WTF??!! I used to go to the mall by myself @ 12. Babysat at that age as well.

Sounds to me like some mall worker got her panties in a bunch.

She writes: " The mall is considered a family place where kids trick-or-treat in October to escape the cold..."

All children trick or treat in October. That's when Halloween is.

That aside, I think the three year old should have stayed with the mother, but then again, those girls had more training than I did when I was 12. Her rule about the three year old staying in her stroller was a bit extreme as well. I don't know of any child that can walk that would willingly be strapped into a stroller for two consecutive hours.

But whatever my reservations, the mall and the authorities over-reacted. If they had concerns, they should have called the mother and said that they didn't feel it was appropriate, not call the police. And the police should have spoken to the mother (if they had a problem with this), not arrested her.

I was thinking, if this course that the girls took was so "all that," perhaps their state/county/town should give certifications to girls to take that course. And allow for some leeway for children who have taken this course.

Seriously, WTF?! I have to ask myself, how did The people making a stink over this grow up?! Did they get wrapped up in bubble wrap for the first 18 years of their lives? I'd love to question them, ask them how old they were before they went out by themselves.

Hell when I was 12 I was walking all over my neighborhood alone, I'd go to the park without parental supervision, (that was a mile away) and I'd go with a few friends and play ball, or walk up the street alone without supervision, or go bike riding (not on the street, lots of sidewalks) for miles without so much as a cell phone. (They weren't around yet)

Now grant you this changed for a period of time after some people moved in nearby that my parents considered to be "creepy". Turned out they were convicted child molesters, and it wasn't long before they were gone, and then it was right back to the way things were. And by the by, the local 6-8 year old kids were doing much the same as I was.

Helicopter parents are protecting their children like security guards do prisoners, and they're crippling those kids ability to develop confidence, have childhood experiences, and ensuring that said children grow up dependent upon others for guidance.

I guarantee they'll grow up needing to be coddled by bosses and unable to cope with the stress of being around people that do not give a damn about their stress.

In short, helicopter parenting makes for weak minded (and probably weak bodied) adults.

I don't know the city. I would not do that in Austin. I think where she went wrong was the 3 yr old. Caring for a 3 yr old in a home is one thing. Out and about is another. I was babysitting at 12 too, but never had sole care of another child outside of a home/neighborhood park. And I took that exact same course at 12. I also agree a 3 yr old isn't going to stay in a stroller that long. I imagine she would have been fine had the 3 yr old stayed home.

Arresting was extreme. How about a warning?

I've got a better idea - shoot the security guard and everyone else that thought an arrest was the appropriate response in the face.

I mean, I can understand how convenience stores always have signs up "no more than two children in the store at one time" because you get a half-dozen punks in there at once and they rob you blind. But mall walkers?

Please.

As an aside, a friend of mine (single guy) was at the grocery store when a child, about six, came whipping around the corner and almost crashed into his cart. "Where's your mother?" my friend asked. A few seconds later, the mother came around the corner looking horrified. "Did you just talk to my child?" she asked my friend.

I just wish my friend had said, "If you don't want strangers talking to your child, then they shouldn't be acting like the grocery store is their play ground."

This is sick. I feel for the poor woman.

There are some gems of capable sitters, even these days. I've had a ten year old sitter (she's 15 now, and someone else sniped her for $12 an hour, dammit) who was more capable and mature than most twenty-somethings I know. Which is why someone sniped her away. Would I have let her take a three year old to the mall? Probably not. To the neighborhood playground, sure. But not the mall, and not with three kids to monitor.

Only question required; if something were to happen to one of the younger kids, could the twelve- year-olds handle it confidently and efficiently? What if one of the younger ones, takes off and decides to head downmall to the food court while the sitters are mooning over a Twilight poster? Like a kid has never been known to violate a parents' rules.....If the older girls can track the errant child down, or at least recruit adult help to do so, then great.

If not, mom screwed up.

I give her credit for guts: she fought this as far as she dared, but apparently her lawyer was convinced that she would lose at trial.

But why? There is clearly nothing criminal in what she did. And this is in Montana, where one would have hoped that the namby-pamby-save-us-from-ourselves idiots would be less present.

Bad laws enforced by idiots - with the power of the State to back them up. It's easy to say "vote the bastards out of office", but the next batch of bastards are likely to be just as bad. Obama is different from GWB - but just as disastrous.

So: really, how can one fight back against this kind of idiocy?

Regarding a 12-y.o. watching a 3-y.o. at the mall, it would probably have been a bad idea if she were the only one, but there were two of them that age.

For the woman in the article, I would probably at least float the notion to a couple of lawyers of suing the mall for interfering with her child's social development by forcing her to take away the child's responsibilities and coddle her like a developmentally-disabled person. Might not fly, but it would be at least worth a few phone calls.

From the full article:

I got through the year during which the case dragged on quietly, not sharing with anyone what had happened —- not only because the judge had placed a gag order on the case, but also because I felt a deep, deep shame. Here I was, someone who had been successful for almost thirteen years raising children and having a job—indeed, someone who was admired by others in this balancing act—and I was being accused of failing.

I wonder the reason for the gag order?

Was it because if this persecution by the justice system came out in public, she would have been readily exonerated by the public?

was the prosecutor worried she was in the wrong?

Maybe the judge was trying to find some way to let her off?

