It's Safer To Be a Child Now Than In The Last Several Decades

Child abuse and neglect is an important topic. It's legal in the United States for parents to use corporal punishment, but not to physically abuse children. It's legal for children to do things on their own, but also...not, because there isn't a clear law on this...so where is the line?

We’re changing the world through fear and limitation, rather than knowledge and security.

When it was time for me to find a permanent place to move with my 3 children there was a deciding factor that few people understood. Near the house we chose is a Nature Preserve. These woods will not be disturbed and I want my children to be able to have that space or any space like it near them in their childhood. Maybe then if they need it as an adult they’ll remember the peace they felt in nature, this was an important practice of mine as a child and teenager.

I grew up in the early '90s

Back then kids in my area were outside 90% of the time they were at home, without adult supervision. I learned a lot of things within that environment. As a child, I knew of one kid who went missing. Many people have the belief that things are too dangerous now to allow kids to be out on their own, but things are actually less dangerous (in the U.S.) now than they were when I was growing up.

Children under the age of 14 have had the lowest victimization rates of homicide ever recorded from 2004–2008. In fact, all age groups have decreased drastically since I was born in 1984. Missing children reports have significantly and consistently decreased for the past 12 years since a spike in the late '90s and a slight bump in 2014 after the lowest rate since 1990 and is still lower than the 1990 rate. [per FBI records here and Department of Justice records here]

When I was a kid we didn’t just hang out outside, we walked to the mall, arcades, gas stations, school on our own (though often with large groups) sometimes for a few miles, not because we had to (I grew up in a medium-sized city) without phones or GPS to notify our parents or find our way.

Today’s children are at a nature deficit. They’re not learning to self-regulate, use critical thinking skills, spatial awareness, or even experiencing other kids in varied situations so they can learn discernment in friendships and relationships. They’re also missing out on simple, free exercise, happy hormones, and Vitamin D. When my children go outside even during the summer there are few kids outside and even fewer who play outside or leave their yard when they do.

I live in the South with a family of brown kids in an area that is culturally segregated. I’ve walked the neighborhood with my children extensively, so they have a sense of their surroundings, to meet neighbors, to stay active, and to give them a sense of freedom to explore. We moved to our neighborhood largely because of the recreation center, playground, and nature preserve within walking distance, and the school in the neighborhood.

After determining my kids’ ability to navigate the neighborhood and after assuring myself of our local laws, I encouraged my children to walk to their friends' houses by themselves. I did this as a child as did everyone I knew and I believe wholeheartedly that children need the freedom to navigate on their own. Even the police officer agreed with me when he stepped into my house after answering a call from my daughter’s friend's next-door neighbor.

A few months ago my 8-year-old met a few new friends on our walk back from the nature preserve. The next day she begged to go see if they were home while I was feeling sick and exhausted. I had recently read my state's recently passed laws about parent/child rights and for some strange reason I had the idea to actually create a name tag for my daughter stating that she is a free-range kid, i.e. she is mature enough and permitted to walk the neighborhood on her own.

I was overly cautious this particular day, probably because I’d spent at least an hour down the rabbit hole of horror stories of adult outrage over child autonomy. I made sure she knew how to get to her new friend’s house even though it was just the next street over and told her to go to an old friend’s house or come home if she got confused or if they weren’t home.

This friend's house was further down our street and essentially between our two houses. We were learning about maps at the time and she begged me to make her one. I told her it takes a while to make a map and asked if she really needed one to which she confirmed that she didn’t but really wanted to see me make one (maps are a family thing).

I was exhausted but made her a terrible, very quick, slightly legible map while nursing my youngest to sleep with a dull, colored pencil and nothing to press down on. It was for fun and was a half-assed example of the basic process, not meant to be truly used. I told her as much and I knew she just wanted one for the sake of it.

She set off and I didn’t worry a bit. She’d been to her other friend's house many times and walked much further to the preserve with my older daughter tons of times. She was confident too.

I got up shortly after she left, ate something, drank something, and proceeded to catch up on dishes. Maybe 20 minutes passed when I got a knock at the door. A thunderous knock. I hurried to the door although I usually wouldn’t answer.

I opened to two police officers dangling my daughter’s name badge in my face. I looked outside to see where she was. I thought “how could she have somehow actually gotten lost?” They asked if I recognized it and if I knew where she was. My heart was beating out of my chest as I struggled to answer.

The officer let me know she was okay. She was with another officer but that she’d gotten lost and was wandering around the neighborhood when a “good Samaritan” called the police. He asked if she walked to her friend's house often and showed me the map. I was embarrassed.

