A Mom’s Arrest for Reckless Endangerment Undermines Parental Rights
Maybe we should take a lesson from European parents.
When I was a young mother, I used a cowbell to summon my children to dinner. They were scattered across the neighborhood, playing with friends, exploring the creek, or riding their bicycles. The cowbell was more effective than my lungs. They knew, when they heard it clang, that they should head home.
I also left my 11-year-old alone from time to time while I chauffeured her brothers to soccer practice. Frequently, I dropped her off at a nearby horse farm to ride horses while I drove them around.
My parenting was similar to the free-range parenting style of my mother. As a child, I walked to town alone and sometimes spent entire afternoons with no one knowing exactly where I was.
But after hearing about the Georgia mom who was arrested because her 10-year-old son walked less than a mile from home by himself, I realized I could have been arrested for child neglect by today’s standards.
The law-breaking mother, Brittany Patterson, faces possible jail time because she was not acting like a proper helicopter mom. She took one son to a doctor’s appointment and left another son at home. While she was gone, the 10-year-old decided to walk to the…
