When has fear become the norm?
Posted by truemore45@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 380 comments
So there was a tragic death of a 7 year old in NC today. The child was hit by a car when he tried to cross traffic on a major road not at a cross walk. His brother 10 was with him and he was walking home 2 blocks. The 10 year old was on the phone with the mother and the 7 year old darted out in traffic. A 76 year old woman hit and killed the 7 year old. They charged the parents and are both in jail on over 1 million bail each.
Now I asked my mom 84 about it because I think this while tragic is not the correct outcome.
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Why is it parental neglegence? At 9 I could drive a tractor, had a 22 air rifle for varmit control, had a machete to cut bush and was left alone all day in the summer and would regularly bike miles to the see friends or goto the arcade or mall. Oh and I rode horses ALONE.
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What did the parent do wrong? I mean walking two blocks with a 10 year old with a cell phone? According to the report the 10 year old even attempted to restrain the brother but the little kid just made a mistake.
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Are we are at the point where we don't give children any personal responsibility? What is the positive outcome of locking these parents up? How will this prevent this from happening a second time? Also since they are both in jail they will both lose their job and probably loose the 10 year old in the process to CPS.
Maybe I'm just old 50 and stupid but this outcome seems like it will make things worse not better. Also why is the dad in Jail if he wasn't even there, mom let them walk hone? Maybe there is more to this because this seems like we have taken kids to the point of making them not grow up.
Just curious if given these facts how do people think?
LayerNo3634@reddit
Kids aren't allowed to do anything anymore. There is absolutely no self responsibility and any accident must be someone else's fault. I don't think the parents should be arrested, but I also don't think teachers need to be investigated because a kid falls on the playground. Parents freak out when Johnny falls and skins his knee. They seem to have completely forgotten that kids play and sometimes get hurt. You can't wrap them in bubble wrap without suffocating them. They are wrapped in virtual bubble wrap.
trUth_b0mbs@reddit
I raise my kids like how I was raised - I let them be uncomfortable, I let them make mistakes. Make poor choices? then you live with those consequences. They know how to cook, clean, do laundry....for real if I left for a weekend they'd be ok and I'd come home to a clean house probably with some dinner in the fridge.
my kids are resilient and able to take care of themselves because I will not raise kids who treat life like a medical condition. They understand what it means to go through hard times and what they need to do to move past them. Sure, they may need some help which I'm more than willing to give support but I won't do it for them.
H-is-for-Hopeless@reddit
When I was 8, I would ride my bike several miles with a bucket on one handlebar and a fishing pole on the other, down to the creek and fish on the bridge. Yes, ON the bridge, where cars also travel. That was normal.
CPS is a joke now. They'll take kids away from a decent parent over one incident but then leave a severely autistic kid in the custody of an incompetent, irresponsible drug user who wasn't paying attention and let his severely autistic daughter get ahold of and ingest a THC gummy and she went unconscious and had to be taken to the hospital. (An actual account of CPS not using any shred of common sense.) The mother went to court for full custody but they said it wasn't bad enough to take away his rights.
VisualConfusion5360@reddit
Yes, I think this kind of proved your point?
The entire article shows why we should not have seven-year-olds or 10–year-olds wandering the streets alone because they don’t have the rationality and decision-making that an adult does.
Just because you personally could handle a machete at 10 does not mean that this one could; some kids are prodigies and some kids are really stupid .
Yes, it sucks to say, but some kids are dumber than others. They don’t grow at the same rate they don’t learn and retain things at the same age.
I have nieces that are both 6. One is actively riding and showing ponies and cannot only tack up her own pony, but knows how to correct it when it acts up . The other one cries if she drops her sparkly toy on the ground and needs a nanny to come on vacations. There’s a huge difference between the two because they are different people - one has a budding sense of responsibility and maturity, and the other will take a lot more time to mature and I would not trust her with a rabbit let alone a pony.
MiriMidd@reddit
Wait I’m confused. Why were the parents charged?
I live in a rural town and kids regularly walk to and from school (it’s a thing in my province that you don’t get bus service if you live 2km or less from elementary school and 3km from high school) with siblings. My own kids walk or bike to and from school. My elementary kids don’t have cell phones. The teenager does but she has bus service.
What exactly here did the parents do wrong?
Cranks_No_Start@reddit
I don’t get this it all, it’s literally just rubbing salt in their wounds from their loss.
Mondschatten78@reddit
Extra salt: the person that hit the child wasn't even charged with anything. It was all put on the parents.
Traditional_Fan_2655@reddit
You aren't charged when someone runs out in front of you and are not at a cross walk. You have the reasonable expectation of not having people randomly run into the road. Its a sad situation, but the driver really is not at fault.
The parebts are charged because of the child's age. It us considered child neglect to let them be alone in a "dangerous" situation. It's horribly sad. The parents are suffering so much already. They will be charged but probably won't be prosecuted. That's what happened a few years ago here.
Axle13@reddit
These days, the norm seems to be 'somebody needs to get charged for something' no matter what occurs.
Cranks_No_Start@reddit
To be fair…it doesn’t appear they did anything wrong, so I don’t think they should be blamed for anything though she will suffer regardless reliving that.
It was an accident and a tragedy as the boy ran out into the street. Jailing both parents on a ridiculous bond amount is just kicking them while they’re down.
cyaluna@reddit
And kicking the 10 yr old while he's down. He's probably blaming himself right now and really needs his parents.
guzzijason@reddit
If the little kid abruptly ran in front of her, then she shouldn’t be charged. If she ran a stop sign or always driving recklessly, then yeah… charge her, but I don’t think that’s what happened. Charging her would be as pointless as charging the parents.
PurpleHat6415@reddit
she should absolutely be charged. the simple fact is that a child died after a collision with a vehicle shed was driving. on the face of it, she has caused the death of the child. if the collision was unavoidable and she was alert and acted appropriately then she's not going to be convicted. this is such an ass-backwards approach.
SSolomonGrundy@reddit
Counterpoint: elderly people should face annual driving tests (if not twice a year) precisely because often their reflexes and abilities are deteriorating and they can't react the way younger people can. Some are sharp and capable still, but we need to be realistic because the SUVs they drive around are killing machines.
baristaski@reddit
I think that’s their point. She’s as much responsible as the parents in this situation, which is very very little.
guzzijason@reddit
Yeah, I get that - and totally agree that nobody should have been charged. But if they want to take the stance that the parents are ultimately responsible for their kids and that’s was some sort of “neglect”, then charging them was their only viable option. Personally, I think it’s insane that anybody was charged.
LoganShang@reddit
Losing their child is punishment enough.
marshallkrich@reddit
Yeah, THE 76 YEAR OLD, WHOSE PROBABLY BLIND AS A BAT!
OctopusParrot@reddit
W T F that is absolutely bonkers
CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit
When my son was violently s. assaulted in our own yard I was investigated for neglect too, and for a year I was subject to surprise "welfare checks" for my child. It was in our own fenced in yard during a child's party. I was in the house frosting cupcakes. I was the place all the kids in the neighborhood flocked to because I had the good swings, the trampoline, and I loved to feed the kids. So everyone was always around. I had no idea how sick some of the kids were. I treated them all like my own until that day. Everyone in our neighborhood knew this. I even know one of the kids stole something from our car (the stereo faceplate. He was young enough to think it was a stereo I think) and I didn't report it we just had a talk and he brought it back. Didn't realize this shamed him to the point he'd decide to hurt my child with his friends... just waiting for the right opportunity. My son's life was ruined that day. He's 20 now and still ... he still has such trauma. But yeah they blamed me for not keeping a closer eye on my six year old in my own yard during a party.
This was 14 years ago so it's been going on for a while.
Cranks_No_Start@reddit
Wow. Talk about misplaced responsibility.
CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit
All I can think of is it's easier just to investigate the parent than investigate a real case. They botched it so bad. They never even talked to the attackers. They talked to parents who said their kids never left the house that day. They knew they were here. They were always here. That was the extent of the investigation. My son is autistic. He can talk but he has a hard time with who/what/where questions. When it first happened he said there were four. Two weeks later they took a formal testimony and he said three. They didn't ask why he said three. The thing is there were four but one ran away. He knew what he was saying. They just didn't ask the right questions. So the charges were dropped due to "insufficient testimony". And yes they did a rape kit that proved he'd been raped with a foreign object. There was no DNA unfortunately.
RussianDahl@reddit
Giving y’all the biggest mama hugs. I’m glad your boy is still with us. 🙏🏽❤️
CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit
Thank you. He's such a good person. So full of compassion and tenderness.
Cranks_No_Start@reddit
That’s terrible.
PlumSome3101@reddit
I'm so sorry this happened to your kid and to you ❤️. Unnecessary trauma on top of trauma. Both of you deserved better.
Astrazigniferi@reddit
Because they’re black and it’s North Carolina.
karlhungusjr@reddit
because they are a mixed race couple.
SquirrelEnthusiast@reddit
One is black and the other is white and they live in the South. 🤷
CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit
I'm white in the south and I was charged and investigated for neglect when someone came in to our yard and s. assaulted my six year old 14 years ago. It was traumatic enough but they subjected me to surprise "welfare checks" for the next year before they concluded their investigation and dropped the charges. It was the most horrific experience of my life and my son's life too of course. We had just lost his father months earlier. All these years and I'm already feeling sick and panicked remembering. The police treated me like it was my fault and they botched the real investigation so badly the charged were dropped. 4 12-14 year olds got away with something... I won't even go in to how bad it was for my son. They got away with it but I had to pay over and over and over again.
SquirrelEnthusiast@reddit
I am so sorry you went through this. That's horrifying.
It does sound systematic with the south. It definitely is not all about race. It may be in this one instance, but I understand that we should not boost that angle and make people aware that parents are being persecuted for letting their children be children.
I'm in the wrong here for taking that angle; as a Yankee we don't hear about this a lot in the North East, but what I did hear was that the couple was Black and White. I apologize that my comment may have seemed like devaluing your experience. I'm very sorry.
CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit
I think it's often about poverty too. For one, if I'd been wealthy I'd have called my attorney before I even called the police. I know this because my best friend who has money kept telling me to get an attorney, but I thought I'm the victim why do I need an attorney? I didn't think I could fight the charge. It was dropped for me as long as I agreed to the investigation, I didn't go to jail or anything but that was what I had to deal with after my six year old had been violently s assaulted and the way I was treated, and the way HE was treated was deplorable. The cops were apathetic at best and suspicious of me and my adult daughter who was absolutely distraught as well because she felt just as guilty. Soon after it happened I moved away and started renting an attic space in an upper middle class suburb. I can guarantee the cops don't treat victims like that there.
BearcatPyramid@reddit
Was gonna say that, too.
TeacherPatti@reddit
Oof. Okay thanks--I am no longer confused. I should have known. FUCK
MiriMidd@reddit
Yeah, that I think is definitely part of the equation. Although it has happened that parents have gotten in trouble for letting their kids take public transportation, and even when they are white.
mavjustdoingaflyby@reddit
What exactly here did the parents do wrong?
Maybe they should have tried being white.
Megatapirus@reddit
Helck, gotta punish somebody.
When you have a hammer of a "justice" system, everything looks like a nail.
Jorost@reddit
North Carolina. Parents are African-American. Probably not a coincidence, unfortunately.
Ok_Comfortable6537@reddit
My first question is what was the race of the families? If it were black folks I could imagine it’s more of the same - putting “criminality” on them way more easily than white people. If it’s a white family the OP’s questions remain relevant/interesting.
OctopusParrot@reddit
We live in a suburb and any kid within about a mile of the schools walks there, starting in 4th grade. The kids LOVE it, they actually have some independence and they're tired of people looking over their shoulders all the time.
Allgyet560@reddit
I walked to and from school. I loved it. You are right about the independence. We were free to do whatever we wanted. It sucked in the rain, but that's the way it goes. I knew kids who had an hour ride on the bus. A one mile walk is nothing. You can easily walk 4 MPH and be home in 15 minutes.
justanaccountimade1@reddit
Cars can do no wrong. Every solution to a car problem is mandating helmets for people who complain.
RoguePlanet2@reddit
We live near a school in a very safe suburb. Lately I've been seeing kids walking themselves about half a mile from the school, and it's such a relief. The biggest threat is nosy jerks making a big deal out of it. But I get the fear of being seen as a "bad parent." I'm GenX so my standards are lower though 😋
Allgyet560@reddit
Also Gen X. I walked to and from school starting in middle school. It was about 1 mile. It really sucked in the rain, snow, and temps far below freezing because every bus passed by me but the school would not allow them to pick me up. Otherwise it was great. I would be home in 15 minutes while other kids might spend an hour on the bus each way.
When I was a freshman in highschool I stopped going to school in rain or bad weather. I told the school if it's raining and one of the dozen or more busses that drive right by my house can't pick me up then I'll just stay home. So I did. After I got my driver's license and a car it wasn't a big deal. Then I skipped on warm, sunny days.
I heard these days if a parent doesn't call the school to inform them that their kid is not giving for the day then they call the police who will follow up with the parent. WTF?
TeacherPatti@reddit
I'm confused too. The old woman who hit him is not being charged.
I thought that the 10 year old and mom were in the car on their phones, but that's not what it was. He was talking on the phone with a parent while they walked.
I'm sorry, I really do not understand what the reasoning is here.
