Posted on 08/25/2018 10:47:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A woman from Wilmette, Ill., found herself under investigation because her eight-year-old daughter was spotted walking her dog around the block by herself.
According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, the police showed up at Corey Widen’s door after an anonymous caller contacted them to report that the girl had been walking alone. Although no charges were filed, Widen was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services over concerns that the walk meant that her daughter might be being neglected.
“For something like this to happen to me, there’s something really wrong,” Widen said. “The funny thing is . . . I’m a joke with my friends because my kids are around me all the time.”
Widen also told the Chicago Tribune that she can actually see most of her daughter’s route through her windows at home, so it wasn’t like she wasn’t keeping an eye on her.
It might sound ridiculous, but this is far from the first time that something like this has happened. As the Chicago Tribune notes, many other parents have had the police called on them for seemingly innocuous things such as leaving their children in the car for a few minutes on a cool day or allowing them to play in parks alone.
Widen was eventually cleared, as she should have been, but these kinds of investigations should not be happening in the first place. They are, for one thing, very strenuous. According to an article in Reason, a lot had to be done before Widen was able to be cleared. Investigators had to talk to everyone from her children to her other family members to her pediatrician — which is a total waste not only of their time, but also of government resources.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I was mowing our two acre lawn with a riding lawn mower when I was six years old.
I assume your mommy greatly pampered you.
How old does one gave to be to legally walk a dog around the block?
We left in the morning and came back for dinner..
Whatever happened to the concept of discretion ?
Was the kid clean, dressed properly, the dog on a leash with tags.
Law enforcement should have said...nothing here. Move on...
We got to come inside for lunch.
Same for me. Riding my bike on the streets in DC.
We also didn’t grow up with lethal allergies because we never played in the dirt.
“We got to come inside for lunch.”
Sometimes. “*yuck* You smell terrible. Where have been playing??!! OK, outside, everybody outside. I’ll bring your lunch to the patio.”
Safer to go after parents of little girls doing nothing wrong than shooting suspects in Chicago.
I can't remember how many rusty nails we stepped on nor how many times kids had a hammer accidentally dropped on their heads.
I had my own grass cutting business when I was 8, and I used a push mower that I paid for, Pampers Boi.
And were you 8 in 2018?
No, I bet you were not.
I never bought beer for my dad, though. He made sure he never ran out.
No, but it seems your mental age in is 8.
Then by all means let your daughter run about alone among all of our registered and unregistered sex offenders, illegal aliens and gang members. Hope she has a good time
I dunno. Let me play devil’s advocate here.
So a question for FReepers..
Are there more child molesters, kidnappers, human traffickers and just plain weirded out creeps out there today than say the 50’s or 60’s when many of us where kids?
I remember in 1978 when the story of John Gacey came out. He murdered at least 33 teenage boys. We were all shocked and horribly distressed by it. It was straight out of a horror movie!
And then there was that creep Wayne Williams who was molesting and killing kids in Atlanta in the early 80s. Said to have killed 28.
And then we learned about Jeffrey Dahmer, who not only raped and killed teenage boys, but ate them, too!
Anyway, even up to the current day we hear horrid stories about kids being molested and killed. We still have stories about Catholic priests. And most recently, some say there is a huge cult of pedophilia and murder involving members of the Deep State.
So, are all of these new? No. But are there more such incidents, or does the press, especially a 24 hour press, make them seem worse?
I dunno. I do think there are a lot more people who have given up on God, become atheists, and have no moral compunction beyond their own good will.
I never worried too much about any of this until I had kids. My daughter and son are now grown, but the fact that some scum in human skin like Gacey or Williams might be walking around did make me worry sometimes.
The daughter is a pretty little thing, but 8 is still young, and as an aside, the rather eye-catching way, garish way her mother had her dressed set off an immediate second-thought in me.
I was raised in a western suburb of Chicago in the forties and fifties, and in those days you could go anywhere safely alone as a child, ranging, playing, biking here-and-there in all your free time....however, even then, as a young girl I experienced a man sitting on our local park bench exposing himself to me as I walked by.... plus a man sitting on the back wide seat on the local bus line exposed himself to me as I sat kiddie-corner to him on a sideways seat....and this was decades and decades ago.
Times have changed, but human nature remains the same.....and if one is raising young daughters one has to worry about much more than just "flashers" THESE days......( and also worry about young sons, too ! )
There's countless other ways to keep your small ones from becoming "snowflakes". Organized sports or youth/church clubs or organizations is one way....and, paranthetically and sadly, allowing them to spend their youthful free time aimlessly walking, talking and texting on handheld electronic devices is a sure way to raise a "snowflake".
Leni/MinuteGal
Well, ma’am, I can only assume that you must have the mentality of an 8 year old, or you must have been pampered by your mommy, at least according to these to frickin’ super geniuses here, who would apparently let their 8 year old daughters play in traffic or something.
Right, boys?
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