Oh, my god

[pegkerr]

minnehaha B, you have given me a hard time about not letting the girls off the block.

This happened at the park quite close to my house. And we've always considered it a pretty good neighborhood, too.

Now do you understand why parents get scared?

Shit. That poor kid. He's Delia's age. Those poor parents.

I am really distressed over this.

EDITED TO ADD: kiramartin JUST CALLED TO REPORT THE KID HAS BEEN FOUND. HE WAS AN OVERNIGHT RUNAWAY, WHO HAS RETURNED TO HIS HOME.

(Personally, if I were his mom, I'd probably be tempted to just about kill him.)

Comments

[faeryguinevere.livejournal.com]

That's terrible!

We must live close - I live 1/2 block from that park. It makes me think I need to be more careful in the neighborhood. I have always felt very safe here, but now I feel less sure about that.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

Remember that by the very nature of this being news, it is a rare occurance. Not that you should be less careful, but that a single incident has very little impact on the overall safety of the neighborhood.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

That's damned little comfort right now.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

I'm sure. This is, I think, one of the reasons I wouldn't make a good parent. Weird uncle I do pretty well at, but my lack of emotional response to this sort of thing makes me think it best I not be in charge of raising children directly. As I said, below, though, I think your parenting has given your girls the skills necessary to avoid a similar situation. Here's hoping they never have need to use them.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I don't have an emotional response to it either, and I think I've been a good parent to our four kids.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

I would have to agree. You're another person I know that's a good parent. So maybe there's nothing to my theory that I'd be a mediocre, at best, parent. Still, I think that having that suspicion is at least one good reason to avoid becoming one for at least the time being.

[channe.livejournal.com]

A local paper published an article yesterday about American childhood no longer being what it was; that kids are inside, etc. And it's true: you just can't send them down the block to play at the park and "be home for supper." Not anymore.

Scary. I hope they find him!!!! The parents must be FRANTIC.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Not exactly. Abductions happened when we were kids, they just weren't constantly hyped by the news. Stranger abductions haven't risen much, statistically, and most kidnappings and molestation are committed by family members or close trusted family friends.

I think Peg is a great parent, but I think most parents today have been inundated with so many danger messages that they are reacting naturally. But we're still telling kids about stranger danger without explaining what that means, or that people they trust can't be trusted. How can you tell them that? At some point you have to teach them what to do if it happens, and then trust them to handle themselves.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

For the most part, we told our kids what actions of other people were not to be trusted (for example, someone trying to get them to go somewhere not directly OK'd by J or me), rather than trying to define characteristics of the person (for example, "stranger"). This had the benefit of leading naturally to "let us know where you're going, with whom, by what transportation" as they got older--the standards didn't change, they just switched gradually from "Mom and Dad are completely in charge of you" to "you are completely in charge of yourself."

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I don't know how old you are, or where you're from. A lot of very different things happened "when we were kids," because "we" are not a single homogenous group. An adult of 35 can talk to adults of 25 or 45 as equals, and might not even notice the age difference...but some cultural attitudes shifted a lot between 1970 and 1990. There are also differences in perception based on class and race and whether the menace was urban, rural, or suburban. I was a kid in southeast Michigan during the Oakland County Child Killer panic. That was the late 1970s. As far as I could tell, there was constant hype, constant anxiety, extreme restrictions and distress (though it may have been relatively local.) It's really hard to be sensibly cautious without panicking, and I don't think it was all that common "when we were kids."

[jbru.livejournal.com]

In the grand scheme of things, this single incident doesn't make your neighborhood less good. I wouldn't dream of critiquing your parenting decisions; I think you're a damn good mom. I think that you have, as part of that, given your girls the means to avoid a problem like this. Their karate lessons, for example, are going to give them a level of confidence, physical ability and, most of all, practice at yelling really loud that would help them avoid being snatched. If, however, you think it safer to keep them closer to home, that's your decision.

