Neglect Charges for Letting 13-Year-Old Babysit? Compelling Testimony at Hearing
“Let me tell you about Alice,” said Mariel Mussack, an attorney with Community Legal Services, testifying in the Pennsylvania State Legislature on Monday. Alice, Mussack said, is a single mom of two who was also caretaker for her younger brother, aged 13. When she needed to run a brief errand, Alice had her brother babysit her nearly 1-year-old.
For this, she was placed on the state’s child abuse registry. It became almost impossible for Alice to find work as a home health aide.
A law to protect decent parents.
Mussack was testifying in front of the Pennsylvania House Children and Youth Committee in favor of HB1873, called the Reasonable Childhood Independence bill. It’s a bill Let Grow helped pass in 11 states to date. Basically it clarifies that neglect is when you put your child in obvious, serious danger – not anytime you take your eyes off them.
As in most of the other states, the Pennsylvania bill has bi-partisan sponsors: Rep. Jeanne McNeill, a Democrat who is Majority Chair of the Committee, Rep. Rick Krajewski, another Democrat, and Rep. David Zimmerman, a Republican.
While Rep. McNeill was out sick, Rep. Krajewski opened the hearing by noting that he’d grown up with a single mom who worked two or three jobs. That meant he got himself to school and helped care for his younger sister. “It really does chill me to think that, in the eyes of our state statutes, that could be seen as neglect,” he said.
A decades-long slide in youth mental health.
Rep. Zimmerman recalled growing up on a farm. He and his friends would play at the creek, build forts, and feed the animals. “We’d be gone all day,” he said. “And we really would look out for each other.”
Peter Gray, a research professor of developmental psychology at Boston College and a co-founder of Let Grow, testified that that is exactly the kind of childhood that helps inoculate kids against despair.
The problem, Gray said, is that, “Over the last 60 years [as] we’ve seen a gradual but overall huge decline in children’s opportunities to play, roam, and generally engage in activities independent of adults…we’ve seen a gradual but overall huge increase in anxiety, depression, and I hate to even say it, suicide among young people.”
Why are kids so anxious these days?
That’s due to a shrinking “internal locus of control” – the sense that you can handle things, Gray said. The way you build a robust internal locus of control is by – surprise! — being in control of some things, like how you spend your time, and what you are trusted to handle on your own. “But we’re not allowing [kids] to do that.”
As constant adult supervision becomes the norm, more and more kids are being reported to the authorities. Diane Redleaf, a civil rights lawyer who is Let Grow’s legal consultant, gave the stats: 37% of American children will be the subject of a hotline call – a number that soars to 53% of African-American children.
Real abuse vs. childhood independence.
For Ethan Demme, an adoptive dad in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and CEO of the educational publishing company Demme Learning, the issue is also about trauma. Demme came to testify because, “I know firsthand about parents abusing their children and the need to intervene when that happens.” Unfortunately, he continued, “some people equate independence with neglect.” All it takes is some passerby calling the authorities because his kids are outside “and my children are thrust into another terrifying interaction with police or child services.”
Committee members chimed in with more stories of how different and depressing their childhoods would have been if their parents felt they couldn’t let them out of their sight.
The kids, the cops, and the Pokémon battle.
I got to testify, too, reminding the committee of the Georgia mom handcuffed in front of her kids because her son, 10, walked to town unsupervised. And I read aloud a letter from Lonna Gordon, a suburban Philly mom whose sons – 9, 6, and 4 – had indeed had the cops called on them because they were playing outside, nearby.
The cops decided the case did not warrant further intervention, wrote Gordon. “It may have helped that my 6-year-old insisted on giving them a play-by-play of a Pokémon battle at great length.”
What ended up happening to Alice.
As for Alice, the pseudonym Mussack used for her client, the authorities kept questioning “whether leaving a one-year-old with a 13-year-old could ever be considered reasonable,” Mussack testified. “I found this sentiment surprising, even on a personal level – I often babysat younger cousins in my early teen years.”
In the end, Alice got removed from the registry. But “We have seen many cases similar to Alice’s,” Mussack said.
As Demme summed it up: HB1873 doesn’t lower the bar for protecting kids in real danger. But, “We need to raise the bar for common sense.”
The Committee will vote on the bill in the coming days.
LET GROW HERE: Every parent deserves the peace of mind that comes from knowing trust and independence aren’t crimes.Visit LetGrow.org/policy-and-legislation to learn how you can make a difference!
Pictured: Rep. Jeanne McNeill
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