> I wonder the reason for the gag order?

Probably because there were children involved...

Probably because there were children involved...

I've heard of much more egregious cases that didn't have a gag order. What makes this special?

Jim P. and Snoopy, you've got it wrong. The reason for the gag order is absolutely transparent: the mall and the police department knew that when the case hit the Internet, there would be hell for them to pay. That's why the gag order. It was in no way necessary for the case; it was a blatant cover-up. And it worked.

This mother should be ashamed of herself for sending her kids to the mall by themselves without being properly armed. What if some psycho tried to attack them? Clearly the security guards, being preoccupied with unaccompanied 12-year-old girls (shudder), would be of no help. OK, I'll grant you that the three-year-old should just be given a squirt gun.

There are those who prefer young girls to go to the mall unarmed: misogynists, pedophiles and worse. They don't need a man to protect them from danger. They're not your prey. I, for one, support a woman's right to choose to arm herself.

The mall security definitely overreacted although I can't say that I'd send a 3 year old. No matter how well behaved or responsible they are still kids. I was babysitting at 12 and walking around the neighborhood. I grew up in a very safe neighborhood, but I still don't think any parent I sat for would have let me and 6 of my friends take a 3 year old to hang out at the mall. I do wonder though if the mall had called this mother with their concerns if she would have been respectful and picked the kid up or if she would have become indignant and refused. Either way, she shouldn't be facing charges. What's even sadder is some of the kids I've seen in abusive situations and for some reason they are never charged. Maybe those kids need to get dropped off at a mall to get some legal attention.

I'm not that surprised - esp. since this happened in Bozo-man...Click my name...

I think 12 is too young to go to the mall. But that's because my local mall is a haven for thugs. Seriously, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn and an anchor dept. store all left within the past few months. Those are bad signs. If your local mall isn't home to drug-dealing, knife toting losers then it's probably okay.

I wouldn't have left the 3-year-old, but as long as it's not a "thug mall", I think the others would have been fine.

As far as parenting goes, interference from other adults-such as in cases like this- scares me more than personal failure as a parent. I live in a safe, low-traffic neighborhood... I should be able to let a child ride her bike to the end of the street, or around the block... but that won't stop some self-rightous asshole from calling in the authorities because they don't approve.

I suspect there's something missing from the story. Probably the 3 yr old had a tantrum that the 12 yr olds couldn't handle or something happened to draw particular attention to them because, normally, if kids this age were just walking around the mall, people would assume the mom was there in a store nearby. No one would think anything of it. So, my guess is that one of the kids wandered off, picked up/broke an item at a store, or did something to be disruptive.

My daughter took the babysitting course too, and 12 yr olds are supposedly allowed to babysit legally. I mean, if we are going to "certify" them to babysit, how can a mom be arrested in this type of case? She had 2 qualified babysitters there. As far as I recall, there's no restrictions to it, like it must be in the home only.

upshot is, prolly the 3year old was a bad idea... but what happened to telling mamalady that it's a bad idea by giving her a warning? coupled with the gag order and such, this would be total over reaching by authority.

I read it through. Turns out the older girls weren't as reliable as the mom thought. They did leave the younger three parked in the purse department near the cosmetics counter while they went off to try on shirts. So now the 3 year old was in the care of a 7 and 8 year old -- and that's when store employees noticed and called security.

Still, the punishment hardly fits the crime, if you can call it that.

I'm frankly becoming afraid to let my kid play in our yard by himself, lest some overzealous state busybody decide it's a criminal offense today!

What's sad is that there are kids out there being legitimately abused/neglected, and the authorities have to waste their time on cases like this?

My GF wants to train up to run a half-marathon. Their is a local elementary, middle, and high school campus a few miles away. This is truly a rural school -- there are corn fields behind it. They let people use the track and such at will.

Being a single mom, she wants to go run there, and just let the kids (9, 7 & 5) wander the area local to the track. The playgrounds are a little distance (less than 1/2 a mile on the campus) and she won't let them that far. But she is afraid someone will call the CPS/cops because she isn't hovering.

I think its stupid that she has to worry this much.

Maybe the mall didn't want the liability. Can you see it now? Something happens, the 12 year olds aren't old enough to be legally responsible for whatever happens. The mom should be, but a hungry and talented lawyer could lay it at the feet of mall management. This could have turned into an easy way to scare up a quick $150,000 settlement just to make the bad publicity go away.

Sick, I know.

I agree that this mom did not make the wisest decision. But what I find troubling is that she did not apparently break any existing law, but still got arrested. If Bozeman offers babysitting classes to 12 year olds, then they obviously are legally old enough to watch children. And according to the article, there was no sign posted at the mall with an age limit for unattended kids. So WHY THE HELL WAS SHE ARRESTED? It sounds like it was based on someone's vague opinion of parental neglect, and if so, the same thing could happen to anyone who's not hovering over her kids at all times.

This bit from the full article explains why she was charged and had it stick until the settlement:

"The city attorney made no secret of the fact that her own parenting choices informed her decision in backing up the police officer. She told my lawyer in their first meeting that she also had a daughter and would never have left her at the mall. She also said she believed professors are incapable of seeing the real world around them because their “heads are always in a book.” Her first letter to my lawyer ended on a similar theme: “I just think that even individuals with major educations can commit this offense, and they should not be treated differently because they have more money or education.” Despite the fact that Montana professors are among the lowest paid in the nation, and that undoubtedly the prosecutor has a law degree herself, she nevertheless categorized me as someone trying to receive special treatment."

