The idiotarian nanny state

I don't know what the neighborhood is like, but when I was 11 -- heck, when I was 8 or 9 -- I was tooling all over our town (pop. 40,000) on my bike, walking to school, etc etc. I guess that was a while ago, but I can't imagine that there are significantly more real creeps and threats today.

Three blocks? My goodness. I thought Texas was a land free of nonsense like this.

What's wrong with Texas or at least Dallas suburbs these days. Red State, heal thyself.

I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, I used to represent parents in abuse and neglect cases and I believe the officials often overreach. My stock argument was that the officials were being overzealous. The only surprising thing in this case is that the parent was white. These things happen to minority parents all the time, but it's rare for a middle-class white parent to end up in this situation.

OTOH, officials can't just sit on abuse and neglect allegations. Kids of abusers often lie when the parent is in their presence, so the cops really don't know what's really happening. The fact that the guy wrote about it in the paper seems to indicate he's remorseful, but also ups the profile of the case. When officials don't take abuse and neglect cases seriously, children sometimes do die at the hands of abusive parents.

Unbelievably nuts. An eleven year old kid can be dropped off at school in the morning and walk home in the afternoon, and that's not child abandonment.

But an eleven year old kid is driven to a restaurant and made to walk home, and that's child abandonment. How can one thing be the normal expectation put on parents and kids every day, and the other be a crime? Just because there was parental disapproval expressed in one case? So parental discipline is now an aggravating factor that makes an otherwise innocuous action a crime? That's insane.

It's one thing to say that the authorities can't ignore a call, but having investigated and found out that an eleven year old child was made to walk three blocks, which most eleven year old children do every day on their own, that should have been the end of it.

I would like to know more about this story.

Some thoughts:

1. That must have been some argument if someone was concerned enough to dial 911. I know people call 911 for all sorts of silly reasons, but it worth asking if the intensity of the fight spurred the initial call.

2. If Lieber, as he claims, was gone only a "few minutes," it seems weird that the police had not only arrived at the scene but were well on their way taking statements.

That said, I am not sure the guy deserves to be hit with a felony beef. Sure, he sounds like an obnoxious jerk, but had something happened to this kid after his dad left, I am sure Rod (and the rest of the local media) would be shrieking hysterically about the LACK of a police presence and how our terrible culture brought about a restaurant full of people watching some kid left to his own fate in a parking lot.

My dad was a cop. He's had his fill of dead kids. If they have to come down on harmless dolt to make a point, so be it.

Charles needs to know that if takes his video camera now and is taping "attractive young women" the police are going to be called on him. And depending on how revealing his camera angles are, and the ages of the "young women," he will be charged with possession/promotion of child pornography.

More people need to mind their own damn business and use some discretion. Parents understand the kind of thing Leiber got himself into and it's doubtful they would call. But Leiber should not have made his parental indiscretion so public just so he could feel better by confessing. Writing a column, especially when he has made so many people mad as the newspaper's "watchdog" columnist, was just inviting some punks at the police station or prosecutor's office to go after him. "Justice" in this country is often about police and prosecutors showing off to get publicity and/or punishing their enemies. (Of course there are many honorable police and prosecutors who would never be so basely motivated.)

It's not new. In 1989 when I was a snotty 13 year old girl, my mother did something similar with me and the police ended up involved (through intervention of other people). Parents can be idiots too; I don't know what excuse someone would have today nearly 20 years later to be ignorant of the fact that the state is always right there ready to interfere and intervene with your parenting.

More people need to mind their own damn business and use some discretion.

Exactly. This kind of crap is the reason I think Rod's Benedict Option is a pipe dream unless you do it alone and quietly. There are people everywhere now that think they have to get involved in other people's business if something is being done that they would never do. We also have plenty of unthinking bureaucrats who think their job is to get dig as deeply into people's lives as possible, especially if kids are involved. This is the thing I loathe about modern society. Everyone wants to tell everyone else how to live and think it is just peachy to use the coercive power of the state to do so.

But I don't give Lieber a pass here either. Maybe he shouldn't have written about it, but he certainly shouldn't have been so apologetic. His spinelessness made this worse. Good luck getting your kid to respect you when he hits high school pal.