DreamSoarer@reddit
The father was at the store, two blocks away from the children’s home. The mother was at home. The mother and the father allowed the children to walk along with each other from the home to the store to see their father. It included crossing a busy four lane road. The older child (10) was on the phone with the father.
The issue here has to do with the risk the parents allowed for a two block walk. Not only were the children apparently not told to hold hands at all times, the older child was on the phone with the father, which means the appropriate attention given to watching the younger child and looking both ways carefully before crossing the street was likely not possible.
Additionally, it was the first time the parents had allowed the two youngster to make this walk. Whether they had made this walk with supervision in the past was not clearly stated.
It is a horrible tragedy, but I can also see where it was not a wise decision to allow this two block walk to occur for the first time - without adult supervision and with a four lane road to cross, in a business district with a grocery store.
I remember being five and living a couple of blocks from a grocery store. I was never allowed to leave my yard or go to that store without my parent - precisely due to the four lane road that had to be crossed in order to reach the grocery store. I was still allowed to play in my neighborhood and cross single lane neighborhood roads after looking both ways - without supervision and with permission to go to a specific destination. I had to call my parents once I got to my destination. This was all long before cell phones.
It is an awful tragedy, but one that could have easily been avoided for a two block walk to go from mother to father. There may also be other laws in place regarding supervision of children under a certain age. There are areas where children are not allowed to be left home alone, unsupervised unless they are 12 years old or more. There are also laws about how old a sibling must be before they are allowed to act as a babysitter or supervised of safety for younger siblings. All of those laws may have significance for this specific situation, if those laws are in place where the children reside.
I hope the parents are not sentenced to time in prison. I hope they are given requirements for safe parenting, family counseling, and for goodness’ sake, that their 10 year old gets the therapy they will need, and does not lose their parents and older system due to foster care in the process. The whole situation is a tragedy.
BoboliBurt@reddit
There are so many rose colored glasses with Gen X, Xennials, Boomers, and Geriatric Millennials
But statistics in this case back up that parents got way more intensely involved and supervisory in the mid-1990s.
Im not gonna claim I was sleeping in park wjth money on my chest and no issues or whatever- but 5th graders got a lot of freedom to move around into the late 1980s
I definitely walked my sister 2 blocks- or much further with a similar age split. I was 10 when a drunk driving Mike Ditka nearly mowed down me and 2 friends in a cross walk on a summer afternoon.
Even today, a second grader shouldnt be bolting in front of cars- thats kinda crazy. My daughter turns 7 in a few months. I wouldnt unleash her and an older cousin at the zoo- but
gravitydefiant@reddit
This is exactly it. I teach second grade--so, kids this same age--and so many of them are just completely incompetent. They are so sheltered that they're just not developing any skills.
Parents are overprotective, but a lot of them are also afraid that if their not overprotective they'll end up facing CPS. And it's a reasonable fear, because there are lots of stories like this, including ones with a much better outcome for the child. There was also a story a few months ago about a mom who was arrested for letting her ten year old take a walk by himself, even though the kid was completely fine.
And this horrible story is going to scare parents even more. We are making parenting impossible, and making it so the only way to do survive raising a child is to park them in front of screens 24/7 since you're not allowed to let them do anything else. And don't get me started on the damage those screens are doing.
Pretend-Read8385@reddit
Good God, my parents didn’t even know or care where I was when I was 10 as long as I didn’t stay out too late past dark. I was skating around the neighborhood, hanging out at the park and even walking to the public pool with friends, unaccompanied by any parents. I will admit, I have a 10 year old and would never do that now. But still… if this is the standard then all our parents of the 80’s and 90’s kids would have gone to jail.
One-girl-circus@reddit
I just feel like being a protective parent would entail teaching a child how to cross the street. Parenting is all about teaching children how to become community members and adults eventually. It is if society has decided that children are pets and incapable of decision-making beyond a certain ceiling I don’t give them enough experience and information to make better choices.
The only way I can see the parents being in any way responsible for this is if the child has a known impulse control issue, and they’ve done nothing to help moderate that. Even then it’s on the parents to teach impulse control at an age-appropriate level. The 10-year-old sibling is going to be messed up for the rest of their life.
ClassicDefiant2659@reddit
The ten year old has now lost his sibling and his parents :(
sunqueen73@reddit
And will likely always blame himself for it
454_water@reddit
I live by an elementary school and have seen the kids stop and look both ways before crossing the street, while their parents don't look at all and just step right out into traffic then turn around and yell at their kids to get moving.
If the parents jaywalk and then yell at their kids for not doing the same, what the hell are the kids supposed to think?
PizzaCutter@reddit
I’m going to be that guy here, but the way kids consume media from iPads, phones etc is contributing to the impulse control issues. The impact that this is having on dopamine and the brain - especially children’s brains, being studied now is terrifying.
Actual-Employee-1680@reddit
I would love to know how to help with impulse control. Our son is 11 and despite repeatedly teaching him to think before he acts, he does not. He has ADHD and is on meds to help this, but it does nothing to stop or even slow his impulsiveness. What exactly would you suggest, because we've tried everything anyone has suggested. He's also had extensive counseling and psychiatrists since he was 3. None of that helps a kid with impulsiveness.
WimpyZombie@reddit
I can tell you from what I have seen around where I live, people might teach their kids how to cross the street safely, but once they become adults, that training goes straight out the window.
There is a major divided highway near where I live. About 12 miles long, and varies from 4 to 8 lanes wide and it has a lot of businesses on it - retail, hotels, restaurants, banks, car dealerships and even a branch of the DMV. It is peppered with traffic lights - I'd say they average more than one every half mile. Yet people refuse to walk a few extra steps away from their destinaton to be able to cross safely at a light. Inevitably an adult pedestrian gets hit. There are so many memorial crosses up and down this road, I started to have no sympathy for them anymore. I just call them
"Darwin Awards".
BossParticular3383@reddit
This. I feel like there may be some mitigating circumstance that caused the charges - like the 7 year old had issues or the 10 year old had issues. Maybe the parents had been in trouble before? I'm not around kids all that much, but my gut does tell me that 10 years old is too young to be in charge of a 7 year old.
TeaGlittering1026@reddit
I always believed we were not raising children but raising future adults. They need to learn how to take care of themselves, deal with disappointment and failure, be bored, be responsible. And both of my kids moved out before 25. They have their struggles, but they are learning how to deal with it. Parents need to make room for their kids to grow.
El-Em-Enn-Oh-Pee@reddit
Children have undeveloped frontal lobes for decision making. You can teach them well and in a moment they can make a bad choice. That being said I raised mine modified free range in a major metropolitan suburb and am thankful I was able to do that. This seems insane.
AnnieB512@reddit
You can teach your children things over and over again, such as look both ways before crossing the street and it doesn't mean they will always listen. My parents pounded all kinds of safety information into my head as a child, but sometimes I got distracted or excited and did dumb things even when I knew better. So we don't know if this is a case of bad parenting (it doesn't sound like it is) or a kid being impatient and running out into traffic without looking.
SicilianSlothBear@reddit
This is true. As much as you can try to teach your children, they still have tiny unformed partially reptilian brains and they cannot be controlled every second of every day. Accidents like this are going to happen without the parents necessarily being at fault.
rival_22@reddit
Maybe because I am an old GenX'er, or maybe out of necessity since we have four kids, but we made a concerted effort from the start, to allow our kids to be in uncomfortable situations. Obviously in a safe way, especially at younger ages, but we've allowed them to work things out on their own, or test boundaries. They are very resilient and self sufficient at this point in their lives. Again, being one of four makes you have to figure some things out on your own and/or work as a team, but I feel that a lot of their "success" is letting them figure out some things on their own and deal with consequences.
We have friends with kids who have gone out of their way to make their kids' lives easy and solve problems for them... Definitely has caused some issues in the teen years.
ImCaffeinated_Chris@reddit
You must allow them to fail, and to not panic when something goes wrong.
You also, sadly, have to teach them not to trust anyone from the start. Trust is earned. In this case we taught them to not trust that a car will stop for them crossing the street.
mojojomama@reddit
Yes, and fail early when the consequences are low. We had the love & logic attitude and there were choices and consequences. We would talk about problems and solutions and ask the kid if she wanted our help instead of rushing in to rescue her.
vikkirocks74@reddit
I'm also an old GenX'er and no joke when my Mom was 8 mos pregnant she sent me to the grocery store by myself with a list of what she needed and cash. I was 5, yes 5 years old. The store was 2 blocks away and I had to "check in" at the corner store before walking another block to the grocery store. This was 1979 in West Seattle. Crazy how times have changed. And granted I was probably too young to go alone but the times were different back then🤷♀️
BossParticular3383@reddit
What? A 7 year old got hit by a CAR. That's more than an "uncomfortable situation", and the 10 year old is going to have a very tough time from now on. God knows we wouldn't want to make his life "easy" or "solve his problems" for him, by maybe not putting him in charge of a 7 year old who, for all we know, is on the spectrum or ADD or what have you....
WimpyZombie@reddit
"There was also a story a few months ago about a mom who was arrested for letting her ten year old take a walk by himself, even though the kid was completely fine."
Remember how, when we were 10 years old, so many of us had paper routes and were up at 5:00 am riding around our neighborhood ALONE to deliver the paper before we went to school?
StunGod@reddit
When I was 10, I made my money by mowing lawns. So I was riding my bike to the gas station to fill up my gallon of gas for the mower, then I was alone with a couple of mowers and weed eaters. As far as I can tell, I didn't die from that.
4Z4Z47@reddit
Weed eater? I had those stupid little hand shears. One house had a pool with a chain-link fence on 2 sides. I would spend hours crawling and cutting for $5. Here's the thing. I never wanted to do it. None of it was my idea lol. I wish I would have been more sheltered. My parents rented me out.
MilzLives@reddit
Oh those f’ing hand shears & a chain link fence. Still have PTSD from that
CallmeSlim11@reddit
I don't remember my parents ever being worried about my safety as a kid, my Mother would send us on our bikes to the "Dairy Barn" to get milk or Wonder Bread starting when we were 7 or 8. Starting in first grade, we walked home from school by ourselves or with other kids or took the bus. This was completely normal for a 1970s childhood in the NY suburbs.
We got to wherever we needed to be with very little help from our parents most of the time.
Swim6610@reddit
We walked door to door and knocked asking to shovel snow (driveways/walks) to earn money at that age.
CalamityClambake@reddit
I walked door to door to sell and deliver Girl Scout cookies. I had a fanny pack full of cash and a wagon full of cookies. I survived somehow.
chamrockblarneystone@reddit
The neighberhood I live in now is great. It’s much more multicultural than my old one. Kids are all over the place doing things. They’re in parks, but there’s packs of them in the streets too.
Looks like a fun outdoor childhood. We have to let them out.
shadowmib@reddit
When I was 10 i would be out riding my bike or hanging with friends but had to come home when the streetlights came on.
scratch1971@reddit
Yes, and if a house had a dog that might bite, you were still expected to deliver that paper.
SSolomonGrundy@reddit
Would that not be allowed now? Jesus Christ.
oflowz@reddit
I do house calls for a living and it amazes me how many parents I see going and walking their almost teenaged kids home from school everyday.
How do they have time to go pick a kid up at 2pm? Don’t they work?
When I was a kid people would tease the crap out of you if you were 12 or 13 and your mom came and walked you home everyday.
I feel like this falls in the same boat.
ScreenTricky4257@reddit
Or to constantly have them in "activities" which are supervised and which cost a pretty penny.
moscowramada@reddit
I think we get so focused on the overprotective stories that we forget: you can also be underprotective.
I think that’s the case here. The parents should’ve spent more time on street safety and, if they had doubts, kept their kids away from major roadways.
This is one case where the hovering parents saying “I’m worried about you, you’re not safe enough” would’ve been absolutely correct.
jasonreid1976@reddit
When the story about the mom letting her kid walk by himself broke, my mouth dropped. Like, seriously? Fucking overreach by these people.
Joe_Early_MD@reddit
Or not having kids in the first place.
BrownDogEmoji@reddit
My kids are teens now, but they were taught simple skills early on: planting flowers, raking leaves, shoveling snow, walking the dog, doing laundry, cooking, unloading the dishwasher, read a paper map etc.
We also put them into situations that stretched their boundaries but stayed mostly within a comfort zone. Things like zip-lining or ordering room service or making appointments for themselves.
Honestly, we could have pushed them harder, but we didn’t want them feel too much pressure or become resentful or overwhelmed.
It makes me sad to see how little their peers know. They’re all smart kids with plenty of opportunities going forward in life but some are high school graduates, who have never done their own laundry, shopped for groceries, or been given a budget.
mckmaus@reddit
I have a lot of friends that care more about their children's comfort right now, than their children's future. I've tried to make sure my now 18-year-old was always having age-appropriate chores, situations etc. I'd make him go up to the food truck and order even if we were out of town, we would walk through cities and neighborhoods. We always talked about our surroundings things like that. I've got friends that don't want their kids to have to have jobs, that buy The car the kids want versus what the family can afford, that don't push any kind of chores because the kids want to have fun. It's kind of disheartening because I don't believe these kids will do very well in the future, because they don't understand wanting for anything, or doing anything for themselves.
stm32f722@reddit
This is all by design. The brainwashing those screens are doing to the children is very important to the ruling class where all this goes next.
