When yet another mom wrote about her kids ALMOST being sex trafficked — an assessment she made on the basis of noticing some men at Ikea (yikes!) who seemed to be looking at her children — I checked my favorite urban-myth-busting, hysteria-slaying site, Snopes, searching for “Ikea sex traffic.” There wasn’t anything there — yet. Now there is: a gloriously rational take-down of the idea that predators are prowling the aisles of popular stores, tearing children away from their moms, racing them out to their cars and then across state lines, without anyone stopping them. Not the screaming mothers. Not…
Author: lskenazy
Okay, 89,000 shares of this piece from ForEveryMom: Mom’s Warning to Other Parents After Being Followed While Shopping: “We Were Targets” A trip to IKEA with her 3 kids turns terrifying when her family is targeted for human trafficking by two men. Diandra Toyos is a Southern California mom of three kiddos aged 4, 1.5, and 7 weeks. Looking for a fun outing, she and her mom decided to take the kids to their local IKEA recently to do some couch shopping and “get the kids out of the house.” But Toyos never could have imagined that their lighthearted shopping…
It is a quirk of our era that we don’t seem able to do anything — fill in a crossword puzzle, drink a glass of water, butter a roll — without having some expert reason for doing so. It’s good for the brain! The immune system! Epigenetics! Hand-eye coordination! Kidney function! Marital bliss! This is irksome, because it means that we keep expecting and ingesting all sorts of silly studies, as if the unproven life is not worth living. It is with that caveat that I present to you Part Two of the “Why dhrieraktk Aren’t Kids Playing Outside on…
Stephan Pastis, forgive me for reprinting this here, but we are so on your side! And you are on ours! Here’s the link to Stephan’s Facebook page, and his website, and — heck — his Twitter feed. And his road tour calendar! And for those who can’t read the strip because it’s too small on your phone, the script is below! . STEPHAN STROLLS DOWN MEMORY LANE: When I was a kid, my dad drove me around in the back of his pickup truck. When I was a kid I flew across the country by myself. When I was a…
Look, if it turns out this Texas tot was deliberately abandoned, which strikes me as the least likely scenario, then go ahead and deal with that through the legal system. But if it was a mistake, please recall that even the PRIME MINISTER OF BRITAIN forgot his kid in a pub. These things happen, they are unfortunate. They are not crimes. Here’s the story, from ABC 13 News: A couple was arrested on Tuesday after their eight-week-old baby boy was left in his car seat on the ground of a busy parking lot in Katy, Texas. Sarah Shibley, 33, and…
Hi all — There has been some sort of shift in the Rhode Island legislature, pushing this bill off today’s agenda. I will keep you posted! — L. RHODE ISLAND: The bill criminalizing parents who let their kids wait in the car a few minutes keeps coming back like a bad penny. (Or bored cop! Or eager busybody!) In fact, it’s having a hearing again tomorrow — Thursday, Mar. 23. Here’s your chance to let your lawmakers know that parents should be allowed to determine whether or not it makes more sense to drag the kids out of the…
Precisely 99 years ago, California was battling a bushy-tailed terror: squirrels. They were destroying too many crops. To fight the furry fiends, reports Atlas Obscura, the government enlisted a platoon of pint-size perps: This children’s crusade was part of Squirrel Week, a seven-day frenzy in which California tried to kill off its ground squirrels. But how would they beat the bushy-tailed bullies? This way: . In the upper righthand corner the woman says, “Children, we must kill the squirrels to save food. But use poisons carefully.” I’m sure you’ve used those very words yourself. The trick seems to have been…
Hi all! This story was sent in with a note I sort of agree with: A school in Illinois is randomly assigning prom dates, thus removing the anxiety of asking/not-getting-asked. So, wrote the note-sender, isn’t that assuming young people lack even the basic social and emotional resilience to deal with the time-honored ritual? Well, yes, perhaps. But the tradition at this school began in 1926, so it’s not some newfangled coddling. And while of course kids can handle some embarrassment and disappointment, Free-Range figures there’s enough to go around even without this one particular hurdle. And there’s something about rising…
Hi Folks! This post appears on Nicole Roder’s blog. Author Nicole lives in Maryland with her four kids and a fierce Boston terrier, who “protects their home from some ubiquitous danger only she can see.” She called me to ask for a quote, and I wrote later to ask if I could reprint her piece! Yes/yes! Best part is the GREAT LIST of THINGS THAT ARE NOT DANGEROUS FOR KIDS TO DO, which I have highlighted in red. In fact, all the highlighting is mine. – L. SOMETIMES YOU JUST WANT TO PUNCH A JUDGMENTAL STRANGER IN THE FACE, by…
This story comes from a reader named Jennifer who wrote: So I am in 3 separate mommy groups and each of them in the past few days has posted this OMG! alert: http://faithit.com/mom-amanda-cropsey-florczykowski-warns-sex-trafficking/ Jennifer’s plea: Stop this insanity from gaining credibility! . I’m trying. Here’s the viral post: My name is Amanda and I’m a Longview, Texas resident. I’m convinced that our two-year-old daughter was the victim of a potential sex-trafficking scam yesterday. I got in the check-out line at a local store early afternoon. I took my daughter out of the cart and the couple ahead struck up the…