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…
Author: lskenazy
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…
A reminder from a reader that the way we package our “news” ends up affecting the way we see the world, and our job as parents. And the easiest way to package any story is by making it seem as if X could have been prevented SO EASILY, if only a parent had been more vigilant: Dear Free-Range Kids: My biggest peeve is how when a criminal is involved, that person — not the parent — seems to get a free pass from public scrutiny. Consider the common case of somebody trying to steal a car, discovering a baby…
A surprise! Dear Free-Range Kids: Ran across this “article” on Facebook: https://www.romper.com/p/15-things-parents-did-in-the-90s-that-no-parent-would-do-today-9192?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pro&utm_campaign=fbpro&sr_source=lift_facebook I grew up in the ’90s in suburbia MI and remember this stuff. Now as a mother of an infant, I wish parenting wasn’t such a monumental, risk adverse task. Just last week I left my (overtired, recently screaming, just picked up from daycare) sleeping 8-month-old in a warm, remote-started, brand new, locked, electric car on a 50 degree day with a dog as backup for no more than THREE MINUTES as I ran into the corner store to buy a block of organic, locally produced cheese for…
Since you might have missed your latest copy of The Siberian Times, here’s a story for you, perfect for a blizzard: Little Saglana Salchak has spoken for the first time about her sad 6 hour trek through treacherous snow drifts with wolves around to get to a neighbour’s home from her grandparents’ remote farmstead. Miserable at finding her 60 year old grandmother ‘cold’, she was sent to call for help by her grandfather Borbak who is totally blind. He did not realise the time he told her to make the walk: it was 5 am, a pitch dark. The four…
The new-ish service, Hop Skip Drive, is basically Uber for kids. If parents are busy and they need their kids to get delivered somewhere — school, dance class, karate — some background-checked caregiver (all the drivers pictured are female) picks them up and deposits them. And naturally the parent can follow the entire ride with an app on their phone. Because…just because. Because our culture believes that if kids are not constantly supervised by their parents, either in person or electronically, they are in danger, the parents are negligent, and disaster looms. And also because apps just do this. So…