The attitude of the cop was pretty bad too. "He said that it doesn’t take more than a few minutes for something to happen to an unsupervised child." That's certainly true, even in your own yard and home. So do we watch our kids with eagle eyes every second until they are 18 now, under penalty of felony arrest? So that those loyal to Oceania like Charles can keep their eyes on us constantly waiting to call Big Brother at the first slip up? Is this how far "for the children" has taken us? Is there no smashing of liberty we won't applaud as long as a child is involved?

These are the stories that disgust me. People who are willing and eager to ruin the lives of others because someone makes child-rearing decisions of which they disapprove.

The notion of "good government" being adept at widespread services got some play in the Katrina/Gustav thread... and I got guffawed for the notion that government IS NOT CAPABLE of being particularly effective. Especially when there's so much of it and it is so widespread, policy-bound, and filled with self-serving people.

This is a prime example of how the more it moves left, the WORSE it gets.

Of course, there are those who actually think he WAS abusing his child. There's no real excuse for that kind of idiotarian thinking, but at least in this case, there was at least the whole chain from the cops to the prosecutor who were... Idiotarians.

(since you can't call idiots... Idiots... in Rod's columns anymore..., that judgement is reserved solely to Rod, I guess)

(since you can't call idiots... Idiots... in Rod's columns anymore..., that judgement is reserved solely to Rod, I guess)

Settle down. It's really not that hard to grasp the basic rule here: you are not allowed to call other people who post on the forums here names. One can say "George W. Bush is an idiot," but one can't say, "Watcher, you're an idiot." If you get this basic idea down, you'll be fine here. Also, DON'T YELL.

"There's no real excuse for that kind of idiotarian thinking,"

Sure there is. Listen, I think what happened here--assuming we know the whole story--is an overreach and I would argue that in court until I was blue in the face.

But at what point do you see a dad arguing with his kid and leaving him in a parking lot and react or not react. Do you wait five minutes before responding to the kid? An hour? And how are the police supposed to know this is an isolated incident? Should the police have not followed up?

Abuse and neglect does happen. And the people around them often don't say anything. So how we decide whether a parent is showing "judgment" by losing his cool with the kid and leaving him standing in a parking lot? Should we trust that judgement?

Here's another useful life lesson we can all take away from this experience:

If you get involved in a potentially criminal situation and the cop involved uses his good judgment and lets you of with a warning - Don't write about the experience in the newspaper!

Today, girls are thrown out of school for using Midol...

Prove it, Watcher. It happened once in 1996. Prove that it is happening "today". Prove that your fallacious citation has any bearing on this topic.

Oh, and the fact of that case you fail to consider: the girl with the Midol took it from the nurse's office without permission. Even the mother agreed that the girl deserved suspension for that act. The rest was typical overreaction and zero-tolerance insanity, for sure, but that alone permits me to assert: you won't find proof.

Goodness. My husband and his brothers were once misbehaving badly enough on the way home from church that his parents dropped them off a mile from home. He considers it to have been a good lesson, not to mention that it was just as well to burn off all that energy. (Just FTR, they lived in a dinky town and it was impossible to get lost.) Good thing they didn't do it in public, but on an empty road.

Today, girls are thrown out of school for using Midol...

Prove it, Watcher. It happened once in 1996. Prove that it is happening "today". Prove that your fallacious citation has any bearing on this topic.

First, I don't have to PROVE anything to you, Franklin. But, I, frankly, have no idea what "incident" you're talking about, it's a well known fact that multiple schools in my state have actually done this or equally stupid acts concerning over the counter medications. Yes, Midol is a "drug" and they have a "zero tolerance" policy. So, the Midol is hidden in the bottom of the backpack and taken out only while in the bathroom. There is no excuse for that kind of idiotarian nonsense. None. Zero. You would not believe the exasperation on our part when it came to getting the teachers to allow my son to have his inhaler on his person - even when it was quite apparent that his LIFE depended on it. They demanded a note from a medical professional, so my wife signed it. Then they said "well, a medical professional that's not related...". At which point my wife said, "do it, or I sue you personally" and that ended it.