So basically, the city attorney was a woman jealous of a "outsider" history professor despite that a lawyer is also one with their head in books... law books. Clear projection from the witch DA (im a working mom and I do it better than this stuck up liberal egghead!) and it is clear evidence she doesn't deserve to be a lawyer and has the mental capacity to be nothing more than a towel rack in a turkish bath house.

I also found it interesting that the mall cops/police kept the girls from using their cell phone to call their parents. Unlawful restraint there perhaps?

I can barely believe that someone can actually get arrested for this. I've always assumed Montana to be a fairly independent state too. I can only hope she's going to appeal/it will be overturned, because the last thing we need is more case precedents like this.

She also said she believed professors are incapable of seeing the real world around them because their “heads are always in a book.”

Bigotry is ugly.

Sio: This city attorney does sound like she has a little bit of Janet Reno in her, doesn't she?

>I've always assumed Montana to be a fairly independent state too.

I think that is the reason for the gag order. Too many would have disagreed with the arrest.

I can only hope she's going to appeal/it will be overturned,...

My lawyer worked out the deferred prosecution agreement, and I began my service.

It sounds like she did a deal -- keep your nose clean for X months and the charges will be dropped. The only thing left will be, maybe, some arrest paperwork with the Bozeman PD.

But that begs the question: If the prosecutor was so sure of herself and her righteousness, why didn't she force it to trial?

This reminds me of a PTO meeting we had recently. We were watching a presentation by a woman who was promoting creating a "kid safe bicycle route" for our neighborhood elementary school (grades 1-5). When she finished I had the nerve to ask this question: "Why do I need a kid safe route to my son's school when I am watching him when he rides his bike to school?"

Needless to say, everyone looked at me like I had taken off all my clothes and danced naked around the room. So, they all looked at eachother desperately trying to give me an answer. The lady giving the presentation said "Am I correct in the assumption that most parents let their children ride to school by themselves?" No answer. I said "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm certainly not EVER letting a 7-year-old ride a bike to school by himself! I watch my child all the way"

I successfully led some folks by their disbelieving dropped jaws to end the motion to build the bicycle route. Funny how being surrounded by a group keeps people quiet...

Is this "hovering? Or is it something totally lacking these days called "parenting?" I would never let any 12-year-old watch a three-year-old in a mall. That is crazy! I don't even think I would let a 12-year-old hang out at the mall by themselves without a parent being at the mall somewhere or with an older sibling.

What a dumbass this woman is. Did I misread this or was she a single mother? Well, that would make TOTAL sense...just like the blog a few weeks ago where the single mother left her child at the baseball game while she was out boinking.

How about some accountability people. Yeah, I'm sure everyone can say, "well, when i was a kid i did the same thing..." Well, I ran all over the woods in my neighborhood myself when I was 12, but this is not that era. Do these people ever learn? How many times a week do we have to hear about kids being taken before we pay attention to our own kids and their safety?

Oh yeah, just thought I'd mention I am the single father of my 7-year-old...

Mike, I recommend that you look at Lenore Skenazy's website, or better yet read her book. Children are not being abducted any more now than they were 20 or 30 years ago - less, actually. And yes, you are "hovering" if you don't think your son can get to school by himself. But, that is your right, just as I believe it is my right to let my perfectly capable kids walk to school by themselves. And the chance of them being kidnapped on the way is about 1 in 1.5 million - 40 times less likely than their being killed in a car crash while I drove them to school.

Mike, if you want to helicopter your own children, that's your business. But, when you start interfering with other people's parenting methods- including their efforts to teach their children to be independent- you're part of the problem.

I saw some comments just WAY off the mark. I'll tell you WTF! You don't leave a 12 yo (or 2 or 10-12 yos) in charge of a 3 yo. I don't care where you live or what your life experience is. There are just too many things that could happen that a 12 yo - or 2-12 yos - would not be able to deal with. I agree with the comments that arrest was perhaps extreme, if nothing happened. But come on Mom, do you watch the news at all? Are you aware what can happen to young kids - in ANY town?

The Bozeman City Attorney made international news recently for requiring that all applicants for city positions submit their usernames and passwords to any social networking sites to which they belong.

This would enable someone to not only read your profile but to extract private information regarding your 'friends', your email accounts, any other third-party accounts associated with your profile, and to manipulate this information at will. And it's apparent that the CA was fully aware of these implications.

So the behavior that the author experienced may be indicative of the culture of that office.

Also a small point - the role of police is not to pronounce that someone has committed a crime. They can detain and arrest someone on the suspicion of a crime, but they should not be making charges against citizens in public. The behavior that she'd describes warrants a complaint against these officers.

Also a small point - the role of police is not to pronounce that someone has committed a crime. They can detain and arrest someone on the suspicion of a crime, but they should not be making charges against citizens in public.

Then you need to reference back to this: Welcome To The Police State from just a few weeks ago.

Don't you know that if the cop declares it a crime -- you have committed a crime and have to prove your innocence?

"The mom should be, but a hungry and talented lawyer could lay it at the feet of mall management. This could have turned into an easy way to scare up a quick $150,000 settlement just to make the bad publicity go away."