PsychoticMessiah@reddit
I’m waiting for the day when a child stubbing their toe makes the news.
dangelo7654398@reddit
At that age I was walking to town on the railroad tracks and talking to random hoboes. Not that that is great either.
adeptusminor@reddit
Wwte they brown people? Look at prison stats, for profit prison systems, systemic issues regarding race...
not-a-dislike-button@reddit
So the kids wandered away while Mom was shopping, she had no idea they wandered away, and they tried to cross a four lane road.
This isn't just a kid going to the corner store. Something else is going on here that sounds like neglect.
julmcb911@reddit
Can you read what you quoted? Mom was home and Dad was at the store. The kids left to meet their dad.
not-a-dislike-button@reddit
Yes, I misread that
iheartwestwing@reddit
Based on the article and its picture, I think the parents were charged because the family is black. White people can let their kids shoot themselves in the face with a loaded unsecured gun, and it’s a “tragedy no one could have avoided.”
SecondToLastOfSheila@reddit
I find people so fearful now. They define themselves by their traumas, they see any personal setback as debilitating and are terrified of any kind of heartbreak or physical connection.
nekkid_farts@reddit
Meanwhile in Japan they send their toddler shopping
Humble-Membership-28@reddit
That’s terrible. I hope the parents aren’t charged.
And I mean, how about this driver?
At 7, I walked a mile each way on a busy road to play a video game at 7-11.
Betacucktard@reddit
Cause the 10 year old will be SO MUCH BETTER OFF IN FOSTER CARE.
Aeribous@reddit
This is why the generations after gen x are getting less and less competent. I don’t mean everyone but a majority. Sadly this will lead to our downfall over time.
Adorableviolet@reddit
This is so sad. And so wrong to do to the parents but especially the older sibling.
alizeia@reddit
And the 76 year old piece of shit who was driving shouldn't have been allowed to. At least a few times a week, I am cut off or otherwise treated to insane ideas in traffic by elderly drivers. We need to have a cutoff age and it needs to happen sooner rather than later.
One-girl-circus@reddit
I agree there should be a cutoff, and it should be done via testing, not by age arbitrarily.
1singhnee@reddit
That’s actually common outside the US. I think requiring drivers tests past the age of 65 or so sounds quite reasonable
Quintipluar@reddit
My best friend's parents are 75/76 but they are far from elderly or senile. I trust their driving more than I trust my own.
mrredbailey1@reddit
Riiiiight, because young drivers are faultless. So what age do you propose we broad brush stroke cut off driving privileges?
alizeia@reddit
Starting at 65. And I'm telling you, I do get cut off by younger drivers sometimes but I'm having overwhelmingly bad problems with elderly people lately. It's been like several times in the last week that I've been cut off in the most ridiculous way by these drivers who should not be driving. They should be in a home or at home or walking or taking a bus.
notproudortired@reddit
This is going to lead to more sheltering and surveillance. Bad for kids, bad for everyone.
I think we're hard wired to respond to risks as we recognize them. The internet exposes us to rare mistakes and freak accidents that happen everywhere, and they all go in the brain's big risk hamper, like they happened nearby. So people think crime is up and abductions are constant and kids are basically going to die unless you specifically prevent it because they hear these things constantly. But in fact the incidence is down. We're just not wired to consume information from everything all at once. Our lizard brains don't understand time or space.
Ok_Neighborhood_2159@reddit
The South is very reactionary. It's obvious that the parents do not have a good attorney because they should not have been charged. It is compounding their tragedy and leaving the 10 year old without a brother, parents, and survivor's guilt.
imrickjamesbioch@reddit
I grew up in the hood… Needles and condoms littered the shitty lil park that was fill with that gawd awful grainy sand. So without anyone really telling you, you weren’t allowed to play there. Probably cuz AIDs was becoming a thing in the late 70’s / early 80’s.
Anyway, so my father walk me ONCE to school before I began kindergarten and I was bout 4/5yo. From that day forward, nobody ever woke my ass up or took me to school. Nobody even made sure I went to school and the only time I miss class till high school was when I got the flu/laryngitis in like the 2nd/3rd grade. Course my father was annoyed AF cuz I made him late for work. He thought I was full of shit until he figured out I could no longer stand or talk. Didn’t stop him from leaving my ass at home that morning or the next 3 or do days.
Yet, somehow I survived.
As for the 7yo, that’s unfortunate but that’s fucked up. You lose your child and folks decide to lock them up? What exactly could the parents have done even if they were with their kid and 7yo was hell bent on running into the street. Not to sound insensitive but in our days, you would just chalk that up to the kid wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and wasn’t meant to be on this world for long. If anything, WTF is a 76 yo lady allowed to drive at her age?
RIP to the kid that lost his life…
Astrazigniferi@reddit
The answer in this instance is that the family is black. The police department had the opportunity to harass and traumatize a grieving black family and they are using it to the fullest.
There are some very good points to be made about the ridiculous demands society places on parents. We are not allowed to give our children independence, but also criticized for not doing so. The same person who will call the police on a child walking alone will rant about how kids never play outside anymore. But on a legal level, racism plays a huge part in which parents face consequences.
Curses2469@reddit
I know you're right and it makes me so f'n angry 🤬 on so many levels
Yeahitson@reddit
The Pussification of America
nojam75@reddit
It seems like the city should also be charged for installing a 4-lane raceway without sidewalks or shoulders.
I walked to school alone in the city when I was in second grade during morning rush hour, but we at least had sidewalks.
Droy_Boy@reddit
This is 5 minutes from my house. It’s 45mph through this area too. Gastonia has horrible infrastructure for pedestrians. As a kid I walked all over my town. But it was 3000-5000 people and most streets were 35mph. Definitely not a great place for the kids to try and cross.
CartographerEven9735@reddit
If there's not enough business density they don't put in sidewalks....it's fairly straightforward.
nojam75@reddit
Please specify how many dead 7-year-olds you need to justify sidewalks. They were walking from their home to a grocery store.
The supposedly cheap housing in the South is based upon Republicans exempting developers from development fees (e.g. sidewalks and wider streets).
CartographerEven9735@reddit
The 7 year old was struck in the street, not on the area a sidewalk would be.
Your other comment is both random and irrelevant to this discussion.
jnazario@reddit
Thank you for this.
I’m not clear on if there were extenuating circumstances due to the parents but the design of the environment are super important.
Roads have shifted a lot in the past 25-30 years to maximize driver safety at the expense of everyone outside the vehicle. Speeds and conditions have become hostile to pedestrians and cyclists and this kid is a casualty. And the drive appears to be not held at fault because they were driving.
It’s an epidemic of harm on non drivers and this kid is one of the latest casualties.
nojam75@reddit
Street design existed 30 years ago. This intersection was designed to kill pedestrians.
ELBSchwartz@reddit
This is the real culprit, but it will never happen.
Francl27@reddit
Yep,I would never let my kids walk 2 blocks in these conditions.
OryxTempel@reddit
God forbid we install shudder infrastructure. Let’s just hire more cops and give them SWAT equipment.
hurtuser1108@reddit
Late comment, but fear was always the norm. Look up stories of where the horror stories happened in the 70s and 80s. Those communities absolutely got consumed by fear afterwards. One example being a town in Pennsylvania that banned Halloween for 20 years after a child was murdered when they were out trick or treating. Lots of high schools banned trenchcoats and hats after Columbine. People have always been pretty stupid and irrational.
What was not the norm was having a 24/7 news cycle and, even worse, social media that allows anyone in the world to read essentially every horrible thing in the world. 30 years ago you wouldn't really hear stories unless they directly affected your community and you had to kind of go out of your way to search for horror stories across the globe, unless they made world news.
Most people can't actually measure their risk in an objective sense so the result is a helicopter, fear fulled society.
HermioneMarch@reddit
They should not be charged. There was nothing negligent about letting your kid cross the street with an older sibling. You can argue certain things should have been done a different way but this is not criminal negligence. Just a terrible tragedy. How fast was the driver going?
However stuff in the news like this is why every parent is terrified to let tgeir child leave the house.Our kids today are terrified of their own shadows because mama is always there. A 16 year old was ranting on r/teacher about how dangerous it was for her school to take them in a trip to Washington DC without their parents.
Adorable-Run9291@reddit
Younger GenX here…both parents worked and an only child. I was basically unsupervised until I left for college. I spent all of my free time with my friends in a large west coast city. It was magical and I seemed to have made it through just fine. I see how my younger friends are with their kids and feel such sadness for them …
Shoboy_is_my_name@reddit
Here is what you’re completely missing:
A 10yr old child is responsible for a 7yr old child and that’s OK to you? That’s something you just don’t understand based solely on what YOU did over 40 years ago????
That is the underlying issue here. A 10 year old child is not capable of being responsible for a 7 year old.
You also give examples of YOU doing things by yourself. It is absolutely nothing comparable because YOU were only responsible for YOU. This 10 year old is responsible for themselves AND a 7 year old………
So after pointing that out is there still a disconnect????
domesticatedprimate@reddit
I'll play the devil's advocate here and suggest that the mother was in fact responsible for the child's death.
Quite simply, the child was physically in the mother's care, they were physically together, and if the mother hadn't been paying attention to the smartphone and instead had been paying attention to the 7 year old, she would have been able to prevent that child from entering traffic.
So there's your negligence.
Now, it would be wrong if the mother was charged with negligence for allowing the children outside unattended despite not being with them, yeah that would be absurd. But she was there. She likely could have stopped it if she'd been paying attention. She wasn't paying attention.
The moral of the story is IGNORE YOUR SMARTPHONE when escorting small children in public. It makes you distracted and therefore negligent if anything goes wrong.
CitronIll2501@reddit
The mother was not there and was, in fact, with the 10 year old brother who was on the phone talking with the mother. Otherwise, this would simply be an accident and nothing to see here. The issue was neglect because the mother let the 7 year old be supervised by a 10 year old... that is the absurd part that makes it neglect. Correct perspective, if you ask me but you are basing it on inaccurate facts.
domesticatedprimate@reddit
Ah, I stand corrected. I misunderstood OP's description of the incident. I'll add a note to my comment above.
Anynamehere14@reddit
It’s propaganda at its finest finest. Kill your TV. Or for the next generation… kill your social media!!!
OldBanjoFrog@reddit
Why the f are they charging the parents?
MW240z@reddit
Guess what color of skin they have.
CptBronzeBalls@reddit
Bad things happen sometimes, always have always will. No amount of blaming or making new laws will make that any less true.
TheRealLosAngela@reddit
The parents and the older brother are already dealing with the punishment of unconsolable guilt and shame. Prosecution isn't the right move here. Why destroy a whole family's life like this?? For what?? This is so tragic 😥
shadowmib@reddit
i had a weird childhood and was mostly raised by my grandparents. My grandmother was extremely overprotective, and didnt trust me to do anything on my own, now im a grown up that struggles with basic adulting, like stuff other people my age take for granted. i also have huge anxiety doing anything out of my comfort zone. Coddling your kids and being over protective does NOT do them any favors.
That said, I still had a lot more freedom to rome than kids these days
REALtumbisturdler@reddit
And why isn't the driver who killed the child being charged?
glyptodontown@reddit
Right? This happened in my town where a kid ran in front of a car. The driver of the car was charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Admirable_Addendum99@reddit
I'm 36 and as a kid I had to stay inside and be very careful because I had a vengeful dad who my mom had to get a restraining order on and he was calling CPS and leaving boxes of human feces at her door, slashing her tires, breaking her windows. We basically weren't allowed to leave the house. People use CPS as a threat all the time and it's terrifying as a kid.
herbal_thought@reddit
Another good reason to not have kids, so you won't be charged with something down the road...
pacalaga@reddit
there's a book out there that posits that the fear started with the invention of the 24-hr news cycle.
RealSignificance8877@reddit
Just another form of control. Gonna make it where they can’t even leave the house. Life is dangerous. Freedom even more so. It’s just an accident. Guess the state thinks differently. Hell I could moved out by ten. Knew how to hunt, drive, cook. I guess that’s why today’s kids so under prepared for life. I know my dad was abusive, and my mom not much better but I have survived the real world thanks to them. Thing about it is the jurors will just side with the state. Quit acquiescing you rights away. Peace out.
MenuOver8991@reddit
If you find somebody to blame tragic events song, then you don’t have to worry about tragedy coming your direction.
No disrespect to your mom, but if she thinks she’s done a good job, then she doesn’t have to worry about this happening to her kids because obviously the other mother, in her eyes, was negligent.
PaperCivil5158@reddit
I would bet money that if the parents looked different they would be getting a go fund me and not charges.
RipTearington@reddit
This should be the top comment. The parents are Black. That is why they are being charged. If it was a Caucasian family, no charges would be filed.
Vind1carre@reddit
The mother is white.
RipTearington@reddit
Father is Black, so that negates the Caucasian Bonus Points.
Sumeriandawn@reddit
Okay , mind reader
millersixteenth@reddit
Came to find this observation. Same reason Marissa Alexander got 20 years in Fla, a SYG state unless you're Black. Then its an SOL state.
PaperCivil5158@reddit
Thank you for bringing her up.
KtinaDoc@reddit
A white woman was charged not too long ago because her 10 year old son was walking to a store by himself.
GlassesgirlNJ@reddit
Are we talking about this story from Georgia, USA?
I agree it's strange, but we should mention that the GA mom had no idea where her son had gone, or how long he'd be - she "figured he was in the woods or at Grandma's house", while she was driving another kid to a doctor's appointment, some distance away. It also sounds like the 10-year-old didn't have a phone/Apple Watch/any means of contacting her.
