The Police Were Right That Someone Could Abduct Her Son
Only "someone" might be Child Protective Services.
A woman, Sonya Hendren, living in a gated Sacramento apartment complex, let her 4-year-old play outside on a playground,120 feet from her apartment's front door. A neighbor reported her to Child Protective Services, and police arrested Hendren for felony child neglect and endangerment.
Theresa Edwards writes at SheKnows:
The charges were later reduced to misdemeanors, and Hendren is hoping to get them dropped completely. If she's found guilty of even misdemeanor neglect and endangerment, that's a charge that can carry up to six months of jail and three years of probation. Alternatively she can take the very attractive offer of just 30 days in jail and a year of probation. So far she has declined that offer.In the meantime, she has a CPS case open against her and claims she will be in violation if she lets her son out of her line of sight.
Video here. Check out how close the playground is to the houses. This is like my parents allowing us to play in our backyard, except apartment dwellers don't have their own yard.
You can see how the self-reinforcing loop works here. CPS demands that parents direct, cater to and fuss over their children at all times. Said children grow up to be Special Snowflakes. They go to Princeton and learn how to harass and intimidate others into doing what they want. They get degrees in Social Justice Studies. Then they get cushy government jobs at CPS, where they demand that parents direct, cater to and fuss over their children at all times.
Cousin Dave at December 2, 2015 6:45 AM
You're absolutely right, Cousin Dave. Kids who play outside alone at 4, as I did, become independent.
I also was lucky not to have a lot of great toys like kids have now. I had to make stuff, using that thing...what's it called?...
Oh, yeah...the imagination.
Amy Alkon at December 2, 2015 8:01 AM
When I was a wee lad back in the Cretaceous period, we'd pick up sticks and use them as guns. When we got older, we gained enough skills to find better sticks that actually resembled firearms, then stripped the bark off and smoothed them out. The best ones were actually kept and reused.
We also took wood popsicle sticks and made shivs out of them.
Had I been born in a more "progressive" era, I would have been well prepared for my time in prison because I brought a weapon to school.
I R A Darth Aggie at December 2, 2015 9:25 AM
From what I can see, toys are primarily a substitute for (temporarily) unavailable playmates. Obviously, most kids desperately NEED real, same-age playmates on a regular basis, so more toys are not the answer.
Trouble is, there's something of a Catch-22 in this. According to one 1974 experiment, it's possible, at least (due to TV advertising of toys), for pre-gradeschool kids to prefer playing with unpleasant kids who own new, fashionable toys than with nice kids who don't own those toys. So kids with very few toys may have some trouble getting and keeping friends. (Granted, as one writer pointed out, that may be only a temporary choice for the subjects; once the novelty of the toy wears off, the subjects may well abandon the unpleasant kids.)
lenona at December 2, 2015 1:51 PM
Video games got started when I was a kid (born in '73) but we still played outside most of my childhood and had to earn the right to play said games when they were around.
Then again, I hear the stories from my dad and wonder how they actually survived.
Miguelitosd at December 2, 2015 6:09 PM
Leave a comment