I hope things for the boy work out well and quickly.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I have a hunch I'm going to be having a long talk with sensei (and probably a good bawl in his office) tonight.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

Oh Peg, that's awful. I can't imagine the fear and worry -- and the sense of violation, too, that something like that has happened in your home space.

I pray it turns out that this boy just ran away for a few days, and the van is totally unrelated.

His poor parents.

[amandageist.livejournal.com]

I distinctly remember walking down a street near my house and having a car pull up and a man ask me if I wanted a ride. I told him "no" and he drove away. The side of the road I was on put me on the passenger side of the car; I've wondered, if I'd been on the driver side, if he'd have grabbed me.

I've no idea as to my age. About 8 or 9. Had no idea why to say no except Mom said to.

~AlmostAStatistic!Amanda

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

We occasionally get reports around here of a kid walking to school being accosted by someone in a car, but the last time I remember this hitting the news (a year or two ago) the little girl started running immediately and found someone to help her; the car drove off but there was a significant effort made by the police to find the driver, so I think that at the very least scared the would-be abductor into perhaps rethinking his plans.

I have seen some kids wandering around our neighborhood by themselves since they were able to WALK, but I wouldn't let our kids go anywhere off the block without me until they were about nine, and then they had to be with more than one other person, with a means of communication. For instance, Rachel started going on walks around the neighborhood last year with two of her friends; they took a cell phone for which I and the other moms had the number and they still had a maximum distance they could go (east, west, north and south boundaries). And they had a return-by time. This had the advantage of allowing the three of them a feeling of relative freedom to go browsing at the bookstore, buying sparkle pens at the drugstore or hanging out together at the playground but they were in a group, not alone, and we moms could call them anytime to check up on them and find out how far away they were.

:: sigh :: Times sure have changed. I spent my childhood playing in the woods with my best friend and no one had a clue where we were most of the time; we showed up for our baths and dinners at the end of a summer's day and otherwise we were left to our own devices. We didn't live in front of the television or computer, either, but made up elaborate stories that we acted out for hours on end, built forts out of tree branches and shrubbery, etc. Our kids won't really know that sort of life.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

The group dynamic is one that I really reinforce- I can't prevent every bad thing from happening, but if there is someone else there to react there is a better chance of things turning out for the better. This goes for more than abductions, but falling, choking, etc.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

If you think that if you just do everything right, you can protect your children, you'll drive yourself crazy trying. Jacob Wetterling disappeared from a quiet country road.

Bad things have always happened to children, in every place. Today we can protect our children against the things that killed most children in the past: diseases such as measles, smallpox, and polio, and bacterial infections, and even "simple" diarrhea. (Of course, some of these still kill children in other parts of the world.) Our children who are born with serious medical conditions that would have ended their lives within days, weeks, or months can live full lives. Our children who are born with disabilities that would have kept them from doing anything, from being anything, can live full lives. Our current graveyards are not full, as were those of previous times, of parents' headstones surrounded by those of children who died young.

Don't let the pervasive media, which bring every individual disaster into all our homes, blind you to how much safer--yes, even in the inner city--our children are than most children have been throughout history.

[em-h.livejournal.com]

Don't let the pervasive media, which bring every individual disaster into all our homes, blind you to how much safer--yes, even in the inner city--our children are than most children have been throughout history.

This is of course true and right, but I think I share with Peg a kind of inchoate sense that relative safety is not enough, and a wish to be able to offer the impossibility of absolute safety. Doesn't make us better parents than those who don't feel that way, but not worse either. It's partly irrational, and it has to be tempered by realism and the knowledge that children need to grow into independent adults, but it's a powerful feeling.

Of course my reactions are all different from most other people's because my child has a developmental delay and cannot be streetproofed or otherwise taught to ensure her own safety; for now and for probably a long time in the future, the only thing that can keep her safe is being always within sight of a parent, or an adult in loco parentis. Oddly, there's an element of relief in this -- I don't have to make the same wrenching decisions as Peg does about balancing independence and safety, and probably won't for quite a few years, though I hope to have to go through it eventually. But I think the general feeling is one that is shared by others.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I think I share with Peg a kind of inchoate sense that relative safety is not enough, and a wish to be able to offer the impossibility of absolute safety.