Um, no. Plaintiff's attorneys are not able to send a nasty letter and then get a "quick" six figure settlement on a lousy set of facts. There is that whole jury of your peers and a judge involved, and defendants, who have their own hungry and talented lawyers, typically have zero interest in paying bullshit claims based on publicity concerns. Quite the opposite, actually--defendants will burn a plaintiff's attorney time (and money) out of sheer contempt for the initial threat to file a bullshit claim.

"You don't leave a 12 yo (or 2 or 10-12 yos) in charge of a 3 yo"

jonathan - I'm 24, so I was 12 not too, too long ago. At that age I babysat for several families, each with 2 or 3 kids ranging in age.

It might be too much for some kids to handle but I did ok. I did have to call my mom a few times for advice over the years - but I still do that now...

It has to be a case-by-case thing. We can't just have stupid blanket regulations that 1)don't take into account details of the situation 2) remove the ability for individual law officers to judge each situation on its merit.

So if a 12 year old is beating on the 3 year old in her care she shouldn't be in charge. But me - I was a hustlaaaaa. In oldspeak that means I made fucking shitloads of money babysitting. It was awesome. And the kids LOVED me. It works for most ppl.

"read it through. Turns out the older girls weren't as reliable as the mom thought. They did leave the younger three parked in the purse department near the cosmetics counter while they went off to try on shirts. So now the 3 year old was in the care of a 7 and 8 year old -- and that's when store employees noticed and called security.

Still, the punishment hardly fits the crime, if you can call it that."

Well, there you go. 12 year olds should not be in charge of younger kids at a mall. I see the mall as being much more reasonable now. If I worked at that store and saw those 3 little kids alone, I'd call security or the cops too.

I find it worrisome that 2 sets of parents thought this an A-Ok plan. The 12 year olds, at a safe mall, sure. With little kids? No. And our malls do have no unaccompanied minor signs here.

Can we all agree on the following?

* 12 year olds without supervision = reasonable.

* 12 year olds in charge of 3 year old at mall without adult supervision = stretching the boundaries.

With regards to the first, if 12 year old isn't bursting out of his/her skin to avoid being seen with parent in public, then something's wrong. Growing up in Westwood and too young for a car, we'd routinely walk or bike ride to Westwood Village, Century City, and UCLA at that age. It was fun and we were fortunate to have destinations that didn't require gasoline.

With regards to the second, I'd say she gave her older kid a bit too much responsibility too quickly. The mall staff acted appropriately to watch over the younger ones when it appeared they had been left alone. Even getting the cops involved makes sense until the parents are located. In fact, there's a good lesson for the 12 year old here - "Mommy gets in trouble if you don't do what you promised to do."

But prosecution? Seriously?

Yes, you did, Amy - and I did - and all of us of that era did. How many of us came up missing or got molested isn't known. We survived, that's all we know. It was a more innocent time.

John Walsh's son was abducted from a mall in seconds, although he was there with his mom. Madelyn whatserhername in England was taken while her parent dined only a few yards away, thinking the same thing - "The odds are so unlikely of anything bad happening. We're checking in every 30 mins and, after all, nothing like that ever happened to us."

The dilemma for parents is what if you are the one in thousands, or millions, like poor Madelyn's parents? How do you live with that? They did nothing "wrong", but they could've certainly been more vigilent. This mom did nothing "wrong" either, yet if a pedophile had happened to zero in on her 3 yr old that day, she'd be gone.

I have let my 16 y old son fly an airplane and camp alone in the Everglades. But I would not have let him go to the mall at age 3 being watched by a 12 yr old. You weigh the consequences, and I don't think you have to necessarily be a "helicopter parent" to choose differently than this mom did. The consequences could've been devastating. What if the 7 and 8 yr olds had also wandered off while the 12 yr olds were busy admiring themselves in the dressing room? Clearly, the older girls were not mature enough to be responsible for such a young child, and the 7 and 8 yr olds need to be watched just as carefully.

I think a warning would've been better than arrest, but I don't believe she was responsible in what she did.

I had the same childhood as everyone here: riding bikes to elementary school, only coming home when the street lights came on. And I lived in a pretty big city. But what we wee bike riders didn't have back then was the crazy traffic that exists now and people on cell phones and texting while at the wheel. Our urban gangs -- if you wandered into the wrong area -- might yell at your or chase you with a baseball bat but no one was pulling a gun on anyone. Homeless and drug addicts weren't begging for change on city corners.

All that said, I'm no helicopter parent. I don't worry too much about stranger danger (remember him!). I took a safety class with mine that put parental concerns in proper perspective. So I let mine roam within reason (and hold my breath sometimes, I admit). But they'll never have my childhood and no matter how sad that makes me that's just the way it is.

(I did, however, thanks to this blog let my youngest go apartment building to apartment building in our urban neighborhood for a school project. I just sat on our stoop and waited for an hour until she got home, so proud of herself for having taken her own photographs of people and asked them neighborly questions.)

I'd be curious to find out how many of us were free rangers ourselves, and how we react now. I started driving farm trucks and tractors at 8. I walked to school except for one year 5th grade... but since I was at the beginning of the route, I was on the bus at 6:30, and I hated that... so I started walking again. In northwest Denver until 8th gr. Even in winter. :shrug: I shouldn'a ever stopped. I was working in my ma's store at 14, and walked there too. I walked because my bikes kept getting stolen...

