult supervision is normal.
Reason.com is a libertarian propaganda mill. This story is meant to pit you against the state so you can swallow their other bullshit.
Does that make the actual story any less disturbing?
Lol, back when I was a kid, getting grounded was a punishment. Not a legally binding rule parents must enforce at home at alp times. Lol, America is fucked.
I was waiting for the part of the article where something tragic happened to the kid to warrant the mom’s jailing.
Not… him just going for a completely normal walk…
I used to walk all over my home town (and around my first home's block) starting at age 5. Like, the fuck is this?
You’re going to jail
When I was around 3 years old, me and my not much older brother decided to walk across town, where our mum was visiting relatives.
I was missing mummy, which was technically not an emergency, for which we were supposed to phone those relatives.
We had been raised very well, you see. 🙃I did the shit all the time back in the 1950s
Land of the free.
I'm genuinely surprised by these comments. Letting a child go out on their own is pure insanity.
Edit: I'm surrounded by survivorship-biased idiots.
Japan is insane then.
Well, I guess half of Europe is insane then.