Oh, and the fact of that case you fail to consider: the girl with the Midol took it from the nurse's office without permission. Even the mother agreed that the girl deserved suspension for that act. The rest was typical overreaction and zero-tolerance insanity, for sure, but that alone permits me to assert: you won't find proof.

huh? you know, you're not half as knowledgeable as you think you are. Find proof? I don't need to FIND proof. It's experience with our local school district AND OTHERS experiences with thier local school districts. And it's a lot more common than you ever dreamed.

There might be some famous story floating around I know nothing about, but I speak solely from my own knowledge and experience.

Okay, Watcher. Failure to find anything in an online search is not "proof". I'll concede that.

On the other hand, health care issues in schools have been around for a very long time. I sympathize with your wife's reaction, but I also know of many cases going back decades where kids were left to self-administer OTC drugs and were irresponsible about it, letting friends take them and in some cases resulting in lawsuits against the schools. The only-the-nurse and parent/doctor signatures policies have a good reason behind them, and I would hope any parent would be willing to tolerate the "inconvenience" of it.

Given that there are stupid people setting and enforcing policy in schools, I stand by my criticism of your hyperbole. Asking for and receiving permission for medication during school hours is the key point, and I leave you room to clarify yourself on that concept and offer a sanity check on your generalization: how many of those girls' parents disdained the "inconvenience" of the permission policy?

Rich, that's *exactly* what parents are "supposed" to be doing. My husband and I used to chuckle, back when we were new parents, about the warning stickers on some baby's cribs: "Do not leave child unattended." On the crib, the place where the baby is put to sleep--not a playpen or other criblike device, the actual crib itself. Apparently when baby is down for a nap mom is supposed to remain in the room and watch baby sleep, while her army of butlers and maids do all the cleaning and cooking she didn't get to because she was watching the baby; and whatever time baby goes to bed for the night is bedtime for mom and dad too, because at least one of them should be sleeping in the same room with the baby.

This is so absurd, it hurts the brain.

No, that is NOT what parents are supposed to do. Parents are to be REASONED, not obsessive. And when children are 11, they are not 2. What, you think we're to helicopter over our children until they turn the magical politically correct age (thirteen for having sex, 15 for smoking pot, never for military joining, etc) and then turn blind eyes to the politically correct age for the "correct" vices, but never once allow them to experience life and learn how to make reasoned and solid decisions?

Yes, there IS risk to walking home 3 blocks. There IS risk to playing in the yard. There IS risk to goofing around on the sofa, watching TV. But our job is NOT to elimenate all risk... It cannot be done. Our job is to prepare a person for a life in a world that's full of risks.

Okay, Watcher. Failure to find anything in an online search is not "proof". I'll concede that.

Huh? You think I'm supposed to blog this somewhere and then point you to a link to it as "proof" of my own experience in my own school district with my own kids??? Similar stories appeared in our local and region papers at times over the exact same behavior. Not exactly sure, here, what I'm supposed to be "searching" for.

On the other hand, health care issues in schools have been around for a very long time. I sympathize with your wife's reaction, but I also know of many cases going back decades where kids were left to self-administer OTC drugs and were irresponsible about it, letting friends take them and in some cases resulting in lawsuits against the schools. The only-the-nurse and parent/doctor signatures policies have a good reason behind them, and I would hope any parent would be willing to tolerate the "inconvenience" of it.

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about here... But the whole point is that parents CANNOT issue instructions for thier kids to be able to take Midol, etc, in this school district. This isn't a matter of "take this note to the teacher so you can take your allergy medication when you need it" for a 15 year old. This is a "The school nurse (that works one day a week) will hold this and give it to you when the school nurse thinks you need it" kind of crapola.

Sorry. That doesn't cut it. I know, you're a liberal and believe yourself all informed and all knowing about all things. But, you'll get over it someday. The truth is out here and it WILL refute you.

Given that there are stupid people setting and enforcing policy in schools, I stand by my criticism of your hyperbole.

What hyperbole? These ARE FACTS, stated unadorned.

Asking for and receiving permission for medication during school hours is the key point, and I leave you room to clarify yourself on that concept and offer a sanity check on your generalization: how many of those girls' parents disdained the "inconvenience" of the permission policy?

Huh? What "generalization" have I made?

I told you it happens. It's factual. I didn't believe it until it happened IN OUR LOCAL SCHOOL. One incident to my son. And we just gave our daughters their stuff and said "don't be dumb enough to get caught".

