“Arrest Moms Who Let Their Kids Play Outside?” Asks The New York Times

The New York Times is sounding a lot like Let Grow. Here’s a headline from its front page on Thursday:

Is Letting Children Out Alone A Rite of Passage or a Crime?

Thanks to Let Grow’s efforts, that’s easy to answer:  It’s a rite – and a right. To date, we have helped 13 states pass Reasonable Childhood Independence laws that make it clear “neglect” is when you put your child in obvious, serious danger — NOT just any time you take your eyes off them. In fact, “reasonable” independence is GOOD for kids. 

These new laws were prompted by stories like the ones the Times article highlights – stories of moms arrested or investigated over the years, just for letting their kids ride their bikes, walk to town, or come home from the park without an adult. 

And all these stories were first reported by me.

There’s the story of Mallerie Shirley, who let her 6-year-old ride his bike to the park on a day off school. A woman saw him and called the authorities who showed up on Shirley’s doorstep two days later. Shirley wasn’t home but her husband was, and the caseworker informed him that really, he shouldn’t let his son ride his bike by himself until age 13. 

That’s not the law. It was just the caseworker’s personal opinion. But that’s what has been wrong with America’s neglect laws till now. They leave too much to the discretion of the cops or child protective services. 

Consider the other cases the Times touched on: Brittany Patterson, handcuffed and arrested – in front of her kids! — because her 10-year-old walked to town without her knowledge. Shaley Knickerbocker was visited twice by the cops because her kids were playing outside. And then there’s the Meitivs of Maryland, the first big “Free-Range Kids” case, back in 2014. They were investigated TWICE because they let their kids, Devorah, 6, and Rafi, 10, walk home from the local park, unsupervised.

I recently interviewed Rafi, now a college student, about that experience. “They threatened multiple times to take us away,” he recalled. “They thought that my parents were dangerous and we’d be better off someplace else.” He really thought he’d never see his parents again.

The Times piece gave a quick timeline explaining how childhood independence went from normal to taboo (a few high profile kidnappings in the ‘80s led to wildly inflated stranger-danger fears and helicopter parenting). And then it explained how the fight for childhood independence – and for laws protecting it — was born:

In 2008, Lenore Skenazy, a mother living in New York City, wrote a column for the New York Sun about why she allowed her 9-year-old son to ride the subway alone. The article went viral and Ms. Skenazy went on a media blitz, explaining why she thought it was detrimental for parents to make judgment calls based on long-shot what ifs.

“I call it worst-first thinking,” she said in a recent interview. “We’ve all been trained as parents to go to the worst-case scenario first and proceed as if it’s likely to happen.”

Ms. Skenazy coined her belief in reasonable childhood independence, the “free range kids” movement, and she began to call attention to cases where free-range parenting collided with the law. Eventually, state laws about child neglect began to change.

After attending one of Ms. Skenazy’s parenting lectures, Connor Boyack, the founder of a libertarian think tank, helped conceptualize the nation’s first law on childhood independence, passed in Utah in 2018. 

Shamefully, the article neglects to mention Let Grow itself, which grew out of Free-Range Kids. But it links to our page where you can look up your own state’s neglect laws. (And you can fill out the form at the bottom of this page to get involved, if you’d like.)

Weirdly, the piece ends on a dubious note, quoting a few people who think that anytime a kid is outside, maybe the authorities should sweep in. One is the psychologist The Daily Show found years ago to use as my foil in a still-funny piece. You can decide for yourself how credible she is.

The other is a Duke professor who frames the issue this way: “Do we want to err on the side of caution or do we want to err on the side of not bothering parents?”

As if it is just a “bother” when parents are investigated by an agency with the power to take away their children.

But times change. And just as drops of water can bore a hole in a stone, Let Grow’s constant fight to make childhood independence easy, normal and legal is changing the culture. Aside from the state laws already passed, overwhelmingly with bi-partisan sponsorship, now there is a bi-partisan Promoting Childhood Independence and Resilience Act awaiting debate in Congress. 

As the neglect investigation loomed over Mallerie Shirley’s family and she wouldn’t let her son bike outside, “His mental health really struggled,” she told the Times.

But in the end, whether due to common sense or media attention, the allegations were finally “unsubstantiated.”

Not only did her 6-year-old return to his bike, “overjoyed,” the message rang out yet again, to an ever-widening audience: Independence is not neglect! 

It is a gift.