Sure, we all wish we could give our children absolute safety. (You don't know me, but I have kids 22, 21, 18, and 14.) But IMHO, peace of mind for ourselves, at no loss to, and perhaps with benefit to, our children, comes from accepting that it is impossible. Using our limited physical and psychic energy and our limited time in trying to give our children absolute safety--or in worrying because we can't--simply wastes it.

Of course, children (and adults) with special needs require different approaches. My 18-year-old with some mobility impairment needs some physical help that would be inappropriately "babying" in someone without that impairment. And our 21-year-old still lives with us, as her older brother did until just this past school year; at that stage of life, some parents are urging their kids out of the nest, but we aren't.

But I'm not really talking about making kids independent--I think at times our culture gets carried away with "independence" as a value. I'm talking about not spending our energy and time worrying about not being able to do the impossible, about appreciating the extent to which our children are safer than almost any others in history, about letting our children develop as the individuals they are, on their own schedules. I'm talking about not spending so much time and energy on wishing we could do what we can't and on tormenting ourselves because we can't.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Gah. This is scary. I hope the kid turns up, safe and sound.

If it helps at all to hear it, I'm actually very grateful for the fact that my mother pretty much didn't let me out of her sight while I was playing outside until I was a teenager. I wasn't allowed to play in the neighbors' yards unless I was invited and I asked her specifically so she knew where I was. I wasn't allowed to ride my bike more than four houses away (we were at the back end of a development), or, actually, in the street, until I was 11 or so (and the first time I got permission to ride around the block, I went splat and my mother said, "I knew it!" a few dozen times en route to the hospital... sigh). I distinctly remember getting The Talk about strangers, cars, and keeping my clothes on when I was 3 or 4, reinforced periodically over the next several years. Mom walked me to the bus stop every day until I chafed too much, but she stood at the end of the driveway and watched me (four houses away) until the bus picked us up. (Heck, when I was a teenager walking to junior high a block away, Mom walked me over every morning and picked me up after school every afternoon.)

Anyway, my point is, I guess, that this protection meant that I never, ever faced some of the stranger-based ugliness that some of my peers did.

I'm not saying it was entirely reasonable, and certainly other aspects of the maternal protection field left me emotionally unprepared in many ways to deal with adulthood, but this physical awareness of the issues strikes me as amazingly forward-thinking for someone becoming a mother in 1968.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Yikes! How awful.

Have you read Protecting The Gift by Gavin DeBecker? I liked it. It was comforting and made me feel that I had some control ove rteh safety of my kids.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

That's so scary. But it doesn't make your neighborhood any less safe, you know. I think most parents wouldn't let their kid play alone in a park at night, but then, we don't have all the facts of the case. So it's hard to speculate. But your daughters seem to do most things together, so there's safety there. When I was growing up, on every block there was a house that had a picture in the window of handprints or some such. That meant that you could go to that house if you were ever in danger or in need of anything. So the neighbors all watched out for each others' kids (a blessing in some ways and not in others: if you were caught doing something you shouldn't you better believe they told your parents about it). We don't know if the kid ran away, or got into a car, or anything like that. The best we can do is educate our kids and teach them about bad strangers and good strangers. I was told that if I got lost I could go to a police officer, a grandmotherly type, anyone with a name tag on, or a pregnant woman/woman with children for help. The odds were very low than any of these people would harm me. It's one thing to tell your kid "Don't talk to strangers" but sometimes they have to, so you better give them some options.

Keep us updated, okay?

[jbru.livejournal.com]

Today, we have "McGruff Houses." Mine is one.

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I bet his mum is refraining from killing him pretty hard!