The reasoin most of that ended with my own children, was that my ex- is firmly in her helicopter... and There are a lot of sprawling suburbs where you literally CAN'T walk. It's 5 miles to the closest school, and 7 to the grocery. So, somewhere we made the bed and we'll pay now...

Reality check:

No amount of vigilance will protect your child from a determined molester. Period.

Accept that and move on.

Life is risk. Don't do things that increase risk unnecessarily (and this case definitely qualifies as unnecessary).

But criminalizing risk is stupid. At some point, you just have to lay responsibility on the parents and let them deal with the negative consequences.

This links nicely back to my point last month about the parents wanting to allow their kid to stop cancer treatments.

There must be a line drawn where the government says "fine, your kid dies it's on you."

It is not the government's job to ensure that every person born survives to retirement.

"Nothing happened to me" is just not a good argument. All of us who are here discussing this are, by definition, survivors of a lot of (in hindsight) dangerous stuff. Not wearing seatbelts, for instance. We never wore seatbelts when I was a kid. Adults either. And I survived, so I might presume that wearing seatbelts is unnecessary - and there are parents who still argue this - but that would be silly. Statistics clearly show that more people die when not wearing seatbelts. And I had a brother who was killed, at age 17, because he was not wearing one.

We're simply lucky, but we don't know how many other kids were not so lucky. And now that we know so much more about the dangers - that pedocphiles lurk in malls, for instance -it's just as negligent to send your young child inappropriately supervised to a mall than it is not to lock them safely in a carseat while driving a vehicle.

"I started driving farm trucks and tractors at 8."

*Statement of the day.

LS -

Statistically speaking, your child is much more likely to be molested by her sixth-grade teacher than she is a random stranger at the mall.

Should you be subject to arrest for sending your child unaccompanied into a public school?

This whole fear of predators thing is serious bullshit, by the way. It's led to stupid shit like this:

In order to provide a safe and secure setting for our day camp program, we ask our members to stay off the property Monday-Friday during the day camp season; defined as the last week of June, all of July and August from 6:30 AM to 5:30 PM.

Camp Sloper has a disc golf course on it. They charge $90 per year for membership to use the outdoor center.

But because of the pervasive fear of pedophiles, paying members can't even be ON THE FUCKING PROPERTY during the prime outdoor usage season. In other words, I'd be paying $90 a year to be able to use the disc golf course two days a week, because the chance of getting a round in starting at 5:30 is slim because you have to be off the property by sunset (about 8:30 in July, 8:00 by the end of August).

So, thanks a lot Mr. Walsh. You've really made it fun to be an adult.

Yes Amy, i rode my bike to school every day too. But, it is not lost on me how weird this country has become over the past 20 years or so (maybe more). I think I would feel safer in the country than in the city (or a mall), but still I would not let MY son go anywhere with any 12 year old kid alone. I can't imagine that. And no, no helicopters here...there is a difference between being an overbearing parent and a responsible parent. It only takes one time for something really bad to happen, and then it is too late to say "gee I wish I would have watched him ride his bike to school, maybe that BMW with the driver with the Blackberry in their ear would not have flattened him..."

Come on folks, you have to keep an eye on kids, no matter how independent you would like them. I want an independent child also, but, at 3, 7, 8, or 12, he is too immature (and just plain stupid) to watch out for himself.

Obviously now, Brian. We're mandated to send them to school (or provide education at home), and it is reasonable to assume that the school has checked the teacher's background. Still, incidents happen, no doubt, but I agree with you that we have to do everything to minimize risk. I'm not for being unreasonably protective, but I don't think we can live in the innocent perspective of the past. Child abductions and molestations always happened, even in our era; we just didn't know about them as much.

Once my children were old enough to assess and understand what to do in a potentially threatening situaton, I allowed them more freedom. But age 3 and 8 is not that age. It depends on the child, but I'd say 10 is a minimum.

I meant, "obviously NOT, Brian" :)

Brian said: "Statistically speaking, your child is much more likely to be molested by her sixth-grade teacher than she is a random stranger at the mall. Should you be subject to arrest for sending your child unaccompanied into a public school?"

I'm sorry Brian, do you not see the difference between a random stranger at the mall and a teacher, who, theoretically, is supposed to be an authority figure? At an institution where children are supposed to be safe? Is that similar to a stranger at a mall?

However, your point is not lost on me. Maybe the only "penalty" for idiotic behavior like leaving a 3-year-old at the mall with a 12-year-old should be to give custody of the children involved to the other parent...

lovelysoul, you make some very good comments on this topic...unfortunately, these days common sense just does not seem to play into most folks ideas of parenting.

I'm with you. We can't live in the innocent past or the "good old days".

It's all about the children...not the ones that made it out. As a veteran of childhood here are some takes: Government intervention to never have training wheels and make it a magic day where you fall asleep and then wake up and all of a sudden you are legally responsible for your actions, age 18.

This sort've helicopter crap happens and kids aren't put in situations where they have to learn (you know, making decisions) and people wonder why kids move back with "the folks" after college or god knows what? 30 is the new 20 because 20 is the new 10.