After all, they knew very well that there is NOTHING we would do to them for taking what we very well purchased and sent along with them, but that were consequences for violating brain dead stupid school policy.

My wife conversed long and detailed with at least 3 principals on this very thing over the years and none of them were the least amenable to using judgement.

But at what point do you see a dad arguing with his kid and leaving him in a parking lot and react or not react. Do you wait five minutes before responding to the kid? An hour? And how are the police supposed to know this is an isolated incident? Should the police have not followed up?

Daniel, I wouldn't respond at all and certainly wouldn't call the police. An 11 year old is able to request help if he needs it, and knows what to do when left alone. This isn't a toddler we're talking about. The police should not have been called, period. It is none of your business, or mine either. An 11 year old can handle a parking lot.

A few months ago a New York journalist let her 9 year old son ride the subway alone. She thought he was ready and needed to learn responsibility and independence. (And there are busybodies who thought she should go to jail for that). Let's say he had been riding it for a couple of years and was now 11. Then let's say she had an argument with him and walked away. And you saw that. How long before you called the cops? Five minutes? An hour? After all, there were emotions involved! We obviously need to get the state into this!

For more information see Kravitz, Gladys.

I can't fault the would-be good samaritan(s) who called the police. Even from Lieber's account, it sounds like there was a public and prolonged argument between a father and son which culminated in both of them leaving the restaurant in a noticeably upset way, and then the man driving off leaving the boy behind.

Society -- which would be us -- is worse than ever when it comes to "minding our own business." I wish I knew how many times I've read news accounts of children being killed or essentially tortured to death by their parents or others through abuse & neglect over a long time. A regular feature of these terrible stories is a next door neighbor or even another family member who says "Oh, if I'd only known what was really happening, I would have called police/stopped it/reported it to CPS/[your choice here]." And of course it's obvious that they *did* know what was happening -- they certainly knew well enough to understand that a child was suffering or that an adult was doing wrong.

If it was really only three blocks and the 11 year old kid sat around crying for 20 minutes rather than walk home, I'm worried about America. When I was 11 years old in 1968 ... [you know].

Rich, thanks for the links. I confess my initial search (the one failing to find "proof", Watcher) was inadequate. I'm fitting such things in between long sessions of staring at my screen at work. :-[

I understand that I am advocating an unpopular stance. I knew that from the start. I am attempting to make points that go beyond the individual cases and the emotions that suffuse them.

In every case Rich cites (including one local to me), there are three key elements.

1) Policies mandated by legislation are passed with no, I repeat, no protest from those who might be affected by them. (I can think of a few that garnered public significant support, in fact, at least the media reported so.) Instead of filing a lawsuit when the fit hits the shan, parents should be writing to their state reps in outrage, and putting in writing to their local school board that ridiculous policies will be fought in their local schools.

2) School administrators and teachers are in very real danger of losing their jobs over the slightest bending of said policies. Further, they were already in immediate risk of being personally named in lawsuits over incidents that were already happening prior to the zero-tolerance policies. Losing their jobs is nothing compared to a long and expensive legal battle.

3) Every student involved violated the portion of the policy that requires an adult be informed of the need for medication. This point is towards my challenge to parents that they are refusing to comply with policy because it's inconvenient. And yes, I know all about asthma and other conditions that require immediate relief. Please give me a break about those exceptions. The majority of cases are not that urgent.

... I have to wonder about a parent that has no problem with one child giving another child some random medication because the first child has decided that it's appropriate. Older teenagers can be trusted to be aware of the responsible uses thereof, but it takes a responsible adult to be sure the child is not taking something for which the child could have an allergy (aspirin big time, less so acetaminophin and ibuprofen, but it's there). Indeed, the entire point of a parental and/or doctor signature is to provide assurance that the child can safely take that particular medication, and is not permitted to take a substitute. I can just see the immediate aftermath of the rescinding of current policies, where every child must be interviewed every six months by a school nurse and asked what drugs the child is allergic to. If you don't find that ridiculous, you can skip responding to me. I have no hope of making a rational argument with you.

