It’s now legal for your kids to walk to school.
Yep, it’s right there on page 857 of the gazillion-page Every Student Succeeds Act. Sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — a fan of the Free-Range Kids movement I started — it states that the law will not “prohibit a child from traveling to and from school on foot or by car, bus, or bike when . . . the parents have given permission.”
Furthermore, the parents themselves shall not be exposed to “civil or criminal charges.”
It’s not the Declaration of Independence, but it is legally sticking up for the rights of parents to, well, parent.
Why the heck do we need a law like that?
Because across the country, parents are getting harassed and even arrested when they let their kids leave the house without a security detail.
Many of you will remember the story of Danielle and Alexander Meitiv, the Silver Spring, Md., couple investigated not once but twice for letting their kids, aged 10 and 6 at the time, walk home from the playground.
But they’re not alone.
Over the summer, Nicole Jensen of Westbrook, Maine, allowed her 7-year-old daughter to play at the park within sight of the family’s house. Someone spotted the solo child and called 911. The police hurried over, picked the girl up and drove her to the precinct because, as the local WMTW-TV reporter covering this story tsk-tsked, “Mom wasn’t watching.”
Somehow, without an iPhone, bag of Goldfish crackers or adult cheering “Good job!” over and over, the girl managed to amuse herself for an hour. But the town’s police chief, Janine Roberts, told the TV reporter: “That’s a long time for a 7-year-old girl to be by herself any place, let alone a park.”
The mom was charged with child endangerment.
How often is this kind of thing happening? David Pimentel, a law professor at the University of Idaho with expertise in parental liability, says, “While there are no good statistics on how often parents are getting caught up in the legal system for what are essentially Free-Range parenting practices . . . they are definitely on the increase in recent years.”
He estimates that parents today are three times more likely to be targeted than even three years ago.
Me, I get letters from distraught parents a couple times a month. The latest letter came from Maria Hasankolli, a mom in Wallingford, Conn.
On Nov. 18, Hasankolli stayed by her aunt’s side at Yale-New Haven Hospital while the aunt passed away. She didn’t get home till 6 a.m., whereupon she climbed into bed and did the unthinkable.
She overslept on a school day.
Her 8-year-old son Lucan got himself dressed, missed the bus, and decided to walk to school by himself. It’s two miles away. He’d gotten almost halfway there when a local business owner spotted this strange sight, a child actually using his legs (only about 13 percent of American kids walk to school today) and called the cops. They sped over, drove the boy the rest of the way to school and made a U-turn.
At the house, they clapped the mom in handcuffs. Then they brought her to the precinct, took her mug shot and released her on $2,500 bail. The charge? Risk of injury to a minor. One of the cops, Hasankolli recalls, said to her: “It’s despicable that you’re sleeping while your child needs you to get ready for school.”
Her case will be heard on Jan. 6 and carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Ironically, kids walking to school today are actually very safe — safer than their parents were. The crime level is back to what it was in 1963, when gas was 29 cents a gallon. (And it’s not down because we’re helicoptering our children — crime is down against adults, too, and we’re not helicoptering them.)
Free-Range parents are being treated as if they’re guilty of putting their kids in danger, when really they’re only guilty of believing in them. Or oversleeping.
That’s why the amendment stating that parents can let their kids walk to school (barring local laws to the contrary) is so important. As Sen. Lee wrote in an e-mail to me, “America faces great challenges today. Kids walking to school with their parents’ permission is not one of them.”
Amen.
Lenore Skenazy is founder of the book and blog “Free-Range Kids” and a contributor to Reason.com.