Great piece in today’s Washington Post by Ilya Somin, “How the Constitution Protects Free-Range Parents.” He helps make the case for the Meitivs with these arguments: In two landmark cases in the 1920s, Meyer v. Nebraska and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Supreme Court ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects parents’ and guardians “to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.” …In the 2000 case of Troxel v. Granville, the Court reaffirmed the “fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children,” which it…
Author: lskenazy
Wow. Yesterday, you’ll recall, I printed a post from the public Facebook page of Montgomery County Councilman Hans Riemer, who was repeating third-hand gossip about the Meitivs from the friend of a neighbor. How statesman-like. He contended that the friend of a friend had said the Meitivs were a bit “off” and the neighbors had been worried about the Meitiv kids for “years.” (Interestingly, despite all that worry, the kids have been, and remain, perfectly fine. Delightful, in fact.) Mr. Riemer went on to post this: Hans Riemer No doubt. I was constantly out under similar circumstances. I think the…
Just what we needed — for real. This comes to us from a reader named Steve, and ABC15 in Tempe, AZ. A young guy is out and about. Alone. After curfew. Trespassing! Cops get out of their squad car to approach warily, but what comes next? Option 1: Kid appears to be armed and/or uncooperative, inviting tragic consequences? Nope. Option 2: He’s fingerprinted and booked into a juvenile facility on delinquency charges? Again, no. Option 3: CPS is notified of a neglected child, followed by him being held incommunicado in the back seat of a…
This is a comment posted on the public Facebook page of the Meitiv’s Montgomery County Councilman at large. He has since taken it down. In case you can’t read it, it says: Hans Reimer: Comment from a friend. “I just want to tell you that we have close friends in that neighborhood, and they and other neighbors there have been worrying FOR YEARS about the way this family let those kids wander around the urban environment alone (starting when the kids were much younger than they are now). I don’t know if you know the family , but the neighborhood…
Here’s the police report on Sunday night’s seizure of the Meitiv kids by the Montgomery County cops and CPS for the unthinkable crime of…playing outside on a sunny afternoon. And here is the Meitivs’ statement (boldface mine). Quick question: Aren’t prisoners allowed one phone call, or is that just on TV? Because the Meitiv kids were not allowed to contact their parents in the six hours they were held by the authorities: Meitivs Vow to Fight Unlawful Seizure of Children by Maryland CPS April 14, 2015 Washington, DC — On a sunny Sunday afternoon, when children should be playing outdoors…
Thank you, commenter Havva, for dissecting the arguments being hurled at Danielle and Alexander Meitiv and Free-Rangers in general. Here’s what Havva wrote to “Just a Mom,” a woman who commented on yesterday’s post about the Maryland kids, 6 and 10, picked up for playing in a local park, unsupervised: Dear “Just a Mom” You write: “10 years old is too young to supervise a 6 year old” When I was 6 my neighbors sent their 5 year old across the street (alone) to come fetch me so we could spend an hour or so rollerskating together. Neither of…
Here is what the “Maryland Free-Range Mom” Danielle Meitiv wrote regarding last night’s ordeal with the police and child “protective” services: The police coerced our children into the back of a patrol car and kept them trapped there for three hours, without notifying us, before bringing them to the Crisis Center, and holding them there without dinner for another two and a half hours. We finally got home at 11pm and the kids slept in our room because we were all exhausted and terrified. How has this incident made the Meitiv children any safer? What were they protected from? As…
UPDATE: The children have finally been returned to the parents, at least four hours after the cops picked them up. Fox 5 in DC reports: The Meitivs say CPS didn’t call them to let them know they had the kids until about 8 p.m. The Meitivs drove to CPS to pick up their kids, but say they were told to “take a seat” and initially weren’t given any information about their children, except that they were there. Just after 10:30 p.m., the Meitivs were reunited with their kids. They had to sign a temporary safety plan to take them home.…
From the: “Don’t confuse me with the facts” dept. comes this note about a note: Dear Free-Range Kids: Our weekly school newsletter contained a paragraph about supervising children at school events with the gem “Unfortunately, the world is not as it was many years ago.” I responded with some objections, citing the various statistics about crime being a decline and such and this is what I got back. “I do not believe the statement to be inaccurate. The world is not the same as it was many years ago. Parents in times gone by often turned their children…
If you look at the tabs at the top of this blog, one says, “Find a Free-Range Friend.” (Online on its own it’s freerangefriend[dot]com>). It’s a way to find other families near you who also want to give their kids more independence. When my kids were younger, one stumbling block to getting them out of the house (and by “house” I mean 37-story apartment building) was that they’d look outside and not see any other kids to play with. I am pretty sure that other kids were looking out their windows and sighing, too. When the streets and parks are…