So, that's a little different from "we need milk, here's $5, run to the corner store across the street and come right back afterwards". Which is closer to what this new story sounds like.
PsychoticMessiah@reddit
Was that the same kid who was playing at a park all by himself?
guy_n_cognito_tu@reddit
Oh, grow up. White people get charged for similar things all the time, and no one has any sympathy for them.
SquirrelEnthusiast@reddit
Would you please provide evidence to your claim, cause lol
not-a-dislike-button@reddit
Many examples
https://reason.com/2025/05/29/mom-arrested-facing-5-years-in-prison-for-leaving-8-and-10-year-old-boys-at-home/
https://reason.com/2022/12/08/emily-fields-pearsiburg-virginia-cps-kids-outside-neglect/
SquirrelEnthusiast@reddit
The first one is questionable. The second one, yeah. I feel you.
CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit
I think plenty have sympathy for us when we're charged with child neglect when people see we aren't neglecting them.
Statistically black people are more likely to be arrested, charged, convicted and serve time than white people in this country. There's no reason not to deny this. I don't deny this and I was charged with neglect (I'm white) too. We should recognize this inequity AND we should recognized how it's almost 10x more likely for the mother to be charged than the father even when the parents are together. Nobody even ASKED where my son's father was when they were handling our case. My child was in the yard during a party with other kids present when he was violently s. assaulted. I was in the house preparing dessert for the party, within earshot. I was charged with neglect.
guy_n_cognito_tu@reddit
So, the person I replied to said "bet money that if the parents look different they would be getting a go fund me and not charges". As a white woman charged with neglect for something that happened in her own backyard, how do you feel about that statement? Don't you, in a way, PROVE the statement that I made above, that white people get charged for similar things all the time?
CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit
What I said is statistically black people (actually all minorities) are more likely to be charged, convicted, and serve time.
There was a gofundme for a white woman who harassed a child and called that child slurs recently. She got hundreds of thousands of dollars as a reward for her behavior. That's probably what came to mind for the other poster.
Do you have any way of justifying that instance?
PaperCivil5158@reddit
LOL
Step_away_tomorrow@reddit
Probably. The system is stacked against certain groups and they are judged more harshly. That does not mean white people are never charged. The statistics say it enough.
PaperCivil5158@reddit
That's exactly right!
EarlyInside45@reddit
Yes, absolutely.
mottledmussel@reddit
That's a bet you'd win 99% of the time.
threedogdad@reddit
it's #3, and it's been that way for quite some time now.
Purple_Pansy_Orange@reddit
I fear this will eventually, decades, lead to government takeover of our kids. Think about government mandated preK. Think about what government standardization in primary schools look like. Thank about what standards in government mandated preK might look like. If you aren’t scared, you should be
He_that_Is357@reddit
🤦🏼♂️
rogun64@reddit
Society has to always have someone to blame and I think this has been increasingly true throughout our lifetimes. Sometimes bad stuff happens and it's no one's fault. Truth is that everyone here deserves a little blame, but no one wanted it to happen and no one was grossly irresponsible for it happening.
Francl27@reddit
Going against the grain here - how safe was it to actually walk there? Clearly there was some parenting failure if they let their young kids walk to the store when clearly they were not mature enough to do so.
Sure, I also walked two blocks alone at 7 but there were pedestrian crossings with lights in my neighborhood. And sidewalks. I would NEVER have trusted my 10yo kids to cross a busy street in my neighborhood - people never walk there, so cars are not used to stopping. Heck, even when the light is green for me, I am very careful when I cross.
It's not about fear, it's about safety.
not-a-dislike-button@reddit
There's more to the story. Kids were with mom at the store then wandered away
Francl27@reddit
Not what the story says.
tolerable_fine@reddit
The scenario above is debatable until you consider how many murderers were routinely let out without bail in the past 3 to 4 years, then it really makes you question our prosecutors and justice system.
Party-Fault9186@reddit
Fair amount of survivorship bias on display here.
Middle-Painter-4032@reddit
We used to be a proper country. I blame the plaintiffs bar for a lot of the bizarre lack of accountability they push in court. Civil mostly. In the end, it's US as jurors that have to stop this kind of mentality.
jw071@reddit
The only blame I would shift to the parents would be whether or not the children have been taught the proper responsibilities. Seven is young, sure, but I totally understand where you're coming from.
This is me at 7 or 8 with my brother at \~13, 'working' for dad in his side-side hustle selling firewood from the back lot of his convenience store. I used to love to play in the log piles and there was always winos lurking in the woods when I went to play. Once I got a bottle thrown at me and dad made him stick a 357 bullet up his nose, told him that bullet was worth more than his life, and a couple of years later I watched one get his brain bashed out with a cinderblock for a $77 VA check.
Should have been exposed to all of that? Probably not, but the lessons I learned then are the reason I'm still alive today. The only thing I'd change is Walt's death, but maybe that hard lesson on humanity has protected me as well.
For even further context, my grandpa was a depression era orphan, no one could take him in so he became a burden of the state along with his little brother. They were sent to separate labor camps at around the ages of nine and six. My grandpa would sneak out at night for the next three years until he found his brother. They would escape and lived as literal hobos, hopping trains and riding the rails...
parker9832@reddit
It’s like American parents are either negligent or overprotective. We really need to find a comfortable medium. These parents should not be in jail, all this does is condemn another child to the broken foster care system.
CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit
The charges will likely be dropped after the investigation unless there's more to the story, which there probably isn't. It's just adding trauma to their lives though after the tragedy.
I think people forget the police aren't there for US, they're there to protect the state. Charging them and arresting them got this state money. That's all they care about. That and accolades when they bring those bad ol druggies and EElegals to "justice".
jasgrit@reddit
Hard to vote on this comment. Agree with your first paragraph, which helps calm the tone.
Disagree with your second paragraph, which is inflammatory. (Police are there to protect and serve civilians. Whether they all uphold that duty all of the time is a separate issue.)
PapaDeE04@reddit
Because, despite your personal experience, way more 7 year olds died in the 70's than they do now. We made the world safer for kids, when do you suppose we to stop trying on that effort?
If you boil it down, you're asking why can't everyone survive their childhood like you did? And that doesn't strike you as a dumb question? Our world as kids most much more dangerous, so please stop pretending you lived in some golden age. (FYI - me, 55 y.o. American white guy.)
Puzzleheaded-Ad-379@reddit
Kids need the opportunity to live and gain independence. Vehicles are too large, too fast, people driving are so often distracted, and cities, towns, and suburbs around the United States are punishing everyone by making driving the only transportation option. This is awful, stupid, and absurdly short-sighted
syntheticassault@reddit
Where I live, it is explicitly legal for kids to walk to school alone starting in 3rd grade. And 3rd graders can walk their younger siblings.
thatgenxguy78666@reddit
I was driving a truck out to the towns landfill at age 10. Working brick jobs with my dad most summers prior to that. This is a shame the parents are being blamed for a tragic accident. The parents have lost enough already.
notabackstagepass@reddit
There’s no guarantee the kid wouldn’t have run into the street if a parent was present.
BreathingEnthusiast@reddit
Stories of cruelty in times of tragedy like this tear me apart inside. I cannot imagine the grief this family is going through. But then to be separated from your 10-year-old son and in jail trying to grieve? I don't know that I could bear the agony.
largesaucynuggs@reddit
I was shocked when my 12 year old nephew didn’t know how to boil a hotdog. At 12 I used to cook entire meals for my family.
lonnie440@reddit
Right at 12 I was getting my two sisters up, feeding them breakfast and getting them out the door for school
pdperson@reddit
Your first example is giving "in my day we didn't wear seatbelts and we're fine!" Well no, "we" aren't fine. People died.
OGAberrant@reddit
I could t make it past the start of point 1. Seriously? Are you really so self centered to think your experience, or that of Gen x in general, can be compared to the world we are in today? How in the hell can anyone be this shallow minded?
mischievous_misfit13@reddit
I think the main takeaway is the parents were arrested and given insane bail. When I was in elementary school I walked 3 miles into town to swim or when the gas station opened up on the highway 3 miles away my sister and me would walk down there to get snacks. We even had a state trooper check on us and then let us continue our walk home….i was more annoyed he didn’t give us a ride home.
But kids today seriously lack freedom which inhibits their judgement and critical thinking skills. I live across from an elementary school and my neighbor has to walk across the street to pick up his son. This isn’t his choice it’s, the school. Kids either have to be picked up by family, ride the bus or walk home with a parent. That’s a bit ridiculous.
OGAberrant@reddit
And how many people were in your area at the time? I was a child through the 80’s and there is zero chance I would let my grand kids do the things I did due to lack of supervision.
Insane repercussions for not ensuring their children were safe? For allowing their children that are not only too young, but they failed to ensure they were responsible enough to be alone? You do realize that many of the laws on child welfare in the books today are because of the gen x kids that didn’t make it, right?
Since when are parents not responsible for the actions of their children?
mischievous_misfit13@reddit
If I had kids I’d still let them wander and be feral. The area I grew up and where I am now are both safe and as long as they use common sense (especially crossing a street) then they will be ok.
And you confirmed it’s people like you who would write up laws saying kids can’t be home alone, be out on the street alone, be at a park alone…we’ll be alone unless confined to their home where a guardian must be present. Look at how the kids are now…scared of everything, can’t interact with anyone (and this is coming from the girl who was super introverted growing up), and can’t navigate their way around their own neighborhood. I dunno, I’m more of a freedoms/feral type.
OGAberrant@reddit
Well then, I’m glad you don’t have kids 🤷♂️
mischievous_misfit13@reddit
I’m glad I don’t, I don’t want to bring a human into this current world. It’s a shit show.
Hope you don’t have any either…that’s a scary future when you have a helicopter parent.
OGAberrant@reddit
By what metric is it a shit show? Longer life spans? Lower childhood mortality? Less starvation?
Anything tangible, or just the things that make you feel yucky?
mischievous_misfit13@reddit
Losing rights for women (in America), being disregarded by doctors as a woman (in America), wages are stagnant while everything goes up (don’t get me started on billionaires), same billionaires polluting the land and water for profit, people are starving because they can’t afford food, school system sucks now because everything is test based learning, constant unknown for the current US president because he’s a whack job, people don’t people anymore unless it has to do with their phone or computer…I can keep going but I prefer to prevent suffering to others, especially if they are offspring.
DragYouDownToHell@reddit
My girlfriend will tell people stories about being in first grade in Germany, and walking from home to the train station, and taking the train to school and back each day. People here in the US, even among our peers, stand there with their mouths open. It's the community though. Not only did she never feel unsafe doing this as a kid, if something did happen, falling down and getting hurt, another parent would help them out and get them home. Happened when I was a kid as well. I doubt most would get involved anymore because of lawsuits, police getting called, etc.
Relative-Coach6711@reddit
I was just talking about this yesterday. Apparently, now, there's a legal age to be able to babysit. Age 12..
Safe_Chicken_6633@reddit
That's just compounding the awful tragedy for the family, in my opinion
KJWDistillers-Ouray@reddit
Nope. Nothing to do with kids agency to be kids; not the old lady’s fault, tragic as it will be for her; and perhaps not entirely the parents fault. Other than; as a country now fully gripped by the post war generations that have been defined by consumerism and self “truth”; We Take No Personal Responsibility for anything. There has to be blame laid at someone else’s feet. It must be the traffic engineer, or the laws allowing a child under age 12 to be outside their car seat; or perhaps it’s the cell phone manufacturers liability. Maybe it’s just a tragic accident and fate or God willed it so. 🤷🏻♂️ But certainly someone has to be blamed.
panic_bread@reddit
I am disgusted by these charges against the parents. I really hope this goes away.
encomlab@reddit
I wonder if this is a money-driven thing. I'm a member of a kart racing club - a sport which realistically requires $20-$50k to be competitive in - and the 7-10 year old group at the most recent national event was one of the largest ever. It's not necessarily dangerous, but it's not like playing at the park either. Our neighbors are members of a horse riding co-op that has a 5 figure initiation fee and all 3 of their kids (youngest 7) ride in competition and are routinely working with and around the (another 5 figure) horses. Again, not exceptionally dangerous, but fatalities and serious life changing injuries do occur.
NONE of these parents are seen as anything other than amazing - willing to pay big money so their kids can have these (admittedly awesome) experiences. NONE of them are going to jail if (God forbid) there is an accident or fatality.
Accomplished-Leg2971@reddit
Pedestrian fatalities have doubled over the last 15 years. It is objectively more dangerous now than what you may remember from your youth.
OstrichFinancial2762@reddit
Society in general, the US more so, pendulates between extremes. Our was a childhood of abject neglect. Sometimes we frame it as our parents “teaching us independence” but let’s call it what it was… they were self absorbed and neglected us so we HAD to become more self reliant. We had to sort shit out ourselves. Move the timeline forward and we’re at the other end of the extreme, with overprotective, overly engaged helicopter parents nerfing their child’s world to the point that they not only don’t HAVE to but are almost encouraged not to critically think. They consume prepackaged entertainment and electronic stimulation constantly. Yes, I see the hypocrisy of that last bit as I type a cleverly worded editorial while I take a shit because fuck all if I don’t engage in the internet constantly… but we are producing idle consumers almost incapable of imagination or independent thinking, and it’s a wild overcompensation to the neglect we, and to an extent the generation after us, went through. I have a buddy who’s kid almost got held back (remember when that was a thing) because he couldn’t draw a picture in pre-k. They thought it was a developmental issue. No. The little fucker had been plugged into a tv or iPad his whole life and had made it to age 5 without ever picking up a crayon…. Short version of a long rant…. We’ve swung from an extreme of neglect framed as teaching self reliance to an extreme of over padded entertainment consumption framed as keeping our kids safe.
