Outlawing Childhood

I sometimes joke that if I sent my 8 year-old daughter three blocks to the neighborhood grocery store by herself if I would probably get arrested. Yes she would have to cross a major street, but there are traffic signals and crosswalks, but I never ever see kids out walking free. I just chalked it up to living in Los Angeles. (BTW, my neighbor says he nearly has a heart attack each time he sees my daughter playing in our front yard because of all the crazies. But then again, having a heart attacks is his hobby.)

But last night, I was listening to As It Happens from the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (to listen, the story is in part one of the link at 14:50 to 27:50). They told the story of Lori Lavarre-Pierce from a small town in Mississippi. Lori was supposed to take her 10 year-old son to soccer practice last week. He asked his mom if he could walk. He had walked the same route the night before with his dad and sister, a route that he had taken many times. He knew the route. Mom said okay and gave him her cell phone. The kid left, and since she had to go to practice to meet a parent, she showed up 15 minutes after practice began. What she didn't know, was that in that period of time that he son walked to practice and she arrived, all hell broke loose.

It seems that people FREAKED OUT!!! A number of people reportedly called 911, and the police went to her home, and then to the soccer field. the first thing the police officer told her was "Do you know that you could have been charged with child endangerment? Your child is too young to walk alone." The kid only made it a few blocks from home before he was intercepted by the police. The police then drove the kid to soccer practice and then went looking for MOM.

Now being a DAD, I can appreciate divine justice, but this can ruin the kid too. The Canadian program did not play gotcha journalism. They followed up with an interview of Dr William Byrd who studies how children lose more and more freedom in each subsequent generation. More importantly, the study shows how such loss of autonomy, specifically the freedom to roam, screws up the kids brain and social development. Basically, kids who do not roam free by age 12 have more difficulty dealing with stress -- and they have much more difficulty connecting with their environment.

And we think AIG was a catastrophe....