29th August 2008

Abandonment ?

posted in Frenzied Daddy |

This guy has been arrested for telling his kid ( his eleven year old kid, the same age as the DQ ) to walk home and leaving him at the neighborhood McDonalds (the distance was “a few blocks” ).

Apparently they argued about something, he told his son to walk home, and drove home. Then he cooled off and went back and got him. They apologized to each other and he was “spoken sternly to” by a police officer. Now he’s arrested for child abandonment with intent to return and endangerment !

You can read that article for more details.

I’m pretty sure my dad had me walk home at least once, from a family friend’s house. It wasn’t far, and I’d walked it before, but he circled around and picked me up later. Probably the same situation; frustrated, he did what we-as-parents try to do these days and removed himself from the situation, didn’t beat the kid, tried to “make the punishment fit the crime.” I didn’t take it personally, as I recall, I just took my lumps, as it were, and walked home. He caught up to me a few blocks later.

I don’t know what this guy should have done, other than not leaving the kid at the McDonalds. What do you think?

There are currently 3 responses to “Abandonment ?”

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  1. 1 On August 31st, 2008, Whit said:

    What’s the difference between walking home from there or school or the mall? Was the guy right? I don’t know, but he came back. Seems like tough love, not crime.

  2. 2 On September 1st, 2008, Steven said:

    One man’s tough love is another man’s opportunity to puff up his worldly views by making it a crime for parents to try to be parents to their own children. And they wonder why parents around the world keep getting mixed messages about doing their parental jobs. It’s hard damn work to be a parent, and though not every choice is right, not every wrong choice should end up with a “one strike and you’re out” ruling.

  3. 3 On September 2nd, 2008, Stacy said:

    “Since when is having an 11-year-old kid walk a few blocks home a crime?”

    I pretty much agree with this. The circumstances seem reasonably safe: a low-crime suburban parking lot in summer, with home a few blocks away. To say that they constituted “grave danger” seems ridiculously paranoid. I would assert that we are raising the single most sheltered generation in the history of human culture. It’s a far more dangerous experiment, I think, than letting an 11 year old kid walk a few blocks.

    The father came back. He made an unwise choice and acted to rectify it. I’m sure that it’s not a mistake he would repeat.

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