We SUCK at moderation. Always have.
GovernmentMeat@reddit
I've literally been talking abot how Americans make decisions based around fear since I was 15 in the early 00's. It dates as far back as the Korean War as far as I can tell.
LuckyFootwork@reddit
You were raised before the advent of the 24 hour news cycle
Chestnut-Stoat@reddit
Slight corrections: they were en route to meet the father at the store, and the 10 yo was on the phone with the father, who was at the store but then ran out to the accident site.
Bitmush-@reddit
One big factor - maybe the biggest is that everyone lives, and has no choice to, in areas entirely unsuited to walking from one destination to another. Where I grew up in the UK there were/are pedestrian walkways through the housing to the shopping centers, and in newer areas, to the schools. The roads are narrow and choked with traffic, and more of than not there are more people walking than in private cars. Certainly the buses go by with 50 people on, which is a whole street of private cars.
Anywhere that it's likely there will be pedestrians and vehicles in the same vicinity, the speed for the cars is annoyingly low. Used to be 30 (because the difference in survivability for a pedestrian between 30 and 40 is 10-fold), now a lot of places are 20. If there is a direct line between areas people live and somewhere they need to get, there is a facility to stop the traffic, traffic-calming measures, or the traffic is rerouted.
In many areas you are able to get where you need to on a daily basis without crossing a road, let along trying to cross where there isn't a crosswalk or lights, an underpass or a bridge.
The answers to almost all of the problems that we have with the design of where we live are found in other parts of the world - there is absolutely no excuse to be continuing to prioritize the convenience of the motorist over everyone else, it's an absolute scourge the way infrastructure is designed and built near where people live. The highways are fantastic, you can drive from one end of the country to the other with your eyes shut almost.
But housing is treated like an industrial facility with only accommodation being given to people who drive from there across town to their workplaces or distant stores. It doesn't work. It fosters isolation and dysfunction and it needs to be turned around now.
LilStabbyboo@reddit
It's crazy as hell. I've had police called because my daughter was playing outside unsupervised, at like 10-12 years old, in our apartment complex. She was always a bit small for her age but she didn't look too young to play in the dang backyard without an adult.The school buses here won't even allow kids on the bus if there isn't a parent there watching them at the bus stop, until like junior high. And they won't drop them back off if a parent isn't there to meet them coming home. Insanity. People will call CPS on parents for ANYdamnthing too. They once got called to my house because people had seen that a child lived there but she wasn't going to school with the other kids nearby. I had to provide all kinds of documentation to prove that she was being homeschooled at the time and that she'd had a doctor checkup recently. People need to mind their own business more often.
sunny_gym@reddit
It is crazy. It reminds me of the story from Florida where an 11 year old's parents were delayed getting home to let him into the house, so he played basketball outside for 90 minutes until they got home. At which the parents were arrested because somebody called the cops.
https://www.freerangekids.com/interview-with-the-mom-whose-kids-were-taken-away-after-son-was-seen-playing-alone-in-yard/
Tdot-77@reddit
I have an almost 13 year old. We let our child start taking public transit alone in a perimeter and it allows them to get to afterschool activities without us. We have friends who take their almost 14 year old the same distance. Friends are also afraid to let their kids take transit within a reasonable distance for kids to do kid things (movies, hang out etc.) our kids are 3 years away from being eligible to get a drivers license and 5 years way from being able to fight in war…but they can’t take the bus/subway. Compared to our generation our kids are insanely overprotected. And it stunts their development significantly. They cannot problem solve, manage risk, navigate environments, interact with strangers (ask for directions etc). We try as much as we are comfortable our child doing it alone since so many parents are hesitant.
Beauphedes_Knutz@reddit
There are 114 million more people running around the country than in the early 80s.
A long time ago we surpassed the break over point with population. Moron behavior is only going to increase and we are going to become more like India and China.
This is not a ding against any individual, but when people mass together, the stupid comes out in force. Watch any driving or life style video from a major city in either country and you will see what I'm talking about.
starsgoblind@reddit
Come on man, life moves a lot faster than it did when you were a kid. Cars are faster and quieter, people are on their phones and not paying attention, wearing headphones, urban planning is non existent, and pedestrians are on their own in this crazy stew. Being careful makes sense, and your job as a parent is to show your children safe behaviors. Children’s brains are less developed. Parents absolutely need to take responsibility. Whether they should be charged is another matter.
gulogulo1970@reddit
Living on Earth is dangerous. You cannot make every action that is potentially dangerous, illegal. Just think how many lives we could save if we never let anyone leave their houses. /S
Teach/coach people the best you can but some are still going to die. It has and always will be this way. Better to take your chances in this dangerous world than live as a prisoner to fear.
IndySouthern@reddit
You all are ignoring the most likely explanation. It appears that the family has the wrong skin color for North Carolina. When nothing makes sense, look for the most likely explanation. I hate to say it, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
shawsome12@reddit
Can I just say why was the mom on the phone with the child? Adults and children get distracted on the phone. Not that it should have resulted in those charges, but if you’re going to trust your kids to go to the store, maybe you don’t want to distract them either.
Disfunctional-U@reddit
Idk man. I'm 50ish and grew up shooting guns and free range similar to everybody here. I also started smoking at 14 and was having sex at 16. I was also selling cigarettes to other kids. My cousin got his girl friend pregnant at 16. I knew someone who died at 10 from riding a bike w/o a helmet, 2 friends were shot and killed, 1 friend was gay and committed suicide, one friend died when his jeep flipped on a hill, one friend died at around 14 in a dirt bike accident, almost every woman my age I know was raped or sexually assaulted, many of my friends are in drug and alcohol recovery because they started using drugs young. Generation X has screwed up a lot of things, but, when it comes to trying to make a safer world for our children than the one we grew up in, we did that. Our children now die at a lower rate because we do a better job of monitoring and caring for them than many of our parents did. And that's a good thing. Being independent and free range sounds nostalgic. But I think I'll continue to be a helicopter parent who makes makes kids feel special, loved and doles out participation trophies with no regrets. If no one drops out, gets pregnant before finishing high school, or develops COPD by the time they're 40, then they will be doing better than a ton of people in our generation. As for the kids and parents in the story, I really have to know the rest of the story.
More_Mind6869@reddit
Will you be helicoptering when they're 20 ?
Will you be teaching the independence skills, critical thinking, and life skills necessary for a strong independent and emotionally healthy adult ?
Have you read the posts from 20somethings on Reddit ? Most are unhappy, weak, emotionally stunted, afraid of themselves and others. Both sexes are in dead bedrooms, not interested in sex with each other. Many boys are porn addicted and can't relate to a woman in 3D.
So many can't handle the reality of real life without a participation trophy. "I'm a Victim" is the popular mantra of the Zs. It's a race to be the biggest, loudest, Victim, and blame everything and everyone but themselves.
Yeah, you helicopter mommies have done a wonderful job raising a bunch of whining brats that can't even take care of themselves.
It must be comforting to yall that they'll be living in your basement when they're 30....
Disfunctional-U@reddit
I just gave my opinion based on actually being a genx parent. First I'm a dude. Second, I don't determine whether I'm a good parent based on what Fox New, Reddit and Andrew Tate, and you tell me. I couldn't care less what you think of my parenting or my apparently whiney kids who you don't even know and have never met. Third, I remember hearing this same stuff from my parents and grandparents. GenX kids were weak. After all our parents survived Vietnam and WWII. And yet, here we are. We survived. If Fox and Reddit existed in the same form in the 80s and 90s it would be full of this exact same stuff. Your description of what most young person is like is hilarious btw. Most of the kids I know are happy well adjusted kids. Surprisingly they seem less depressed than the kids I grew up with. And less impulsive. But doomers gonna doom I guess.
More_Mind6869@reddit
OK. No parental bias there. Lol.
333pickup@reddit
City of Boston: first graders who live within a mile of their public school are not eligible.for school bus service. First graders are 6 going on 7 years.
I would like to read the story because this truly foes not make sense
SSolomonGrundy@reddit
I wonder if this kind of total bullshit fear-driven nanny-stating is (ironically) more common in red states?
I am thinking about having a kid (at a late age) and would move to a less nanny-state location, where neighbors didn't think it was their right to police other peoples' parenting.
geodebug@reddit
It has to be political.
Even if anyone believed this is a manslaughter case, why 1.5 million dollar bail?
Because cruelty is a party platform.
themiracy@reddit
I wonder about the bail. Unless the parents are a flight risk, it doesn’t seem given the circumstances that they pose any kind of imminent danger to the community that would require to keep them incarcerated.
OGREtheTroll@reddit
It's an absurd bail amount for almost any crime unless there are specific factors involved.
OGREtheTroll@reddit
It's most likely just law enforcement overreach. Police see an opportunity to make a news worthy arrest and to broaden a statute by twisting its meaning, prosecutor plays along because they want to make police happy, judges are former prosecutors who know how the game is played. They normalize these things within their own microcosm.
Most people seeing this will think it's absurd and cruel, while law enforcement think they are being heroes of justice.
mtcwby@reddit
That's not parental neglect and is ridiculous. You cannot protect your children from their actions completely. That prosecutor needs to be slapped around for being an idiot and piling on to people who are already grieving. Frankly the prosecutor sounds like a gloryhound POS.
I walked home from school every day at five and we knew how to cross the street safely
Magesticals@reddit
Hopefully they end up in front of a judge with common sense very soon.
Judges need to start sanctioning prosecutors for this kind of bullshit.
OGREtheTroll@reddit
Most judges are former prosecutors.
OryxTempel@reddit
That’s not how this works.
alcohall183@reddit
it should be- that's what's wrong with this. while i don't condone a judge handing down a punishment for someone doing their job, THIS ISN'T THEIR JOB. This is attention seeking. Their job is to seek justice. this isn't justice. The parents did NOTHING WRONG. in many places, including where i live, schools don't even offer busing to children who live less than a mile away. 2 blocks? the school would expect the child to be able to make it to the school without a parent.
CommitteeOfOne@reddit
Since this is a felony, it should have been indicted by a grand jury. While that is a very slanted process, it means a majority of the grand jury thought there was reasonable cause to charge them.
heydawn@reddit
I can't believe the parents were charged. A ten year old is old enough to walk two blocks with a 7 year old. This is a devastating tragedy, not a crime.
This 4 year old child walked miles through snow to get help for her sick grandmother (in 2017). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/14/four-year-old-girl-trekked-miles-in-sub-zero-siberia-to-help-her-grandmother?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Vahlir@reddit
so I'll start off saying I think charging the parents is the real crime here. It's insane and I hope public pressure gets the charges dropped and the DA's office in deep shit.
That being said, I can't help but feel things have changed in regards to pedestrians and traffic.
I'm coming from just selling my motorcycle after several years because it was getting bad in my mid-size city/metro area. I've had two friends killed while riding in the last 4 years from people making left hand turns and never seeing them.
I can't help that more old people are on medication and shouldn't be driving and more younger people are more distracted while driving than before.
I've lost track of the number of times I had to take preemptive evasive maneuvers because someone was in my lane and looking down at their phone, and I'm much larger than a pedestrian.
There's been a two kids killed in my suburb in the last several years as well while crossing streets as well.
And obviously we have pedestrians who are also not paying attention so factor that in but still.
Life feels far more "up-tempo" to me than it did in the 80's and 90's.
I mean I remember people racing down blvds late at night on weekends. But now it feels like people are flying day and night and blowing stop signs and red lights all over. And there's the hundreds of old people who either have a "medical emergency" while driving or panic stomp the accelerator when they intend to use the break and go through the front of houses and buildings. My friend's son's 18 year old gf just went through his garage when she thought she was in reverse...but wasn't.
Then factor in we hear news we'd never have heard about before. I mean local news was usually about some house fire or a car accident in your city. Not something that happened 12 states away. So people feel like the rate of things has increased.
Also, health insurance sucks.
I mean maybe it's just getting old but from my experience drivers are far more deadly and going faster than before.
I'm definitely more on the over protective side but my kids are special needs so I feel I'm extremely biased in that sense.
But yeah as a kid (same area) I was riding my bike around the block all the time at 7-10 years old by myself. By 4th grade I was going at least a dozen miles away from home and all over.
I'm of the mind for heavier criminal charges and time for driving like an asshole instead of just a ticket.
Also my wife's a school bus driver. Can't tell you how many times people blow around her bus when she has her reds on.
Shit we've had 5 people killed from the same train crossing (3 different accidents) (which is marked and has lights and a gate) in the last few years. And the train is only going like 30 mph.
People need to slow the fuck down and old people on meds need to have their license pulled. (and of course we need viable alternatives for old people even if it's subsidizing ride services for them)
mcprof@reddit
This story shook me. We do this with my kid all the time (we live two blocks from a vibrant downtown and she is always supervised from afar by an adult.) I thought it was a great way for her to build independence. But this has me rethinking that.
IllTakeACupOfTea@reddit
That was not an accident. Our roads in the US are built to create danger for pedestrians. Our vehicles are too large with poor visibility. We don't require licensed drivers to retake the test every decade or so. Those parents only guilt is that they live in the US.
