Mom Who Let Son Walk to Soccer Gets Slammed in Local Paper

You may recall that a couple weeks ago a mom in small town Mississippi, Lori LeVar Pierce, let her 10-year-old walk a third of a mile to his soccer practice by himself. Or she would have let him, that is, except he got picked up by the police a few blocks in.

The cop drove him the rest of the way, to ensure he wasn’t abducted and murdered. Then the cop waited for Lori to show up (that’s how responsible she is! She was meeting her son there 15 minutes later!) so he could tell her what a dangerous, crazy, maybe even criminal thing she had done, and how the police  had received “hundreds” of calls to 911 about a boy dangerously on his own on that sunny afternoon.

I sure hope these people never watch “Lassie.” They’d die of fright.

Some reporters in Canada and Holland picked up the story, as did the local paper. (The Internet is an amazing thing.) Then that local paper, The Commercial Dispatch, ran an editorial about the whole issue.

You might think the editorial writers would praise a woman for bucking the hysteria that imagines a predator on every block. But that would involve editorial writers who did not buy into the hysteria, whole hog.

Here’s what they wrote. (And here’s the URL: http://www.cdispatch.com/opinions/article.asp?aid=800 fkfdizaadz
)

                                                          WALKING LESSONS

Once upon a time, decades ago, mothers were able to let their elementary-aged children roam free and alone.

While many, including us, look upon this halcyon time with fondness and a longing for its return, the fact remains that things are different now. The days of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry and “Leave it to Beaver” are gone, if they indeed ever really existed. As Yogi Berra (supposedly) said, “nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.”

This longing for simpler times was front and center in a story in Monday’s Dispatch (“The walk felt ’round the world,” Page 1A). A mother had let her 10-year-old son walk alone a half mile through Columbus to soccer practice. Several people, seeing the child walking alone, called 911. The mother took a browbeating from a police officer who responded to the calls.

The story was picked up by international media outlets, who took up the fundamental question: Aren’t small-town America’s streets safe enough for a child to walk them alone?

According to Columbus Police Chief Joseph St. John, yes, they are.

But on the same token, just because a child can do it, and a parent can allow it, should they?

We, and most parents, would say, not always.

While incredibly rare, the specter of child abduction looms heavy on most parents’ minds, even in a relatively small town like Columbus. Stories like the recent one out of Starkville, where a suspected (and currently at-large) child predator allegedly harassed children at a city elementary school, seem to appear in news pages too often.

There are also traffic concerns, especially on streets with no sidewalks – no matter the pedestrian’s age. The street in this case was a particularily trecherous (for pedestrians) stretch of 18th Avenue North leading up the hill from Seventh Street toward Military Road.

The actions of the police officer notwithstanding, we’d like to think that this was an example of a positive aspect of small-town life, that the 911 calls were rooted in a genuine concern for a lone child.

If this episode and the resulting media exposure makes parents consider their children’s safety, it will have been a good thing.

And, as one soccer sideline parent told another Monday evening, with all the obiesity confronting us today, maybe parents should walk with their children to school and sports practice.”

 The parts that drove me nuttiest were the INEVITABLE, “If this episode…makes parents reconsider their children’s safety…:” As if, without baseless warnings like this, parents just wouldn’t worry enough? As if parents need more fearmongering so they can stop trusting their own eyes and ears — and POLICE CHIEF –  which suggest their town is safe, and trust a “What if???” editorial instead.

Also: if there are traffic concerns, shouldn’t the paper – the voice of the town – rally for sidewalks, rather than rallying for cooping kids up inside?

And who decided there’s no Mayberry anymore? Unsupported articles like this one, that admit that nothing happened, no one was hurt, but that’s no reason not to be afraid. Be very afraid of your scary, scary town where nothing bad happened. (And the police are watching out!)

I will run Lori LeVar Pierce’s wonderful response to this editorial in a day or so. Meantime, be very afraid…of baseless hysteria. — Lenore