As a national debate continues on whether its responsible parenting to let kids walk home alone from a park, supporters plan to take their kids to neighborhood parks May 9 and leave them there.
Parents across the country are being urged to head to parks Saturday at 10 a.m., meet other families, and then, left their children walk home unaccompanied if the parents deem them old enough and responsible enough for the journey.
For the past five years Free-Range Kids has sponsored Take Our Children to the Park…and Leave Them There Day. This year, in honor of the Meitivs of Maryland, the organization is encouraging kids to walk home on their own — if their parents agree they are ready to do so.
Alexander and Danielle Meitiv of Silver Spring, MD, are fighting a finding of neglect by Child Protective Services after letting their son, Rafi, 10, and daughter, Dvora, 6, walk home alone from local parks.
In early April someone called police – as happened in two earlier cases – to report the Meitiv children were alone just a couple of blocks from home. The siblings were picked up by Montgomery County Police about 5 p.m. and turned over to the Child Protective Service 10:30 that night.
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The county agency in February determined that Danielle and Alexander Meitiv had committed unsubstantiated neglect of their children for an earlier unsupervised trek to the park.
The group Empower Kids Maryland said on its Facebook page that it will hold a Take Your Kids to the Park… And Let Them Walk Home by Themselves Day starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 9. The event will take place at Ellsworth Park in downtown Silver Spring, the park that the Meitiv children were on their way home from when they were detained.
Empower Kids Maryland calls the day “A time to send the message that letting our kids go to the park and walking safely through our neighborhood on their own should be the norm – not the exception.”
Free-range parent founder Lenore Skenazy will be in Manhattan’s Central Park at 85th and Fifth Avenue, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. to talk with parents.
She wrote on her website that supporters don’t want parents arrested or even investigated as a result of Saturday’s event. Parents should check in with their local police department and make sure that this is not an actionable offense, Skenazy said.
Russell Max Simon, co-founder of Empower Kids Maryland, wrote online: “When did we stop being a community of responsible adults all looking after each other and each other’s kids? When did we stop being a village – and start becoming a fearful nation, where two kids walking home from the park alone is suddenly cause for a 911 call and a CPS investigation?”
He noted the Meitiv family will not take part in the May 9 event.
»Photo of the Meitiv family from Danielle Meitiv’s Facebook page
Well now, this should be interesting.
Skenazy, Meitiv and Simon are all incredibly kosher here. I smell rats. My spidey senses are tingling. ..doesn’t mean much but historically it means everything.
“In early April someone called police – as happened in two earlier cases – to report the Meitiv children were alone just a couple of blocks from home.”
“See something, say something” works.
Plenty of useful idiots out there.