Omaha, Nebraska: A woman taking her niece out of the SUV on Tuesday afternoon was shocked when the wind blew the door shut with her keys and the child inside. The car locked. The aunt, the girl’s mom and two other relatives frantically tried to get the door open using a hanger and screwdriver, and […]
How We Have Criminalized Walking
This comes to us from law professor and transportation activist Michael Lewyn, who recently published “The Criminalization of Walking” in the University of Illinois Law Review. It focuses on two ways the government punishes pedestrians: through jaywalking laws and by using child neglect laws to punish parents who let their kids walk. Here’s a […]
Predator with a Popsicle? Our Crazy Fear of The Ice Cream Man
As I wrote in this month’s Reason Magazine: We All Scream for the Ice Cream Man’s Head The idea that ice cream men cruise around looking for victims is simply an urban myth. Paul DiMarco has been selling ice cream in Poughkeepsie, New York, for two decades. He owns a fleet of trucks. When one […]
It Is Really Easy to Let Your Kids Walk, Play and Bike Outside — The SECOND Time
Melissa James is a 38-year-old copywriter in Yorktown, VA, wife of a Department of Defense analyst and mother of two who decided to do something a little…wild: Dear Free-Range Kids: I enjoy your website and had declared myself a Free-Range Parent about a year before discovering you. (I had adopted the term after reading the […]
“Children of Any Age Should Not Go Into Public Restrooms Alone”
These tips from HealthyChildren.org for when a child can go to a public restroom are not just hilarious and ridiculous, they are also insane, starting with this one: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children feels that children of any age should not be permitted to use public restrooms alone. Any age? Why? Simply […]
The Luke Heimlich Case: Should We Brand Juvenile Sex Offenders Forever?
This piece originally appeared at the National Association for Rational Sex Offense Laws site. What Luke Heimlich did was wrong and deeply disturbing. It also sounds like it was not a one-off. But he was punished, he was treated, and he has not re-offended. If he hadn’t slipped up on an administrative issue — missing […]
Mom Lets Baby Wait in Car THREE MINUTES and Is Charged with “Contributing to the Delinquency of a Child”
This persecution of parents who love their kids and make the rational decision to let their them wait in the car a few minutes MUST STOP. Here is the latest case, reported by Elizabeth Broadbent at ScaryMommy (which should be SCARED Mommy in this case!). The mom, Heather DeStein, 28, has a 3-month-old. She drove […]
“School’s Out for Summer” — What’s Wrong with This Ad?
Nothing wrong with playing, chatting and creating online. But still — anyone else appalled by this ad? (And yes, we KNOW it’s not an ad for the National Park Service, or Boy Scouts, or the U.S. Rubber Ball Association, or …). . . .
Less Than A Year After “MUST DO” Baby Sleep Guidelines, The American Academy of Pediatrics Pulls a Switcheroo
Just try to figure out what the American Academy of Pediatrics and this spokeswoman are saying in this Good Morning America interview about babies and their sleep. Apparently the AAP has reversed its stern directive which said that babies should be in the same room — but not the same bed — as their parents for […]
Maryland’s “Free-Range Mom” Danielle Meitiv Throws Her Hat into the Ring
You know the old saying: When life hands you a CPS investigation (or two), make lemonade. That’s what Danielle Meitiv of Silver Spring, Maryland, is doing and we are thrilled! The famously Free-Range mom is running for Montgomery Country County Council Member at Large, she told us, “to make this county the best place it […]