Mike and LS -

Perhaps your assumptions are wrong, then. The point I was making is that even with supposed background checks, and the assumption that the school gives a fuck, any child is more likely to be the victim of sexual assault/abuse at the hands of a school teacher or relative than a complete stranger.

However, the only one that merits any concern at all is the stranger.

Is it somehow more comforting for you if your child happens to be molested by the gym teacher? Or are you convinced that some magical "background check" is going to weed out the 23 year old first-time offender?

There are no "good old days". But people are needlessly making the present far worse for people by allowing the presumption of guilt to become conventional wisdom.

Which is why men are actively shunted away from primary school teaching positions, and why any man who applies for a job where he would be working with children is looked upon with trepidation.

After all, the conventional wisdom goes, any man who wants to work with children must be intent on sexual gratification.

The dilemma for parents is what if you are the one in thousands, or millions,

IIRC the rate of stranger abductions is about 1 per 500,000 children in the US ( ~150 incidents and ~75 million kids 17 and under ).

That mall cop gives Paul Blart a good name. Really -- three youngish kids waiting for their older siblings for a few minutes at the cosmetics counter. What is so dangerous about that? What could POSSIBLY in the realm of REALITY happen -- a three-some mugging with no one behind the counter noticing? A flasher in the middle of Macy's? An asteroid? To see these children as endangered is to be dreaming up the next Jerry Bruckheimer (or whatever his name is) movie. And then some!
Yours in disgust at all the danger-halucinating going on in the name of "good judgment" -- Lenore Skenazy, yes, the gal who wrote, "Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry."

lenore-let's see, what could happen.....3 yr old putting accessories in her mouth and choking to death. 3 year old eating silica packets out of purses. 3 year old wandering off while oh-so-responsible 7 year old is preoccupied elsewhere. 3 year old getting fingers or other appendage caught in the escalator that's ALWAYS near purses and it being chopped off (my mom saw a boy lose a finger when she worked in the mall). 3 year old falling down the escalator. And none of that requires sick adults in the scenario preying on them.

The point I was making is that even with supposed background checks, and the assumption that the school gives a fuck, any child is more likely to be the victim of sexual assault/abuse at the hands of a school teacher or relative than a complete stranger.

Yup. And, in my opinion, this mania about protecting children from strangers has made them *more* vulnerable than they would be otherwise to predatory non-strangers, because parents don't tend to even think about them as possibilities. I see no societal outcry against the practice of women leaving their new boyfriends to babysit their small children, which statistically speaking is far more likely to end with a dead or at least abused child than is allowing one's 12-year-old to visit the mall solo. What happened to the Walshes was tragic on multiple levels, but most of the kids you see on milk cartons have been kidnapped by non-custodial parents.

I wouldn't have sent my three-year-old to the mall in the care of two 12-year-olds. But I also think that the crime rate in Bozeman must be astoundingly low for the law enforcement system to have this much time and energy to waste on this case.

momof4:

Other than the eating of silica gel, everything you fear could happen to an adult.

Choking to death on a snack from the food court, slipping and falling down the escalator, etc.

None of which justifies the terror that modern parents exhibit when their children are exposed to the world.

Bozeman's a crunchy granola college town, but I'm not sure that I'd let two 12 year olds take charge of that many much younger kids.

A 3 year old left in the care of the 7 and 8 year olds? That's a little silly. I'm willing to bet that the mall cop didn't want to be responsible for anything happening to the littlest one. That mall has a couple of bars in it, and you know, 12 year olds, even with a lot of babysitting, aren't always the best judges of situations.

Also--Bridget Kevane is a prof. of Spanish at MSU there--not some trailer park slattern mom. But her common sense had deserted her. She's been reported as having Aspergers, which might account for this lapse in judgment.

No, Kate. That society considers this a lapse of judgment is the problem.

My only concern for those kids would have been wandering off. First the 8 year old, then the 7 year old, then the 3 year old. And then who knows what? A preschooler alone in a parking lot, barely visible to cars backing up, etc., is not a good idea. Ditto discovering the escalators. And it was probably more than a "few minutes" for those girls to get to the dressing room, try on the shirts, get dressed again, and get back to their young charges. And it's just luck that two girls that age didn't get distracted along the way.

Again, the reaction was ridiculous. But it wasn't the smartest move on Kevane's part to start.

Well, like I said, my son flies airplanes and camps alone out there with crocodiles....but he's 19 now. At some point, you have to let go, and actually, when he was 4, and in Montessori school, it was all about developing independence (with supervision). They even have a famous video of a 2 or 3 year old making breakfast for herself - frying the egg in the pan.

But it's about finding the appropriate ages and maturity level to do things. Just to send your 7 or 8 yr old out the door to prove that you're not a "helicopter parent" or that your kid can do what YOU did at their age seems foolish. Yes, severe consequences are unlikely - exceedingly rare. So is getting hit by a car. But I wanted to raise my children knowing that if the worst happened it was at least beyond my control. That I didn't have to look back and question my actions as a parent. I wanted to know I took all reasonable precautions, because momof3 is right, a lot of things can happen very fast - within seconds. Living in FL, I've had friends who lost their children in drownings -takes only a second of a turned head for that to happen, and these parents never get over the grief and guilt.

So, I've lived by that edict, and my kids are still very independent and, most importantly, ALIVE.