Old_Blue_Haired_Lady@reddit
My kids are now competent, accomplished young adults. I'm pretty sure I would be called by CPS if I was parenting them the same way now.
Jorost@reddit
It's North Carolina and the parents are African-American. That probably has a LOT to do with why they were charged.
foresthobbit13@reddit
I don’t understand why the parents are in jail and not the 76-year-old who may very well no longer have the capacity to be a safe driver. It’s not a moral reflection on the elderly to point out the biological facts of aging, such as a reduction in reflexes and vision. I realize it may have been an unavoidable accident, but I’m not seeing why the parents have been imprisoned on $1M bails while the driver isn’t suffering any consequences. I was walking to school by myself when I was 5 years old. I do not understand how our culture has transformed into one of collective paranoia when it comes to children when crime and accident rates have actually dropped since we were kids. Now a nosy neighbor can call CPS when a kid is playing outside in their own damn yard while the parents are home. I don’t get it.
Door_Number_Four@reddit
I'm going to remind this ongoing BoomerFest that often prosecutors have information that you don't.
If you'd like, I can let some of my relatives who work for child protective services tell you about the neglect cases that they find, and the parents argue its ok to disappear for days at a time because they left a kid with a cell phone.
contrarian1970@reddit
It used to be that the death of a 7 year old child was far worse punishment in itself than jail time could possibly be. It isn't as if parents everywhere are more likely to allow their 7 year old children to cross four lane roads if these parents didn't go straight to jail. Applying laws in this way just seems outrageously cruel to the 10 year old and is not serving as a deterrent in any degree that I can believe. I hope a district judge overturns the million dollar bail...if not the jail sentence itself. There must be other case precedents a district judge could cite.
SatBurner@reddit
Stuff like this gets so weird at times. When my oldest was in 1st grade we could sign her up to be a walker, the path home was about a mile. She walked everyday across the not busy street, with a path that allowed her to actually bypass that crossing for an even less busy street. During the release times there was never even a crossing guard there.
When she started a club that kept her 30 minutes after school, the principal refused to allow her to cross the street if she was in the post school activities.
ms_rdr@reddit
I think there's also a dash of "Something bad happened; someone's gotta be at fault" involved. Kid dashed in front of a car with no warning, not in a crosswalk? Can't blame the driver. Can't blame the kid because kids. Must be the parents' fault!
I see this mentality a lot; I even do it myself. I didn't bump my head because shit happens, I bumped my head because some idiot engineer put a bumpy thing where it was too easy to bump my head!
Unfortunately, sometimes shit just happens and it's no one's fault, but damn, we really want to place some blame somewhere.
QuellishQuellish@reddit
I don’t even have to look at the article to know the arrested parent is black. That’s your problem right there.
CommitteeOfOne@reddit
Lawyer here (but not in NC). I can see why they were charged, depending on some unstated facts. First, they are charged with involuntary manslaughter. That crime can be committed a few ways, but the theory is likely the parents were culpably negligent in the death of the children. Negligence requires a duty, a breach, an injury, and that the breach proximately caused the injury. Negligence is judged by the standard of a reasonable person. I can see the first and third elements are definitely satisfied, and the second and fourth are questionable, imo.
The article says it was a "busy four-lane road." What is the average speed on that road? Would a reasonable person think the duty to keep a child safe is breached by allowing two children that age, one of which was on the phone, be unsupervised in that area? I'm not familiar with the area, so I don't know. I know I certainly wouldn't trust a 10-year old and a 7-year old to cross certain commercial sections of a 4-lane road in my town. People driver way too fast in those section.
All of that said, I don't think they should have been charged, even if they were negligent. They are being punished enough by having to bury two young children.
Glass-Nectarine-3282@reddit
It is crazy - not to be all "in my day I walked both ways uphill" but when i was 7, I actually did walk two miles home every day from school because I hated the high schoolers on the bus.
Most of it was a rural byway with no sidewalks and really no houses for long stretches - so it was during the day, so I was vislble and all that, but it would have been easy to hit and/or serial killed.
But yeah, would have my parents been arrested? The school? The bus driver?
In my memory, I knew I wasn't supposed to walk home, but I didn't like the bus, so there it was.
ka_beene@reddit
I'm not disagreeing at all but today people drive those giant trucks/suv with low visibility while distracted on their phones. I'm glad that shit wasn't around when I was walking myself blocks to the bus stop in kindergarten.
Glass-Nectarine-3282@reddit
Yes, and think how fast people go too - it's not that people are better/worse on the road, it's that the cars require less attention when you're driving. They can go fast and smooth, and that wasn't always a thing.
Back in the 1970s, no power steering, no power brakes, car rattled and shoot cuz it was made of sheets of steel, so you really had to be on your game. Haha
Moody_GenX@reddit
When I was 8 I was riding my bike 2 miles to and from the community pool almost every week day. If I wasn't at the pool I was riding my bike around several neighborhood blocks to play with friends.
gotchafaint@reddit
This is the fault of the news for creating such a fear filled population and on people who feel they have to call CPS on every unattended child. My kids were completely free range in our small rural town along with only two other neighbor kids and got threatened with CPS more than once. All the other kids weren’t allowed to go past their driveways so stayed inside playing video games.
ApplianceHealer@reddit
I once buckled my kid (maybe was 7YO) into the car seat in a grocery store lot, loaded the trunk, then took my cart to the nearby cart return, maybe three spaces away.
In just those 30 seconds, the millennials who had parked next to me returned to their car and were in a full on panic about seeing my kid alone in the car. Not a hot day, no danger, but instant freakout.
They calmed down and ran along before I could tell them the countless hours I spent sitting in a parked car, alone, at even younger ages, often preferring that to having to stand in long lines at the bank, post office, etc.
CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit
Maybe you could just take your kid? I mean I'm all for free ranging when they're old but if a kid is that young I'm not about to leave them even to put a cart up. If I saw a kid alone in a car especially hooked up in a car seat I'm going to get nervous and probably will call for help too. They didn't know how long it had been. Where I lived we had two kids die in a hot car simply because the parents thought it wasn't that hot and left their sleeping kids in carseats to shop.
VacationLizLemon@reddit
This feels extremely cruel given the situation. Now, if it was a gun that the child had access to, I would feel differently.
JK30000@reddit
The parents lost a child. I don't think they need to be punished beyond that.
CartographerEven9735@reddit
I figure it would've been fine for a 10 year old or two 10 year olds but putting a 10 year old in charge of a 7 year old....I dunno. Not saying the charge is valid at all, but I wouldn't hire a 10 year old to babysit my 7 year old, let alone ask them to escort them along a busy street.
RepulsiveCry5034@reddit
Wow, my my aunt and uncle were walking to school at 7 and 5 and my uncle was run over by a train. Nothing happened to their parents but this was 70 years ago,
Magik160@reddit
In most of the country, it’s child endangerment. Just because our parents did it, doesnt make it right.
Craig1974@reddit
Are you saying a 7 year old and a 10 year old bears responsibility or some responsibility for this?
THEY ARE CHILDREN.
ikediggety@reddit
So I haven't read any of the articles about this horrible tragedy. And without having read anything, I'm just going to ask the question, were these parents black?
thisgirlnamedbree@reddit
I believe it's an interracial couple. Being biracial myself, I wouldn't be surprised if some prejudice factors in.
Simple-Swan8877@reddit
The problem we have had for a long time is babies raising babies.
EarlyInside45@reddit
Of course he's a Black child.
My friend let her mixed-race 8 year old walk 5 blocks to his babysitter's house. At the first block, a white couple stopped him and called the police. The police entered my friend's workplace and arrested her in front of everyone. She lost her job, which led to her losing her house. The kicker is, it's not a crime, but cops of course deal with it on a case-by-case basis.
Stunning_Run_7354@reddit
Yeah. “It’s not racism” just doesn’t feel true when the laws are only enforced against Black people.
EarlyInside45@reddit
Right. It does happen to other races who live in poverty, but it is especially enforced against Black people no matter their economic situation.
Stunning_Run_7354@reddit
… and I just can’t quite put the words together right today.
The fact that this is true just really sucks.
Psychological-Dirt69@reddit
I agree this is...dumb and unjust. It was a terrible accident, period, and could have very well happened if Mom was with them. I feel so bad for the older brother. 😓
Rishtu@reddit
A ten year old cannot be responsible for the life of another child. That’s what it boils down too.
We can argue in circles all day about how we used to do things, but in the end, leaving a ten year kid with the responsibility for another kids life is not ok.
oldbluehair@reddit
It's a four lane road. That's pretty dangerous. You are comparing country/ rural life with a very different scenario.
I'm an early Gen X. I was walked to the bus stop by our dog when my siblings were still pre-schoolers, and I don't think my mother would have let me cross a four lane road at the age of 7 or 10. And I certainly wouldn't be put in charge of a younger sibling in a dangerous situation like that.
Plus the dad was on the phone with the 10-year-old so this child is in charge of his younger brother AND needs to pay attention to his father?
You say it's "only 2 blocks." I don't think referring to this type of road set up as "blocks" really gives the correct impression. The street I live on is only 2 blocks--residential blocks. It has a low speed limit and a lot of families. I can see from one end to the other just about. A very different "2 blocks" than what is described.
I don't know if the parents should be in jail or charged, however they aren't blameless.
kaishinoske1@reddit
You want to know why something like that never happened when I was taking care of my sister when I was 2 years older than her. Then later when I was over a decade older than my brother later in life and still a kid. The words that were told me when I was responsible for bother of them by my mother, “ If anything happens to them it’s your fault.” So whatever knowledge I knew I had to survive this world. I gave them the same.
coyotelovers@reddit
It's simple- dark skinned parents are treated more harshly, with a different set of standards. Look up the facts surrounding the history of non-whites and law enforcement/arrests/ violence. If you are seeing this for the first time, you are just finally waking up.
tulips_onthe_summit@reddit
I think it's ridiculous that these parents are being charged. This family should be going through grief counseling, not being held for a crime. I don't think it's a coincidence that they are black. It reeks of discrimination.
ifallallthetime@reddit
As soon as I saw people cheerleading for the parents being charged in teen mass shooting cases I knew this was going to go downhill quickly
This case is ridiculous and any sane judge would throw this out of court
BigDigger324@reddit
Mass shootings where the parents provide the weapon either through direct gifts or negligence are NOTHING like what OP is describing.
profmoxie@reddit
This is absolutely tragic and I don't know enough about the mother, children, or situation (vehicle type) to know who is to blame.
But we do know pedestrian deaths have increased, mainly because more people are driving HUGE SUVs and trucks. I understand having a truck for work, an SUV for kids with sports equipment, etc. (although minivans worked for carting kids and crap around in the 90s and weren't as tall). But I see SO many people driving giant vehicles that limit visibility and cause way more harm when they hit someone. We've made gigantic vehicles a status symbol, unfortunately.
ikediggety@reddit
It's worse than that. The reason so many people are driving those enormously oversized jacked up trucks is because there is a legal loophole for those vehicles to not have the same emissions standards. As usual, it's all about the money
guy_n_cognito_tu@reddit
You don't know who to blame, but you're blaming SUVs anyway?
profmoxie@reddit
I literally said that I don’t know the specifics (although the article someone linked to says the vehicle was a jeep) and just shared general info about why pedestrian deaths have increased. Ffs.
88questioner@reddit
This morning I saw 4 little girls, probably 6-8, walking to school by themselves (they were 2 blocks away or so) and it gave me such a happy feeling. Independence is so important!
Majestic-Reception-2@reddit
Because in the US, the last 3 or so generations have coddled too much and become afraid/offended by EVERYTHING!
thekathied@reddit
I agree with you 100%. I wonder about the elderly driver.
Jordangander@reddit
The new rule is that you never hold a person responsible for their own actions, it has to be someone else’s fault.
effects_junkie@reddit
They put the parents in jail? That's an overreaction by whatever apparatus is responsible.
lemony197236@reddit
I am mid 50s and have friends with kids on both sides of the spectrum, way too over protective and completely free range parenting. The kids from both types of parenting are unbearable. One cant do anything for themselves and the other is feral. There should be some middle ground where kids are taught some responsibility and autonomy but not completely turned loose on society.
lsp2005@reddit
First, I am incredibly sorry for the death of the child. There is an age and maturity difference between 7 and 9. A seven year old is impulsive in a way most 9 year olds outgrow. I would expect a 10 year old to be able to walk two blocks, but not a 7 year old. It would also depend upon the kind of block. In a residential neighborhood is very different than a divided highway. Both may be only two blocks.
NeedleworkerLow1100@reddit
Really? I was walking to school at 5. It was um beaten into me that the street meant cars, cars meant danger.
The only person at fault here is the 7 yr old who paid for it dearly.
Everyone else will live with the guilt and pain of what happened. But 7 is not too young to walk 2 damn blocks.
Francl27@reddit
Hard disagree. They let their immature 7yo cross a busy street (with no lights or sidewalk apparently) with only his 10yo sibling as chaperone.
That's extremely irresponsible.
NeedleworkerLow1100@reddit
Agreeing to disagree here.
The only one responsible here is child. It's just horrific that the consequence is death.
lsp2005@reddit
Your parents neglected you. Mine too. We can do better. We know better.
NeedleworkerLow1100@reddit
Do better how? By overprotecting them to the point where they can't wipe their own ass?
Or overprotecting them to the point where they are so fearful they are unable to act.
