Summary
Brittany Patterson, 41, was shocked to face a criminal charge for alleged reckless conduct when her unsupervised 10-year-old son walked less than a mile from their home.
Although authorities offered to drop the charge if she agreed to always supervise her children, Patterson refuses to sign, insisting she did nothing wrong and will fight the charge, which could lead to up to a year in jail.
Her lawyer argues that parents should have discretion over their children’s whereabouts, questioning if constant GPS tracking is now expected. Patterson was released on $500 bail.
A mile is nothing … what the actual fuck? I used to be gone for hours god knows where.
When I grew up, we were “free range kids”.
My family had a healthy idea of limits, closer to the “free range” philosophy, before such a term was required.
Our neighbors across the street, however, were the prototype for helicopter parents.
While my sibling and I gained confidence and navigational skills by biking around our confusing neighborhood before the days of GPS, the neighbor’s kids weren’t allowed to go down the street unsupervised. My siblings and I stood alone on the corner bus stop, but the neighbor’s mom sat in her car and only released her kids when the bus had arrived.
At the time, my parents made fun of theirs for holding such a tight leash. We also pitied the kids because they panicked about being “lost” when my siblings brought them on a walk around the block.
But now I see kids sitting in cars at bus stops as the norm. And of course, stories like the above article go to show that the helicopter style has won (for the time being.) The people who were raised to fear everything outside their front yard are now parents themselves.
My mom has done the sit in car while waiting for the bus to come thing before and its super annoying. Mind you the bus stop was like 60m away from the house. It actually took longer to drive because of the time it took to take the car out of the garage and get in but my mother insisted. For the past three years I have just stopped listening to my parents and just leave the house without saying anything. Its to ask for forgiveness than permission. I have been biking to neigboring cities and they don’t even realize I left. I have also been able to force them to let me bike to school because I have work right after my morning classes and biking is the fastest way to get to work.
I had a bike. I can assure you, I went MILES away. At 10, I was probably riding 1-5 miles to friends houses or to neighborhoods for selling whatever nonsense my scouts program was selling.
Just be home when the street lights come on!
How we have lost perspective. When I was that age I was forced to walk to school, a distance of about 1.5 miles.
Forced, mind you, because if you were considered “too close” to the school you were not eligible to ride the bus. Other than the land directly adjoining the school grounds, the roads I had to use also did not have sidewalks. The number of children killed, maimed, or injured by this during the years I attended that school were, to my knowledge… zero.
I too had to walk to school, but with sidewalks! I do feel if there’s a house, it should have a sidewalk.
Love sidewalks.
My kids not only had sidewalks but after enough complaints we got the city to clear the snow when needed!
The elementary school closest to us is about a mile away. Kids in my neighborhood walk to school.
What the hell is wrong with letting a kid walk a mile away??
Probably somebody got elected on a “protect the children” and did this to prove it. It’s not like it effects the jackass responsible for it. It’s performance child protection and it’s pretty common.
Happened in the woke liberal capital of… * checks notes *
… Georgia?
Small townrural Georgia, no less!I crossed out “small town” because Mineral Bluff is too small to even count as incorporated. Literally all that’s there, in terms of businesses, is a gas station, a Dollar General, and whatever the Hell this is.
This is the size of village where everyone knows everyone. It makes no sense other than a squabble.
They don’t have villages in the US for some reason. Only small towns, towns and cities.
That used to be true in the area. My family has lived there for generations. It has seen a lot of change and now it’s full of tourists and cabin rentals. It used to be very remote and disconnected from Atlanta but a governor from the area built a nice highway to get people to the mountains and it isn’t all locals now. A lot of people retire there and begin demanding changes to laws. You may be right about a squabble though, mountain towns have family fights that go on for decades.
👯♀️
I hope she wins. This is pathetic
Yikes.
In 1997; I was walking about 2 miles to and from school. Unsupervised. I had a house key on my neck and was a latchkey kid in third grade. I obediently walked to and from school directly from home; meeting the crossing guard a half mile from school twice a day; as I had to cross a major 4 lane divided highway.
America: where young people are coddled until they’re 18 then it’s either sell your body, sell your soul, or both multiple times over just to survive.
Or get sold into sexual slavery, and if you get pregnant by your rapist, fuck you, you’re having his baby.
The coddling is a fairly recent thing. People born in the late 90s is who it started with, about the time that 24hr
propagandanews channels became a thing.
I’m confused… shouldn’t this be happening in one of those liberal nanny states where big government is supposed to be all up in your business?
Oh, right… those people need to tell you how to raise YOUR kids, but don’t you dare tell them how to raise theirs…
This really feels insane, even for this day and age. Which makes me think we’re probably not getting the entire story.
If true, it’s downright silly. Back in the 80’s, we were out of the house unsupervised for hours. Parents just about encouraged you take candy from friendly strangers or to hitch a ride in their cool white van with ‘Free Puppies’ written on it. As long as you made it home without broken bones, they didn’t care. Ask anyone from my generation.
80s were the best. Too bad the consequences of the 80s are so horrendous.
I think it’s all on the parent saying they didn’t know where the kid was, the kid saying his parents didn’t know where he was.
I wonder how my parents would have responded when I was little, “in the woods”? “Up the street at one of the neighbors”? Or “I don’t know”?
I mean when I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s on weekends my parents generally had no clue where I was as long as I was home by dinner. and if I wasn’t going to be home by dinner then to call and say so. payphones were everywhere, just call and let them know.
I mean hell I remember one time my friends and I were in some store a good 5 miles away from home and my parents happened to be shopping there at the same time. my mom comes up to me and says “I saw a tshirt you might like, do you want it?” and showed me the shirt and I said sure and that was it “see you later tonight”.
That’s great. We weren’t near civilization so on a bike somewhere in the neighborhood or somewhere back in the woods.
My parents put a huge bell on the side of the house and basically said be home for dinner, make sure you hear the bell.
Stay classy, Georgia
I uaed to walk 4 miles to school and even further back (because i walked with a friend to their house and then to kine on the way home) instead of taking the bus. I would keep my bus money and use it to buy drinks and stuff. This was only 20 years ago. Much has changed.
When I was a kid in ft worth I used to ride my bike across town and all over downtown and nobody batted an eye
Same experience and same metro-area… It was the 90s, but still, I’d be gone on my bike across town for hours. I lived in Grapevine.
My time was early/mid 70s
The initial reports of this made it sound much worse, now it seems so tame this charge borders on ludicrous. I walked about 2 miles to my bus stop as a kid with no side walk and it was ABSOLUTELY unsafe, but we didn’t have a choice as the roads were no outlet and too narrow for a bus to get into my neighborhood. I never saw a kid get hit, but I knew of multiple adults that were hit by a car with a few fatalities. I still think this Georgia story sounds dumb, so either we’re being deprived of details or the police are being ridiculous.
Why is it so hard for you to stand behind your own words? If you can’t do it, then stop replying?
And American police being ridiculous is just so off-character to them that that option seems just impossible, doesn’t it?
I used to have to walk a mile to the friggin school bus stop, shit is ridiculous nowadays.