Further to #1: even with a general respect for the difficulties in modern parenting, I have zero-tolerance for any parent who non-chalantly ignores bad policy or laws until they happen to affect their children directly. It's wrong that there are stupid laws and policies, it's wrong that they force parents to take extra steps to deal with them in the schools, but there is another side of that coin: a child gets sick because he accepted an OTC drug from another child that was way past its freshness date. In a school where there is no intervention policy around children taking medications, who here would be surprised if the first child's parents sued the dickens out of that school?

Watcher, I have the best wishes for your son's health, and admiration for your wife's refusal to back down. Zero-tolerance policy is beyond ridiculous, let alone how it's implemented. The implied expectation is that schools will be held responsible for the occasional misuse of medications absent some policy that requires adult supervision of them. Join me in finding a middle ground... and please don't wait to raise a public stink over your local laws, if you haven't already.

Probably not after five minutes, but if the kid was still there 20 minutes later and crying, then yes, I'd call the police.

How about talking to the kid? Is a crying eleven year old a reason for police presence? Really??

I'd also intervene if I saw a parent hitting a kid in public.

Define hitting. Define intervene. Are you talking about simple spanking?

"Who drives to a restaurant that's only three blocks away?"

People who are stopping on their way to or from other errands, maybe? There's no need to invent mystery here.

Alicia
Stranger abductions of that type happen about 100 times per year. A typical child is twice as likely to be struck by lightning as abducted by a stranger.

But let's say that wasn't the case. Let's say they happened 10 times more often, or 20. Is this really worth it? Should this man be facing 6 months to two years in jail or 2-10 years in state prison (depending on whether the prosecutor thought he was coming back for the boy)? Should he really be facing felony charges that would destroy his life and his family, and hoping he doesn't get a jury full of people with Daniel's sentiments? How can anyone possibly justify this?

The fear-driven society is the worst culture imaginable, because people will lash out against those who don't share their fears. If you are terrified that children will be abducted if left alone, then of course any parent who exposes their child to that risk (as you see it) is a bad parent.

This appears to be the society we live in. Can we at least give up the pretense that we are "free"?

Actually, I never mentioned calling the police. There are situations where I would call the police--if I heard/saw my neighbors using "corporal punishment" every night or for long periods of time--if I saw kids going through garbage cans looking for food, if I saw evidence of abuse and neglect.

If I saw a parent hitting a kid in public, I'd probably go up to the parent and say something. I live in a concealed carry state and I realize there is alway the chance some violent gun nut is going to shoot me, but at what point is the fear of crazy gun nuts so pronounced that I fear trying to protect a kid, or woman, or man from getting hit?

"Who drives to a restaurant that's only three blocks away?"

I live in Texas. You obviously don't. I drive to a restaurant that's just down the block and across the street, because there are no sidewalks or crosswalks, and I'd be taking my life in my hands if I tried to walk across the street. Seriously. I'm not happy about it, and there are reasons why five of the fattest cities in the country are in Texas. But there it is; for me, it's a basic safety issue.

PS -- I realize that obviously this took place in a neighborhood that was walkable, otherwise he wouldn't have told his kid to walk home. But in general, there are situations where one would rationally decide to drive instead of walk, even a short distance.

Obviously the authorities are totally out of line in this case. Again.

However, I don't understand something. What is a father doing arguing with his 11-year old son? Arguing! Who's the Dad here, anyway? A Dad lays down the law, the 11-year old complies. Period. This should have been established in toddlerhood. It shouldn't even occur to the kid that he can argue his Dad into leaving the restaurant before he's finished eating. The lost art of parenting ...

Most of the comments above seem to me to be out of today's mainstream. Thank you, Daniel. I also think all hitting is violence--no exception for corporal punishment, and many, many people think the same, although one wouldn't know it from these comments.

To address the case in question, I think those in the restaurant who called the police acted correctly. How angry and out-of-control was Mr. Lieber, and, as some have asked, how were they supposed to know where the father and son lived? Mr. Lieber did express remorse in his column, which seems sincere, and did call a parenting center for advice, which he passed on to readers. I don't think he should have been arrested, and I do think his editor and newspaper should stick by him, which I'm not sure they'll do.

By the way, I don't agree that abandoning your child in a restaurant, parking lot, etc., was common practice in, say, the 1960s. I never saw it done, and, yes, it would have raised eyebrows and caused at least a few adults to intervene.