My daughter walked to her friend's house without my fake map and I never even expected her to use it. I was confused. How could this happen? I put clothes on my son and the police escorted us in their van to pick up my daughter. It took one minute, if that.

She was two doors down from her friend's house. They introduced me to the woman who called the police and I thanked her profusely “thank ya missus, why I don’t know what I could evvvvvaaa do to make up fo ya help.” If I was in a movie I’d be a runaway slave thanking my mistress for bringing me back home. "I’m soooo sorry fo yo trubbles ma’am.”

I didn’t really talk like that but that’s how I felt. It was a truly, heavy weight of guilt but also the weight of being a black mom in the south with four white people surrounding me and my brown kids on a day where I certainly looked like shit. It was like a bad trip. I hid my pain and exhaustion and tried to show that I was one of the good ones. I was articulate and gracious. I am day-to-day but I was overly gracious and very aware of how my education was going to help me in this situation.

I squeezed my poor kid tight and told her it was okay. I told her she did nothing wrong and I wasn’t upset with her. She was traumatized and holding back tears. We sat with the officers a while longer while the nice white family went to take their indoor and organized outdoors only child to soccer practice.

As the officers questioned my daughter again with me present I interjected that it was okay to get lost and she could have just came home. The officer informed me that child protective services would contact me soon but that he understood that the way we grew up this kind of childhood was common but there are child predators everywhere nowadays. I disagreed with him internally but kept quiet as they escorted us back to our home in the back of their van, let us off with a warning to be more cautious blacks and I “thankya massa’d” them too.

When we were alone my daughter eventually unloaded tears, a quivering chin, and the whole story. In fact, she told the woman she wasn’t lost and knew exactly where she was. She was confused about the house of the girls from the day before and was just looking at the houses and thinking of whether she wanted to play with her other friend or come home.

The woman questioned her and told her to wait because some friends were going to come help. The woman argued with her husband about what to do and he called the police. When they arrived my daughter was pissed. The police were not her friends! It still bothers her today that the woman lied to her and didn’t just let her go home.

CPS sent their sister organization to my house a day or two later. They asked to come into my house and see my daughter. I refused. I talked rationally and calmly to the worker and told her the police already came into my house when they dropped us off.

They checked to see that there were beds, food, and a decent albeit messy house for the kids to live in and that our power and water worked. I was not going to traumatize my child further or waste my time since I am very busy with the work of actually raising my children. I told her I appreciate that it is her job and she said that they were there to offer resources to families who needed them. Since I didn’t need their resources I declined.

During the following weeks, I barely let my children outside at all. I became one of those moms. There were neighbors who told my children they shouldn’t be outside when it was raining, or they were in our own front yard. What bothers me is the lack of thoroughness.

If people are really concerned about children, they should either come to talk to the parents or have a full conversation with them and listen to what they say. Do they look like they’re suffering from exposure to the outdoors? Do they talk like they’re suffering? Are they happy and playing outside? Has rain become so toxic that it will poison them if they get wet?

If so, I must have missed the memo because when I was a child none of these things were problems. My international friends don’t seem to have these problems. When I worked at a Montessori school there was no such thing as bad weather (it was perfectly fine, dangerous, or underprepared people).

Are my neighbors and other American parents agoraphobic or afraid of children learning by experience? Are they afraid of children being self-sufficient or is this a game of mom guilt? Am I supposed to feel like a bad parent because I allow my children to play outside?

I no longer keep my kids inside. They play outside as much as they did before. They run, walk and bike throughout the neighborhood and usually they don’t see other kids. What they know now is to come home if adults are harassing them about being adult-free in the neighborhood. But I wonder where is the justice?

Why did this woman suffer nothing for calling the police on a perfectly capable child who didn’t need her help? I hesitate to make this about race, but maybe it is. I have seen other children (though usually white boys) in the neighborhood adult-free prior to my daughter’s experience. I’ve thought many times about sending a letter and letting this mom know the unnecessary damage she has done and asking her why she felt the need to call the police, but this is about more than just this woman.

This is about fear, intolerance, and jumping to conclusions. This is about a lack of problem-solving and addiction to othering. After this, it sometimes feels like I can’t help but look at this family as a different type of family from mine. To look at them as unfavorable, inappropriate.

Except I can help it and I will. Because as a culture we will have to stop punishing people for being different. We will have to stop desensitizing ourselves to others' struggles and overstimulating ourselves with salacious headlines and crime stories that are few and far between but are over-reported to play on our emotions. And we'll need to stop demonizing modern times and putting the past on a pedestal.