WHAT CONSTITUTES CHILD NEGLECT?

Last night, it was reported on the news that a woman who allowed her daughter to walk around the block with her dog was accused of child neglect.

My first thought was, who is the person who has nothing better to do than monitor the mothering practices of her neighbor?  And if she was really concerned, why not speak with the mom, herself, rather than calling the police?  This person obviously has some serious emotional issues.

The times have changed a lot in the last 50 years or so, and I'm not sure why.  My husband and I both walked home from grade school unaccompanied by an adult every single day of our young lives.  My children walked home from their elementary school two blocks away and no one thought of that as child neglect.  Now, when you drive by an elementary school at 3 o'clock, you are caught in a traffic jam of cars, and people picking up their children.  If a young child cannot walk around the block by themselves in a pleasant, middle class neighborhood until they are 14 years old, I don't know how the parents can deal with that.  I wonder, too, what single mothers do.  Do they give up their jobs and go on public assistance in order to walk their kids back and forth to school until puberty?

Why do we over protect our children?  How will they develop any self confidence and feeling of independence if they must stay indoors unless a busy parent has time to accompany them on a bicycle ride or walk?  Most kids today have smart phones, and if anything is amiss, they can easily call a parent or 911.  We didn't even have that protection when we were children, and yet most of us did survive.

It's getting tougher and tougher to be a parent all the time.  It's no wonder that some people choose not to have children at all.