Mother arrested after 10yo son takes a walk on his own

[Strato]

Thought this news item worthy of comment here on Mu. The story highlights a state dictating that a family is legally required to surveille their children at all times, and that the parent can be arrested, fined and imprisoned if the authorities discover their child away from home alone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6-BGQVycVA

The location was Mineral Bluff in Georgia with a population of 370. The boy walked about a mile from his home to the small settlement whilst his mother took her eldest son to see a doctor. The mother was charged with ‘reckless conduct’ and ‘knowingly did endanger the bodily safety of her juvenile son’. She could face a year in prison if found guilty. Prosecutors are asking the mother to sign a child safety plan before considering dropping charges. The plan specifies that they witness the family downloading a GPS location app onto the boy’s mobile, and that thereafter, the mother needs to know her son’s location at all times. The boy took the initiative to take a walk in his mother's absence; she was unaware he had done this.

By usurping parental responsibility in this way, the state causes a number of things to happen. The state increasingly controls its citizens by stealth, by removing fundamental human rights and freedoms. The state is one step away from electronically tagging all children. The state becomes the parent because, according to the state, the parent is not fit for purpose and requires monitoring. The concept of family as the basis for social order, is undermined. The child is prevented from taking risks, and ceases to learn from life experiences, both good and bad. The family is taught stranger danger by the state and told to fear it. A cocooned child is less able to adapt upon entering the real world, and risks being a burden to society as a result.

As a boy from the age of around seven or eight years old onwards during school holidays, I recall being kicked out of the house in the morning after breakfast, and not returning much before supper time. I was out either exploring forests, or cycling miles, or playing non-stop football or cricket with the other local kids. I was given the freedom to learn about the world around me directly, and had no fear of chatting and making friends with the people I met, regardless of age. My childhood community was a rural one like Mineral Bluff, and of similar size, but just needed one policeman who was known to everyone, to police it. How far has civilisation fallen.

[Brain O'Conner]

Yeah man, I'm just speechless. I know that I am really young (21 years of age) but what has this world gotten into? Overprotection is not a good thing at all, just more control that strips away agency and creates attitudes about people who are that young inherently unable to make good decisions and think rationally. The more you cage someone in an environment where they are the stripped away from the knowledge and experiences that will make them grow and mature, well the dumber they are going to stay and make bad decisions, and yet we have these people, even neuroscientist that teens and kids are bad decision makers because of their brains, which I think is bs after studying a little neuroscience and connecting the dots to the real world myself. All of this surveillance and the using of neuroscience to "protect the kids from making poor decisions" is nothing but a means of control at the end of the day.

[FairBlueLove]

Thanks Strato for sharing that.

Unbelievable. I thought our generation was overprotected by our parents, but this pales in comparison.

Why this state of things is not causing a major reaction of concern from honest psychologists/sociologists is a mystery to me.

[argosy]

Best article on how things have gone downhill is this one from 2007 published in the Daily Mail:

How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Four Generations

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.html

[Bookshelf]

Why this state of things is not causing a major reaction of concern from honest psychologists/sociologists is a mystery to me.

It's because scientific disciplines need funding to continue operating. This funding typically relies on a level of tolerance from the general population, otherwise they'll protest it. So any scientist - especially in a social science - that goes against the grain risks destroying their career. It's like how in the past, coincidentally after social stigma towards homosexuality was changing, psychologists just so happened to find brand new evidence that it wasn't a mental illness after spending decades saying it was.

Unfortunately, society is generally accepting of harsh restrictions on minors on the basis of a supposedly valid age hierarchy, so any scientist that pushes against it could very well be shunned from their discipline. Placing trackers on phones etc is already somewhat commonplace for parents, so what difference does it make to people if a parent is occasionally forced to do it by a court?

[argosy]

Remember the Rind study, and how the American Psychological Association (APA) cowered in the face of unanimous condemnation by both Houses of Congress?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rind_et_al._controversy

https://www.mhamic.org/rind/

[FairBlueLove]

Why this state of things is not causing a major reaction of concern from honest psychologists/sociologists is a mystery to me.

It's because scientific disciplines need funding to continue operating. This funding typically relies on a level of tolerance from the general population, otherwise they'll protest it. So any scientist - especially in a social science - that goes against the grain risks destroying their career. It's like how in the past, coincidentally after social stigma towards homosexuality was changing, psychologists just so happened to find brand new evidence that it wasn't a mental illness after spending decades saying it was.

I imagined something along those lines. That's why I used the adjective "honest".

[Fragment]

I read the headline. That was enough.

Children have become too precious a commodity in white culture since we started only having 1.5 of them per family.

We over-invest in their safety and well-being. To their own detriment.

[Strato]

Best article on how things have gone downhill is this one from 2007 published in the Daily Mail:

How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Four Generations

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... tions.html

Interesting that Dr. William Bird from Natural England in the 2007 article highlights the connection between negative long-term mental health impacts and being deprived access to the outdoors. We saw negative mental health impacts arising during the Covid fraud for example ... as governments forced citizens to be locked down, increased incidence of self-harm, violence and suicide occurred.

[Strato]

I read the headline. That was enough.

Children have become too precious a commodity in white culture since we started only having 1.5 of them per family.

We over-invest in their safety and well-being. To their own detriment.

Agreed. The chasm society has created and which for decades has rendered intergenerational contact and communication virtually impossible, does our cause absolutely no favours whatsoever.