I Am About To Rant. You Have Been Warned.

So I posted links to this Free Range Kids Blog Post about a 9 year left in a car to wait for mom and dad with her 6 year old sleeping sibling. Someone walking by called the police and CPS and Dad got arrested for child neglect.

I posted this in several places, deliberately.  The question I asked? Not, is it okay to leave a 9 year old and a 6 year old alone in a car in a busy car park.  Because the answer to that question is that it depends on the 9 and 6 year old.  No, I asked should it be a police matter if parents believe their 9 year old is able to watch their 6 year old sleeping sibling in a car.

Have now been told, over and over, that I am crazy to think that any 9 year old is mature enough to watch their sleeping sibling.  That I could not possibly know what a 9 year old is like, since Adam is only 11.5 weeks.  Oh and that for sure the dad should have been arrested for neglect.

Excuse me?

So what these people are telling me is that I am not allowed to make decisions based on my knowledge of my own child?  Obviously I do not yet know what Adam will be like as a 9 year old.  This does not mean that I do not think about the future and how I would react depending on how he is at that age.  This does not mean that I do not already know that I (and his father, obviously) plan to raise him as ‘free range’ as possible, depending on how he is and the situation.

But, apparently, there are people in the world who will assume he is abandoned, neglected, what have you because they see him in a situation that they think is dangerous. Without making sure it actually is.

And the scenarios they’ve come up with as to why its dangerous?  Well, at least it wasn’t kidnapping fears.  It was, the 9 year old might get bored and play with the car controls.  Or the 6 year old might wake up and ignore what the 9 year old says.

Gee, I don’t know.  I think if I thought my 9 year old was capable of staying in the car with the 6 year old, I would be pretty sure that the 9 year old wouldn’t play with the car controls and I would be pretty damn sure that the 6 year old would listen to the 9 year old.

I was also told that that was ridiculous.  That no 6 year old would ever listen to a 9 year old.

My mind boggles.

I don’t care how you raise your kids.  Get off my back about how I raise mine.

BTW, these are the same people who are amazed when they read stories about university students who can’t interact with professors without parental intervention.  And recent graduates whose parents call to check up on job interviews.

I guess they don’t realize that this is exactly the kind of kid they just might be raising.