Peg, for what it's worth, I think that a lot of what one's kids can and can't do depends on the kids themselves, not just chronological age. Factor in the block, neighbors, a lot of factors that are out of your control and you have to gauge all that carefully. As the parent, that's your job. If you have allowed a child to do something and then determine that no, it really is unsafe or not okay, you get to pull that back and change your mind about it. You do your best and sometimes you don't do it perfectly, but nobody can be perfect.

I allow my kids to do some things and I don't allow them to do others and I have allowed my oldest to do things that I now thing she lacks the awareness to do safely and have had to yank her back. She hates me for it, but it's my job to keep her safe. I'm not her best friend. I'm her mom. I have to gauge when to let go and when to keep her sheltered and that's not easy. Just like she has to grow up, that's not easy.

Stick to your guns but always be willing to question yourself and listen. The things you must listen to the hardest are that voice inside your heart and your children. You will know, most of the time, what to do.

[serenya-loreden.livejournal.com]

There are some good points here. I recall as a teenager in South Florida being permitted (with a friend) to take the county bus to the mall two cities away. And then Adam Walsh was kidnapped, and I was no longer permitted to do so. Our views on safety changed, and our lives changed with it.

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

Its' not just external risk factors. Sometimes, as a parent, you mis-judge your child's decision making skills or zir ability to handle the world. Not every kid is able to deal with every situation. Also? I think that a lot of kids present as much more savvy and aware then they really are. The modern world makes this easy, as what kids are exposed to shifts and we lose control over what they are taking in. In the end, they are just kids and I think parents are better off erring on the side of caution rather than finding out through a tragedy that they gave too much freedom.

So many things to balance. Truly being a parent is just one of the most difficult jobs out there.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

(Personally, if I were his mom, I'd probably be tempted to just about kill him.)

I know you don't mean that seriously, but--

From the sources I can find in a quick check, in the U.S. about 100-200 children are abducted by strangers each year (not all of them are killed or even physically harmed); about 2,000 children are killed by their parents each year. Statistically, parents are a far greater danger to children than strangers are.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know all this. I am informed about the relative risks of child abductions, believe me.

I should explain that the initial information I got was erroneous, but it explains why I found the information so upsetting, but based on what I was told, I don't think was an overreaction. I was told that an Amber Alert had been issued, which I know are only issued when there is reason to believe that the case is a real abduction which poses danger to the child. In fact, my informant was incorrect. An Amber Alert had NOT been issued, and the police knew (whereas I didn't) that the child had his bike with him, which is much more suggestive of a runaway situation, which in fact is what it turned out to be.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

It wasn't that I thought you didn't know the statistics, it was that the (seemingly) casual "I'd probably be tempted to just about kill him" combined with your fear of stranger abduction felt jarring to me, given that parental violence (not from you! but as a phenomenon) is so much greater a danger to kids than stranger abduction is.

I don't know who your informant was, but this story (the supposed abduction, not the real story) was all over the local TV news earlier today. This is a perfect example of what I was saying about the media: years ago, you might never have learned of this incident, even though it took place in your neighborhood. The pervasiveness of media reports makes things like stranger abduction loom so much larger in our lives than the statistics justify. How many other parents went through the unnecessary upset you did over this--even though nothing bad happened? How many parents' determination not to let their kids out of their sight will be strengthened--even though nothing bad happened? How many kids will get yet another message that the world is a dangerous place--even though nothing bad happened?

This makes me think of the movie The Village, which I wrote an LJ entry about awhile ago. I don't want to say why, as it would be a spoiler. But I may write about it in my LJ, with a spoiler warning.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

P.S. So one might give some thought to why the kid ran away . . .

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I haven't looked at the other comments- but the fact that he's pulled this twice with his parents is very disturbing- that kid needs to be grounded until he goes to college. What nine year old thinks he can just spend the night at someone's house without notifying his parents??? A good time to reinforce "Peter and the Wolf."

But thank goodness he is ok!!

[daedala.livejournal.com]

I think this kind of demonstrates the point.