Or overprotecting them to the point where when they are faced with the consequences of their actions they play the victim.
The parents here are not to blame.
The 10 yr old is not to blame.
The person that hit him is not to blame.
The 7 yr old is to blame.
Everyone else has to deal with the consequences.
KtinaDoc@reddit
No they didn't. They raised independent human beings, not sniveling little whiny babies that can't be 2 feet away from mommy at all times.
Imaginary-Peak1181@reddit
Likewise. I walked half a mile to kindergarten, including crossing a busy street at a crosswalk and then walked home and was latchkey in the afternoon. It was normal.
KtinaDoc@reddit
Seriously? I guess this generation is raising 7 year old's to act like toddlers. I walked to school at 7 and believe it or not, knew that I shouldn't dart into traffic. I learned to look both ways at 2.
lsp2005@reddit
I let my kids walk to school at 9, not 7. My kids are responsible, but it is almost 2 miles from my home. I live in a neighborhood with a community based elementary school. You have to pick up your child until they are at least 8, so it’s not just me making this call.
KtinaDoc@reddit
To be fair, I wasn't walking 5 miles to school and back and we met up with other kids along the way and walked together. An older brother walking with his younger brother should not be a crime.
lsp2005@reddit
Did you see what the actual accident site looked like? This was not some tree lined leafy suburb street or a rural road. It was a multiple lane divided highway style road. I think context matters. I let my kids play on the cul de sac at 5 and 7 with the neighborhood kids. They would scream car and everyone would scramble to the grass. This is not that.
Recent_Data_305@reddit
https://www.foxnews.com/us/north-carolina-parents-charged-after-son-struck-killed-suv-while-walking-older-brother.amp
wwaxwork@reddit
Too many people are focused on raising children they forget they are actually raising adults. Well the adults these children will one day become and that childhood, while a time of fun, is also the time children learn how to become adults. That the skills of adulthood need to be taught. You see it too with teens, the teen age years were not an extension of childhood they are now, they were seen as the introductory years to adulthood. Then a whole generation of young men got killed in 2 consecutive world wars and those that survived wanted to protect their kids. And thus "teenagers" as a concept was born and childhood became extended.
AlfaNovember@reddit
Ask any cyclist: The easiest way to get away with murder in America is to hit ‘em with a car.
Not having seen a lick of coverage, I’m going to go ahead and assume that the pedestrians were walking on a marginal path or maybe an ill-maintained sidewalk with no separation or protection from the main multilane thoroughfare, and that the entire deadly situation was specifically designed to work that way by highly credentialed engineers who prioritize traffic speed, and then was funded by a legislature that ‘saved taxpayer dollars’ by reducing the pedestrian protections.
Even if that wasn’t the case here, it was in innumerable thousands of others. The only difference here is the ghoulish DA or whomever is exponentially shitting on the worst day of two poor parents lives.
Silly-Mountain-6702@reddit
self preservation as a taught skill is just gone. I mean, we were told to never walk in front of a moving car - whether the car was moving forward or backward. It's a two ton destruction machine, you don't walk in front of it.
Go watch the parking lot at Costco.
IainwithanI@reddit
The only possible good that can come from the arrest is the unlikely chance of wide publicity resulting in common agreement that the parents were not wrong.
GoobyGrapes@reddit
My older sister was hit by a car when she was 8 (1975). She was walking home from school and ran across the street when she shouldn't have. She was injured but ok. And it was absolutely her fault. I can't imagine my parents being charged for that. What have we become?
Chaemyerelis@reddit
It's easier to swallow charges on the poorer younger parents; one of which was a black man vs an older 76 year old woman who was probably white.
NegScenePts@reddit
Because somewhere along the way parents stopped being independent adults with lives and personalities and became empty vessels who only exist to ensure that children are 100% the focus at all times and are kept from all harm. Not just in society's eyes, but the eyes of the law as well.
If you DARE instill a sense of independence and adventure in your child, you're viewed as a horrible parent. I'm not saying we were raised 'correctly', but more effort went in to preparing us for life at a very young age. Not to mention the rabid lawsuit culture that's been fostered in western society...a dead child is worth MILLIONS to a grieving family.
doctoralstudent1@reddit
The 10 year olds of today are NOT like the 10 year olds when we grew up. Most are sheltered, overly sensitive, unprepared kids who have a very very difficult time being independent and generally aware of their surroundings. It’s sad.
AssistantAcademic@reddit
Is there an article about this?
That does seem like some misguided "justice". As a parent, it's a balance trying to teach your kids autonomy, decision making, etc while also keeping them safe.
I think I'd want to know more about the road/traffic.
If there's some other details that lead law enforcement to conclude this is negligence....but a 7 year old walking down the road with a 10 year old (not in the road)...doesn't sound particularly negligent to me. It just had a bad outcome and it seems like someone's got to be guilty.
BeLikeEph43132@reddit
A link has been added to the original post....
WritingRidingRunner@reddit
My heart goes out to these poor parents. How dare the prosecutors compound this horrible tragedy for these bereaved people?
My parents were INSANELY overprotective by Gen X standards, "normal" by today's, which totally screwed me up, honestly. But by the time I was 11, I was biking around my neighborhood, alone.
Kids do stupid, stupid things sometimes. It's awful. But there's no guarantee that even the parents, had they been there, could have restrained the kid.
Once, when I was driving, I turned down a local highway, and in the lane, coming AT me was a group of young boys on fat-wheeled dirt bikes. I had to come to a stop (fortunately, no one was immediately behind me). They had no idea that they'd just avoided being seriously injured and biked away, still going the wrong way in the middle of the lane. I did hear people honking at them, as I started to drive again, and when I looked in my rearview window, they were dodging cars on their bikes in traffic.
OP brings up a good point about riding horses. I used to ride until recently. Kids take riding lessons all the time. Any time a kid gets on a horse, there is a higher risk of injury with a parent present versus walking alone. Ditto gymnastics and many other sports.
Kids need to be given the opportunity to take safe risks (walking to school, riding bikes with helmets and proper bike safety education). Otherwise they never learn how to self-govern at all.
Suitable-Ad6999@reddit
Idk how rural this part of NC is but a major road for a 10 & 7 year old sounds rough.
Reading comments I realize everyone walked to school up hill both ways in 3 Ft of snow in July but not everyone grew up on a farm 40+ years ago. Doing farm work. Hunting and fishing. 200M ppl in US then 380M now. Nearly double. All on the coasts or cities. Has anyone driven in traffic anywhere and NOT seen drivers on their phones? I haven’t.
Do we not remember missing kids on milk carts? Unsolved murders on the news? Now any murder becomes a Netflix docudrama because there’s not many. (At least of a certain race….) Serial killers? Kind of hard to imagine Jason now. Just take a pic!
I just don’t think our parents cared! Literally! I grew up in bad city during 70’s. Bad! My parents were like “come home when lights come on.” We played near shipping train tracks. We would try to touch or throw rocks at the trains as they went by. There were dead dogs covered in some petroleum product near the tracks. The dogs were there for months without decomposing and removed!!!
I know where my kids are at all times.
MiriMidd@reddit
Of course we remember missing kids on milk cartons. Kids still go missing. Doesn’t matter for all the technology and safety we have created does it? Mostly because the vast majority of the time the kidnapper is known to the family.
It is actually the case here that kids do walk to school if they are less than 2 km from their elementary school or less than 3 km from their high school. We don’t do public school bus service here really unless you are farther from your school or you’re going to a different school and the district for something like French immersion. Because it’s an added huge expense. So most people do take their kindergartners or grade one kids to school if they don’t have an older sibling to take them. Otherwise, the older sibling walks with them. Large streets and all.
Mysterious_Dot_1461@reddit
News and government and corporations established fear mongering as a way control and marketing to sell any kind of bs.
rival_22@reddit
Terrible situation...
One thing that caught my attention though was "The 10 year old was on the phone with the mother..." I know the mother's heart was in the right place in wanting to keep in contact with the kids walking alone, but along a busy road, don't you want your kid who've you put in the position of responsibility to be able to focus on their surroundings?
Again, don't want to blame, the parents and brother are going to deal with this tragedy the rest of their lives.
gozer87@reddit
The advent of the 24 hour news cycle.
BeLikeEph43132@reddit
I cannot imagine the guilt the 10 year old must feel.
Wooden-Glove-2384@reddit
ever consider this was dangerous and we just got lucky?
legally? IDK. but it's not a child's responsibility to watch another child when the parent is present
you give kids responsibility where the worst outcome is not another child running into traffic
Francl27@reddit
100%. It's like the old "we did fine without car seats" crap. The ones who didn't are not here to talk about it, are they?
modi123_1@reddit
I don't know what to say besides, all of that was probably 40-45 years ago. Times change, laws change, and if you want to investigate look at the outgoing booms and incoming genxers who advocated for that sort of law on the books as well as any for-profit-prison nudges.
According to the authorities:
Again, look to who pushed that law or interpretation.
In my opinion, there is no positive intended outcome for the family involved, but the outcome is to send a message to all parents with children - you can be held for manslaughter so don't leave your kids out of sight or reach.
One-girl-circus@reddit
What about the driver? Surely she should’ve been able to swerve or hit the brakes in time, if she were paying attention and driving responsibly?
modi123_1@reddit
Per the article,
One-girl-circus@reddit
The evidence of wrongdoing is that she ran over a child and killed them. Again, things can be accidents, but isn’t this what manslaughter is?
OryxTempel@reddit
Yep. Involuntary manslaughter. Although driver would probably have to be found criminally negligent in some way, or absolutely reckless.
modi123_1@reddit
I am just working with the information provided.
I imagine the police chain of fault started with: was the driver impaired, negligent, or in a situation where they should have reasonably stopped.
If not then look to the victim to see if they were engaging in an activity that lead to their death. Probably, and I am just guessing here, the police found the kid jumped out into the street as the onus then that trickled up to the parents.
Again, not a legal eagle nor even in that city, but speculation on how the police could come to their initial decision.
One-girl-circus@reddit
Oh I agree with you. It’s just so frustrating when this family must be reeling with grief.
baristaski@reddit
I know a family who had CPS called because their kid was playing at the park across the street, they were outside and could see him from the front porch. It’s horrible, I want my kids to be able to roam like I did (and I’m only 25 and did not grow up rural) but THIS is what happens when parents do that. The best part is that it’s not any less safe than it was back then, the internet and social media has just brought more awareness to crime so we’re all more freaked out about it.
Frida21@reddit
This is crazy. I read the link to try to see if there was more reason to charge the parents but didn't see it. It was two blocks. They were 7 and 10, not 2 and 5. We all walked to school alone, right?
hotprof@reddit
The parents should file the biggest series of lawsuits ever for all the faults of the school district, city, and state that made it so unsafe for a kid to walk home from school that he was killed.
RevolutionaryPost460@reddit
When you're not prepared for reality you are afraid. Yellow journalism, an over-abundance of imbalance media and education that doesn't provoke free-thinking. Not to say those issues have always been there but not to this extreme.
We are the last generation of skeptics that learned early on about self-reliance. This includes to seek the truth and banter with other people's perceptive to acquire the most balance knowledge. Younger generations will catch on, millennials have been, but with more delay.
One-girl-circus@reddit
Good thing I’ve passed along a healthy dose of skepticism to my kids. Also helps that they had some excellent media training in both of their school systems.
RevolutionaryPost460@reddit
Both of mine as well although the school system here drastically downgraded between the time my son graduated and daughter graduated 2 years later. It took her longer but she's more aware if not a bigger skeptic than I am now. Lol
Mental-Artist-6157@reddit
I live in a small town (pop 17k) in the North East of the States. I see kids walking home from school daily, also riding bikes, skateboarding, even the occasional roller skater. (Which delights me enormously) My youngest is still in high school, so I am still around lots of kids.
Lots of Gen Z with Gen X parents in my town. My kids tend to have friends with Gen X parents... and these Zs are pretty self-reliant. Driver's license, jobs, go outside to play, babysit, mow lawns...there's hope, my friends.
OldDudeOpinion@reddit
By 10yo, I was taking my little brother to school and watching him afterschool until parents got home at 6pm. I agree EVERY 10yo doesn’t have the capacity - but some do. And it’s the parents job to make this call, not the governments.
This was an accident. The 7yo might have darted into traffic regardless of who they were walking with. I would need to see more evidence of neglect - other than Just Age - to hold the parents criminally liable. We don’t know all the details, but this seems like government over-reach.
Few_Policy5764@reddit
In my town a 3rd grader can walk home alone by school rules. Under 3rd grade you can walk home with a sibling 3rd grade or older.
The parents did nothing wrong. The 10 yr old lost his brother and parents and home. Fantastic Justice system.
BossParticular3383@reddit
Often in cases like this, charges are ultimately dropped. There could be some mitigating circumstances that led to the arrest of the parents, but the article doesn't give alot of details. Comparing society and child-rearing today with the good old days doesn't help anything. We can't go back to a simpler time. I don't know if tasking a 10 year old with shepherding a 7 year old on a busy street is right or wrong. Depends on the maturity level of the kids and the busyness of the street...but generally, I don't think it was fair to the 10 year old. Now he's scarred for life.
qedpoe@reddit
Two things can be true at the same time.
Children are pathologically coddled these days AND some parents are negligent with their children.
In this case, not teaching your kid to respect traffic, how to properly cross the road, etc. is a gross failure.
If you have any doubt about your kid's discipline regarding busy roads, you don't let that kid walk along a busy road with no supervision.