Alicia
It's not a "fact", however much you want it to be. It's a judgement call. In your judgement, leaving an 11 year old in a parking lot a few blocks from home is abusive. In my judgement it's not. That's the pity here. This isn't some incident where we have almost universally agreed as a culture that his actions would be criminally wrong. It's in the eye of the beholder. But he is facing pretty grim criminal charges. You're "not sure" that he deserves to be charged so harshly. That's not too comforting. Tell me, Alicia, how abusive would it be to that boy to lose his dad to prison?

The cops in my hometown--in the highly unlikely event they were ever called in such a circimstance--would have talked to the boy, asked him who his dad was, told him he better damn well obey his dad and because he didn't he deserved to punished, and then had him walk the hell home no matter how far it was.

It was the same in my hometown lancelotl, which is probably why we both feel the same way about this. Growing up in a more traditional culture inculcates different values. There are comments throughout this thread telling us those values are "out of today's mainstream" and even criminal. How does someone try to raise a son to be a man in that climate? I am 11,000 miles away from home in a developing country where parents are much more free to raise their children than in North Texas. Who would've ever believed that could happen?

I see Ken, some physical punishment is OK as long as you don't see it. But if you do, then in your judgement the parents are having a "tantrum" and it's time to get the cops involved. Lovely. No need for restraint on your part - you already know their motives and circumstances. It's a tantrum and the parents must be punished.

Parental discretion is dead.

Because that terrific parenting from the late 60s has produced such GREAT results. Neurotic, alcoholic baby boomers.

You're arguing that letting kids walk three blocks by themselves makes for neurotic alcoholics? Baloney. On the contrary, I think the belief that letting kids walk three blocks by themselves turns them into alcoholics is itself indicative of neurosis.

I didn't say that they were abused by fathers. I said that most people in prison are the victims of some sort of abuse and violence. I agree that fatherlessness is a huge problem. But fathers with a firm, physical hand is not the answer. It merely continues the cycle of violence.

I agree it takes men to raise boys effectively. And it requires men who show how to solve problems and deal with anger without devolving into physical violence. I reject the idea that physical discipline is the way to get through to any child and we have to ask why it is only children who our society allows adults to hit without consequence.

... I have to wonder about a parent that has no problem with one child giving another child some random medication because the first child has decided that it's appropriate. Older teenagers can be trusted to be aware of the responsible uses thereof, but it takes a responsible adult to be sure the child is not taking something for which the child could have an allergy (aspirin big time, less so acetaminophin and ibuprofen, but it's there). Indeed, the entire point of a parental and/or doctor signature is to provide assurance that the child can safely take that particular medication, and is not permitted to take a substitute.

More of this utterly disfunctional tripe. "We must have absurd rules and policies because I dream up bad things kids might do..."

So, instead of a policy that says that no child may give any other child any kind of drug or medication... We have to have GROSSLY STUPID policies and you'll defend them.

This is why we can make no headway. You'll defend the absolutely and utterly indefensible by making up absurdly insulting scenarios to justify stupidity.

I have never met a parent who would condone, suggest, or otherwise approve of thier child giving away any kind of medicine or drug to another child. But hey, you can dream up the scenario, so as to create a justification for the absurd.

Like I said, judgement has vanished, and grossly stupid policies have been implemented. The first reaction MUST be to NOT DEFEND SUCH NONSENSE, but instead, to recognize the reasons for them... Overbearing nanny-statism from the left and our litigiousness.

I approve of Corporal Punishment. In fact, I'd like to see him promoted to officer's rank. At the very least, let's make him a Sar-Major.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

Rich, you are right. It's not an undisputed fact that this man, Dave Lieber, showed poor judgment.

Yet, in his opinion, he did. In my opinion, he did. In the opinion of the bystanders who called the police, he did. And in the opinion of the State authorities, he did.

I think prosecuting him for felony child endangerment is a gross overreaction by the State. Not knowing more about the circumstances, I think a slap on the wrist would be more than appropriate.

Perhaps you've never had someone drive away in anger and abandon you in a strange place. Having had this happen to me once, I can attest that it was abuse. Was it abuse in the case of Dave Lieber and his son? I can only speculate, and I might be wrong, but in my opinion, it was.