Let 'free range' kids roam home: Our view

The Editorial Board | USATODAY

Two Sundays ago, Danielle and Alexander Meitiv of Montgomery County, Md., got a call from Child Protective Services. Police had taken their two children, ages 10 and 6, into custody three hours earlier and were holding them at the crisis center.

Had the children been abused? No. Were they lost? No. So what prompted this extraordinary intervention? A concerned pedestrian had seen the children walking alone and called 911. It was the second time in four months that the Meitivs' children were reported to authorities as they walked home from parks about a mile away.

The Meitivs are part of a movement known as "free-range parenting," a reaction to over­involved and hovering "helicopter" parenting. Free-range parents believe that allowing their kids more independence will teach them self-sufficiency. The Meitivs have trained 10-year-old Rafi and 6-year-old Dvora to navigate basic routes home by themselves, much as previous generations of kids have done on foot or bike, and have taught them basic safety precautions.

The case has attracted national attention, and for good reason. The age at which children are old enough to be unsupervised, both in and outside the home, is one that confronts all parents, as well as state and local officials.

If there's an overriding principle, it ought to be this: Let parents raise their kids as they see fit, within reasonable limits to protect against abuse and neglect. The Meitivs are not an isolated case of government overreach. In the past year, parents in Texas, Oregon, Florida and South Carolina have faced similar interference.

In Maryland, it's hard to tell exactly where the law stops and parenting begins. State laws say kids have to be at least 8 years old to stay home alone, and if one child is babysitting another, at least one must be 13.

For CPS to cite this law in a child neglect investigation of the Meitivs seems a stretch. The law doesn't say anything about outdoor activity; in fact, the county doesn't even provide bus service for children who live less than a mile from school.

The common-sense approach would have been for the officer who responded to the 911 call to offer to drive the kids home. Instead, they were held for hours while their increasingly frantic parents worried about their whereabouts. That's inexcusable. CPS is supposed to handle cases of real abuse and neglect, of which there are far too many, not traumatize well-intentioned if unconventional parents.

And what about "stranger danger"? Isn't it worse than it used to be? Actually, no. Murders and other violence against children have fallen for two decades. The vast majority of child abductions are committed not by strangers, but by family members or acquaintances. British writer Warwick Cairns has estimated that an average child would have to stand outside for 750,000 hours unsupervised to be kidnapped by a stranger. At that point, the child would be 85 years older.

Cracking down on free-range parents seems, at best, a waste of resources and, at worst, an abuse of authority.

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