Hillman314@reddit
I hope I’m wrong, but seeing how the parents were charged, I bet we can guess their race?
truemore45@reddit (OP)
Mom is white dad is black.
Hillman314@reddit
To racists, that worse than both of being being a minority.
Imaginary-Peak1181@reddit
I'm not sure there's a commentary here about overparenting or whatever. It's not clear why the parents were charged and if no other facts emerge it will almost certainly prove to have been an overzealous prosecutor. Hard not to notice the parents are an interracial couple in North Carolina. This has been reported nationally, will get a lot of attention, and the police department has probably bought themselves a lawsuit.
BeautifulFountain@reddit
I’m surprised that in a subreddit for cynical GenX people I had to scroll this far to see the obvious reason. We should know to look past the surface story we are told by authorities. It’s a police department in the south arresting someone for unclear reasons. It’s racism.
crewsctrl@reddit
"The population was 80,411 in the 2020 census, up from 71,741 in 2010. Gastonia is the 13th-most populous city in North Carolina." (wikipedia)
This is hardly a rural town.
But the outcome of this cruelty is that the parents will lose their jobs, and then custody of the surviving child, and then NC will have three new wards of state. Brilliant! Way to go "law enforcement!"
MuttsandHuskies@reddit
Yeah, let’s triple their grief and trauma right now.
FLBirdie@reddit
We lived near the schools in my town. I was a 4-year-old kindergartener. I walked to school with my older sister (6) and some of the neighborhood children. But I was in half-day kindergarten. So I walked home alone!!!! No one ever blinked an eye. This is clearly unfair.
hesathomes@reddit
This was my experience, too. Half-mile, crossed 2 streets.
Crusoebear@reddit
“Go play in traffic.”
[probably the most often heard phrase in our house from my Dad]
Mysterious_Main_5391@reddit
I'm 50. I grew up a free range kid in the pre internet world. I have a 10 year old right now that I very much want to have the same freedom and self reliance.
However, when I was wandering the streets all day there were far fewer cars and drivers weren't texting and being stoned was something you did at home. There weren't assholes on electric bikes cruising on the sidewalks at 20+ mph. I truly believe that society as a whole was more aware of our surroundings and cared more.
I fight the fear daily. I let him do things I did that aren't the norm today, despite the world around us being more dangerous.
truemore45@reddit (OP)
Excuse me... As a fellow who is also 50 drinking and driving was not illegal till we were around 6 or 7. Plus those old boats from the 1970s needed half a block to stop. We just learned from a young age to keep our heads on a swivel.
I think because I have two kids we are just more aware of how bad people drive. Lord I now know why my dad (retired race car driver) used to scream explicit language at other drivers about how bad they were behind the wheel.
I'm just concerned that my children will live in fear of everything which seems to be more normal. I want my kids to not waste their lives worrying about everything. Life is a bet and sometimes you will lose which can mean death even if you do everything right, but it's better to live than be a shut in worrying 24/7. There has to be a balance. I am just trying to understand why it's swung so far from the freedom of my youth.
DirgoHoopEarrings@reddit
Thanks for reminding me of this.
Mysterious_Main_5391@reddit
Drinks are at least usually watching the road and trying, and typically are out en masse much later than 10 year olds would be wandering around.
phillyphilly19@reddit
I grew up in the 60s with all the usual freedoms, but I dont think I would have been allowed to do this a 7 or even 10. I was allowed to walk or bike around the neighborhood but it was a small suburban subdivision and no 4 lane roads. Adults are distracted by their phones so forget about a 10 year old. I do think this particular case is parental negligence. That said, I'm not sure what the penalty should be.
Correct-Mail-1803@reddit
Um, because the adults in our society value their 2nd amendment over safety of kids. Because the adults in our society flagrantly disregard laws, rules, and regulations. Because you might get mowed over by some incel somewhere
Sufficient_Stop8381@reddit
That does seem to be excessive. This is one reason why parents are so overprotective. They know that one mistake can land them in jail, or at a minimum, a visit from cps. It sucks being a parent now. And highlights how good our parents had it because they could let us run wild while they did their own thing with pretty much no consequences or scrutiny.
Game-changer875@reddit
Involuntary manslaughter? Is it illegal in New York for minors to walk unaccompanied? This is such a bs charge
Fickle-Style-5931@reddit
Refer to this:
“Maybe I'm just old 50 and stupid […]”
You’re making generalizations like you’re in your 70’s and have a media diet that consists of Fox News playing on the television in the background 12 hours per day.
truemore45@reddit (OP)
Hey first thanks for not considering me stupid enough to watch fox news. I almost worked there as a fact creator... The title is as bad as it sounds. I had morals and ethics so I just couldn't do it no matter the money.
I just feel lost sometimes because I have two kids and watching these other parents helicopter and over protect their kids just makes me feel like I don't belong. I am all for safety like wearing helmets is a good thing. But not letting kids walk to places or have some responsibility seems to be too much. I mean my son wanted to walk to his friend's house DOWN the block of a traditional neighborhood about 1000-1500 feet total. My wife and the other mom worked out a plan so they could see him the entire way?!?! I was floored. And they were serious. The dad was a buddy I served with we both thought they were nuts. But they are both millennials (we both married 10+ year younger women) and thought that was the minimum they would do to feel safe?!?!
Fickle-Style-5931@reddit
As someone who didn’t have helicopter parents, was basically a latchkey kid, and spent his youth left to his own devices—it didn’t help me at all. Giving your children agency and making sure they don’t kill themselves are not mutually exclusive (I’m not sure how I graduated from youth in, more or less, one piece).
This was a tragic accident that could’ve happened anytime, and, ultimately, people will look for explanations as to how it could have been averted. I remember forgetting to pick up my little brother from his class when I was 10 and catching hell for it. We used to walk home together and he was also 7.
10 years of age is very young; a child that immature probably shouldn’t be tasked with looking after an even younger sibling. I’m not sure why the parents are jailed. Maybe there’s more to the story? Maybe it’s just an isolated case of judicial overreach?
doghouse2001@reddit
It's my understanding that, here in my city, the official 'babysitting' age is 11. Leaving your kids unsupervised under the age of 11 could be considered child-abandonment. This includes letting them walk alone to and from school. At age 10 I was taking the school bus. by age 11-12 I was walking or driving bike to school on my own. I'm 59 now. When I was 5 years old we lived out in the country. I remember driving bicycle a mile on country roads to find my dad out on the field because mom was having pregnancy issues. I'm amazed that I knew what to do, and that they let me out on my own.
tristand666@reddit
Government knows best after all.
Ahjumawi@reddit
I would bet you that the race of one or both of the parents has something to do with it. Wouldn't happen to two white parents, unless they were poor white people.
eggs_erroneous@reddit
My brother and I walked alone to elementary school at the exact same ages as these boys. This was in the early 80s. And that kind of thing was totally normal back then. And, if I recall correctly, the late 70s/early 80s was the heyday for child snatchers and serial killers. (Adam Walsh, Johnny Gosch, etc)
moreidlethanwild@reddit
This is a tragic accident. Nothing more.
Kids sadly die all the time, from illnesses, from accidents, from birth. We now live in an age where the death of a child is unacceptable. When my grandparents were young, it was common to lose a child. It was still devastating but somewhat normalised.
I feel for all involved. Sadly sometimes this stuff happens. It could have happened to a teenager, an adult, an elderly person.
WinterMedical@reddit
We have created a world that caters to their physical safety while entirely neglecting their psycho social development.
DireStraits16@reddit
The 10yo is definitely old enough to walk home from school.
Some 7yos would be okay too. It depends on the kid and this one clearly wasn't. The parents should have known if their kid was likely to disobey his brother and dash into traffic.
Putting a 10yo in charge is awful. Now he has to live with feeling that this was his fault for the rest of his life.
Jailing the parents won't help at all. That's ridiculous but they weren't parenting very well at that point.
Cars are bigger and faster than they used to be. I was allowed to roam free and have vivid memories of the time some pervert tried to get me into his car. I also got flashed at once.
It's a dangerous world out there. Parent your kids
Mercuryshottoo@reddit
Was the driver speeding? On her phone? How is her vision at 76?
LiluLay@reddit
I live in NC and I can tell you nothing about any of the cities or towns (with few exceptions) are considered pedestrian friendly, walkable, or bikable. Almost all municipalities here focus on infrastructure devoted to cars/trucks without consideration for anyone not using those modes of transport. This is a huge part of the equation in this situation. We do not make walking safe in this state. Granted, this child was obviously not making good choices or being careful, the older sibling was engrossed in their phone, perfect storm of bullshit that led to this kid dying needlessly. But charging the parents feels very inappropriate here.
mlokc@reddit
Well, I guess I'll be the one to say it: Racism.
The child is Black, so I'm guessing his parents are too. Would white parents be held to this standard? In North Carolina? (I lived in NC for 4 years). Black parents are often presumed to be neglectful, especially by law enforcement. White parents don't suffer the same presumption.
The Father was on the phone with the kids while they were walking, trying to make sure they were safe as they walked to him. Charging them with neglect is ridiculous and compounds the trauma the parents and brother are going through. No societal interest is served by this prosecution.
Haunt_Fox@reddit
The only thing they might have been neglectful of is not teaching their kids to cross only at controlled crossings, and even then, you can't predict what a kid will do.
My mom crushed a cricket and told me I'd look like that if I ran into the road ...
profmoxie@reddit
I literally said that I don’t know the specifics (although the article someone linked to says the vehicle was a jeep) and just shared general info about why pedestrian deaths have increased. Ffs.
Kcatlady@reddit
I was walking to and from school (about 5 blocks and across a busy street) by myself at the age of 7. I do not understand why the parents are being charged, as if they haven't suffered enough.
originaljud@reddit
Yeah, my family insists on hitting the button on the crosswalk and walking out in the traffic without looking to see if there are any cars coming first. I do not subscribe to this. I like to look both ways across the street when I feel safe.
johnnyg08@reddit
We've softened kids into thinking there's no possible way that they can do anything themselves.
Yes, the kids haven't changed society has.
mrredbailey1@reddit
It’s amazing how capable kids are when they’re… taught! (Instead of coddled)
Overall-Barber-3298@reddit
It is clear that this child did not have the skills to cross the street and died as a result. He stepped in front of a car that was traveling the expected speed for the road.
We don't know why this child did not have these skills. We don't know if the parents were or should have known this child did not have these skills.
A child died, that is tragic.
Please don't turn this into anything else without further information.
CazzoNoise@reddit
Weak ass country we live in.
Familiar-League-8418@reddit
We all walked to and from the bus stop in elementary school, along a busy highway, no adult supervision. I never liked it but my mom would never get up and walk with me or pick me up after school. Ted Buddy was from the area and I never felt comfortable walking alone after his reign of terror, sometimes other kids were around and sometimes I was alone. I never let my son walk alone while he was growing up as a result of my own experience.
schwarzekatze999@reddit
Um I'm just gonna say the quiet part out loud here and point out that racism and/or classism are playing a huge part in why these parents are getting charged. Sorry not sorry.
Regarding whether the kids should have been allowed to do this....it depends. I'd really have to see the size of the road and understand why they were going there. 2 blocks, in a vacuum, isn't too far for kids this age to walk, but I've lived in towns with main streets that were 4 or more lanes and people were speeding and coming and going. Yeah some people lived right there and crossing that street to the grocery store would have only been 2 blocks. I wouldn't let my kids cross that. I wouldn't cross it myself, as an adult. I didn't cross it as a kid/teen in the 80's and 90's either.
And actually it doesn't matter why they were going there, if it was for fun or out of necessity. If the road was unsafe they shouldn't have gone for any reason.
So yeah, those parents might have been neglectful IMO. And some of our parents might have been neglectful back in the day too, even if we turned out OK. But shit, their child died. That's punishment enough. I don't think they need to be prosecuted this heavily on top of it.
currentsitguy@reddit
That's ridiculous. When I was growing up there were a few towns around with their own school districts that had no bus service since the entire district was less than a mile and a half distance and the kids were expected to walk. These were working class towns with people doing shift work so there was no one at home to drop them off and pick them up. It was just considered normal, not abuse.
Nofanta@reddit
This is absurd. Hope the parents prevail.
DoomOfChaos@reddit
Unless there is significantly more to the story, charging the parents is stupid
KtinaDoc@reddit
We all walked to school at that age. This is the second time I'm hearing about parents being charged because their kids were walking somewhere in NC.
bird-in-bush@reddit
must have happened while all of us genxers were busy not giving a shit about anything. but seriously, i have noticed that no one can do anything without fear of being sued.
airckarc@reddit
People want to assign blame when something horrible happens, and you can’t blame a seven year old while still feeling superior. My friend David was killed by a logging truck as he pushed his dirt bike across the road. I wanted to blame the truck driver but I knew David had screwed up, and I was 12.
On the flip side, I don’t know the details. OP, you were either lucky or your parents determined you were mature enough to do all those things; probably both. I’d trust my cautious younger kid more than my impulsive older (at the same ages) to be safe. So if the 7yo had a history of impulsive behaviors, the parents might have extra responsibility.
ONROSREPUS@reddit
They should charge the 10 year old for neglect as well................ /s
Sue and lawyer happy country we live in.
Imaginary-Peak1181@reddit
Can you link an article about the event?
truemore45@reddit (OP)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/parents-are-charged-son-7-struck-dead-car-accident-rcna210918