Brian--it was a lapse of judgment. If she was that exhausted, she could have had the older two babysit at home while she took a nap. But, I'm willing to bet, she doesn't like to say no to the older one, would rather be a pal, and thus, dropped them all off at the mall.

Yes, the mall cop took it too far, and yes, the City of Bozeman did too, but I'm willing to bet she got all Professorial on their hick asses, and that's when things went wrong. Why didn't she just pay the stupid fine?

You guys are missing something here, and you are right in line with the rest of America in not noticing this:

Mom didn't just invent the idea of the 12-year-olds watching their younger charges. It wasn't extraordinary, because they didn't do anything to indicate that it was.

You might be doing the same thing panicky people do when they sweat, looking at the big bin of stuff at the airport taken from people getting on planes - hammers, saws, lawn equipment and so forth. It has gone on without incident for some time, and now you invent all sorts of disaster scenarios. You're wishing for mayhem and death so you can be right when saying children (under 17, 18, 21, living at home, WTF?) should be tended constantly.

You want a clue as to if anything was going wrong? Haven't you heard of crying? Don't kids do it when they're out of their depth?

Did they do it this time?

Congratulations, everyone. Now that kids know that Mommy should be locked up for letting them be responsible for themselves, we have made truly superior citizens of them!

My question is why did they not call the parents first! If you have a problem with the kids and you have a some sort of business guideline that unattended children are not allowed why not ask the simple question is "Where are you parents?", followed by a few more simple ones...."Why are you alone?"..."Can you contact your parents?"....

What is happening to society that people can not thing outside the box a little or even think off of programmed courses of action. People are becoming robots. THINK PEOPLE!

Times sure have changed.... "I remember going to a large Mall that had a public library in one section. I was "(I think) 10 maybe even 9 going by myself of being dropped off by my dad. I would leave about an hour or two later to be picked up. Sometimes I even left the library to see the mall and all ended up fine...

Hell the more I think about it the more I got up to some mischief or another by myself or with a friend/brother. Hell at twelve I was delivering papers and collecting the money every two weeks door to door. Nothing bad happened to me - actually the worst thing that happened to me is a I lost all the collection money one day.

hmmm my comment was eaten I think.
But in general I said, home can be as dangerous as the mall. There is lipstick or other small objects choke on there. There are stairs if not elevators. And if 12 yr olds can babysit at home it's not a great leap for them to babysit at a safe mall for a couple hours in the afternoon with parents available a mere 5 minutes away.
Oh, and I had plently of responsiblity as a child. Disaster could have happened....it didn't. It was not GOOD luck, the odds were very much with me.
Finaly I was driving trucks and tractors around 7-9 yrs. I wasn't left completely alone with them, I was helping with the work. This was not in the "Good ole days", I'm not that old.

"Now that kids know that Mommy should be locked up for letting them be responsible for themselves"
1. They weren't responsible. They left the little kids.
2. no 3 year old can or should be responsible for themselves. That's WHY higher primates have parents.
3. I'm betting if that 2 or 3 year old had burned herself, the Dr would have called CPS after hearing she was frying her own egg with the parents knowledge. And rightly so.

Brian-I've yet to see an adult that would stick their finger in the escalator trying to see where it goes. Unless they are mentally impaired, in which case they pretty much are a kid, right? And if you think an adult slipping and falling is anywhere near as likely as a 3 yr old falling down an escalator, you've never seen a 3 year old walk.

Rad-kids don't always cry. In fact, going off and hiding is the prime fear response for kids. They're rather averse to making a scene, after about age 4. It's like drowning-people think the kid will be splashing and screaming for help when in reality, they just silently slip under and are gone. Same thing here.

but the 3 yr. old was not alone. It was with a 7 and 8 yr. olds. Around that age I would watch toddlers for a stretch while their grandmother was busy with something. The 12 year olds shouldn't have done it, but it was not the sign of impending doom.

Kate --

"Brian--it was a lapse of judgment."

No, it wasn't. My opinion now cancels out yours. You *do* realize that you're not an automatic authority, right? Just because you utter it, doesn't make it fact.

Something to remember is that this woman states that she'd called the parents of the kids who aren't hers, and they'd given their approval for them to go to the mall alone. This suggests to me that what had occurred is not so unusual in this community.

Also the kids were apparently instructed to keep the 3yr old confined to a stroller so that he/she couldn't run amok.

My question is why did they not call the parents first!

I suspect that it was because the police officers wanted to extract incriminating statements from the children. If so, this is also why they wouldn't let the kids call their parents.

The author assumes that the officers' explanation for this is sincere - that they viewed her as potentially abusive, but this doesn't explain why they couldn't call their father, who was apparently 5 minutes away, or the parents of the other children. They may have deliberately isolated the children for the purpose of corroborating the charges that they intended to pursue.

If her rendition of these events is accurate, it does seem to me that she was the victim of a vindictive prosecution.

"Now that kids know that Mommy should be locked up for letting them be responsible for themselves..."

momof4, you missed this entirely: they will remember this their entire lives, and from their point of view, they themselves were never doing anything wrong. It was Mommy. The policeman said so!

Hey, and the kids didn't hide, either. More clues that this was standard operating procedure for the family. Thanks!

-----

You are free to insist that imprisonment for a mother is completely justified for allowing her sub-20-year-old out of sight and to call for Social Services to break the family and put them in paid foster care, because that's always better. You may also claim loudly that instant death at the hands of pedophile men is always the result of leaving anyone young with them, because sex with children is what every man wants all of the time.

And I am likewise free to show you what has actually become of society as a result of your simple phobia - an unreasoning fear of a seriously low risk.

Call Draco, but don't be surprised when he kills you for an offense.

I'll be honest with you, if I were actually interested in having a family, shit like this would put me off it for good.

Is there any country left where you can raise your children without the government interfering, and without fear that you will be living under a muslim sword in the next three decades?

Or has the entire human race turned to sheep who aren't capable of the simplest tasks without mommy government holding their hand?

Rad, I never suggested any of the above. Nice strawman. All I've said was it was wrong of her to send the 3 yr old. period.

Brian - Have you checked out the Assassin series? It's by Robert Ferringo (first book is Prayers of the Assassin, second is Sins of the Assassin).

It's set about 30 years in the future in the former U.S.A...that is a divided nation of radical fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. I am having a hard time getting into the books but the premise is good. A worst-nightmare scenario but one that doesn't seem too far fetched; the evolution of the fundamentalist nations is talked about in the books and I could see it happening in real life.

Not as yet, no. I find anything that involves "radical fundamentalist Christians" to be more of a comedy than anything else, precisely because the only violent ones seem to be the ones that are mentally unbalanced to begin with.

Besides, I prefer my dystopia to be more emphatic. Jerry Pournelle and David Niven do a good bit with that. Lucifer's Hammer and Fallen Angels were both excellent.

The scary thing is that Fallen Angels is, in part, coming true.

"I'm sorry Brian, do you not see the difference between a random stranger at the mall and a teacher, who, theoretically, is supposed to be an authority figure? At an institution where children are supposed to be safe? Is that similar to a stranger at a mall?"

Mike, the problem is that you're trying to make an argument in support of a logical fallacy: that because stranger abductions are widely publicized, it follows that they must be very common. The truth is exactly the opposite.

And more to the point: do we really want to criminalize parenting decisions? And should any random state agent, anywhere, have the authority to override a parent's decision *and* toss the parent in jail to rot? Remember, we aren't talking about a simple fine here. They charged her with a felony. If convicted, she was facing, at a minimum, having her children taken away, and being disqualified from a huge range of future employment because of having a felony conviction. It's quite possible she would have been placed on the sexual offenders registry, which would probalby have cost her her position at the university. And at worst, she might have been facing hard time.

And one more thing, and this is the bit that particularly disgusts me: Last week we had a thread about a Supreme Court decision concerning the rights of a convicted rapist. It was a good discussion, but ultimately I was left unconvinced; the evidence against the accused was overwhelming, and I very much got the impression that he was just trying to game the system to get sprung on a technicality. And I was rather surprised at how vehemently some people stood up to defend him. So where are those people now? Why aren't they on this thread? They're going to do everything possible to get a convicted and obviously guilty rapist sprung, but hey, here's a mom whose parenting decisions we don't approve of, so throw her ass in jail? C'mon people, where are you now, huh? Why is it that the rights of a hard-core criminal matter to you, but the rights of an ordinary citizen who has clearly been abused by the state don't?

Wow, this is a lot of support for a really one sided story. Has it occured to anyone that all we're hearing is the Mom's side?

From her perspective, I can see why she'd be upset that she was charged (she was never actually arrested). It sounds like she got into a pissing match with the city attorney, though. She admits that the town has a "town vs gown" war going on. I suspect that there is more to be said from the town's side. It might not be the over reaction we're all thinking it is (and the judge did decide she was guilty, if she imposed a punishment).

As for 12 being responsible, if that were the case why are more and more malls posting rules that say no one under 16 can be in the mall without an adult? Could it be that malls are tired of taking responsibility for people's kids? Because, let's face it, if that 3 year old got hurt swimming in the fountain or such, this Mom would have sued in a heartbeat...

Mama Badger: "As for 12 being responsible, if that were the case why are more and more malls posting rules that say no one under 16 can be in the mall without an adult? Could it be that malls are tired of taking responsibility for people's kids?"

In all of the cases of mall age restrictions that I know of, that isn't the motivation. The motivation is to get rid of teenage gang-bangers.

"Because, let's face it, if that 3 year old got hurt swimming in the fountain or such, this Mom would have sued in a heartbeat... "

Well, you do have a point there. I don't know if this particular lady would have done that, but certainly a lot of people would.

I was born and raised in Bozeman. Attended the public schools there and graduated MSU, where Kevane now teaches.

Most native Montanans I know are pretty straightforward people. We don't wake up in the morning looking for trouble, but if it comes our way we don't back down. It's pretty much a live and let live place, like allot of small to medium size college towns. This isn't about Bozeman, it's about Kevane's poor decision making processes.

Regardless of Kevane's view of her own actions, they were irresponsible. As a prior poster noted the mall isn't the place you just drop off almost a half dozen kids for an afternoon without adult supervision. Particularly if there is a 3 year old involved. It is foolish on it's face, but is a good example of someone making their personal responsibilities the problems of a third party.

The fact that this is getting any attention says something in itself. For those of you with the stomach for it, check out Judith Warner's rant on this subject. Twilight Zone Stuff.