What age is too young...

[Dnaguy 12,140]

28 minutes ago, Not a cat said:

At 9 or 10 we would ride our bikes on a busy highway a couple of miles to get to the fireworks stand.  Then  see who could light them and throw it in the air with just enough wick left so it would explode in the air and rain confetti.  Whenever one of our parents saw this they'd give us a stern lecture along the lines of "hey be careful”

Spoiler

 

 

[JMFP 1,126]

from the op's article: 

Quote

Authorities found him walking alone after a concerned resident called police. Police took Soren, who was unharmed, home, but a few hours later they returned and arrested Patterson in front of her children.

I'm wondering if little Soren was just walking home or fucking around and causing trouble on the way... I admit I don't understand people but there has to be more to the story. 

[Grande Mart 517]

In 3rd grade, we'd ride our bikes about a mile to the convenience store to pick up smokes for my friend's mom. She had become acquainted enough with the people that worked there that they knew who we were and would sell them to us for her. 

[Grande Mart 517]

5 minutes ago, Grande Mart said:

In 3rd grade, we'd ride our bikes about a mile to the convenience store to pick up smokes for my friend's mom. She had become acquainted enough with the people that worked there that they knew who we were and would sell them to us for her. 

We'd also spend a bunch of quarters playing Spy Hunter or 1942 or whatever Arcade game they had at the time

[Dnaguy 12,140]

Wait.

Is this another Matt Gaetz thread?

[royiv 9,403]

34 minutes ago, Dnaguy said:

  Hide contents

 

 

The average Dodgers fan has the IQ of a six year old.

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2,100]

1 minute ago, royiv said:

The average Dodgers fan has the IQ of a six year old.

[mininghorn88 2,311]

My son, now 29, is a no nonsense person. While he did play some video games the bulk of his time was spent outdoors being the typical country boy. When he was about 9 years old he was left at home alone which was a common thing to do. However, this time when I came home he was in his room with his door closed playing a video game. I quietly knocked on his door. He asked who was there. My reply was another soft knock on his door. Again he asked who was there. Again, I simply knocked on the door again. All of a sudden the door flies open and he is standing in a crouched defensive position holding one of his skinning knives for field dressing a deer. I am so thankful that I had not jumped through the door to scare him otherwise he would have gutted me.

[RDCanecutter 26,509]

7 minutes ago, mininghorn88 said:

My son, now 29, is a no nonsense person. While he did play some video games the bulk of his time was spent outdoors being the typical country boy. When he was about 9 years old he was left at home alone which was a common thing to do. However, this time when I came home he was in his room with his door closed playing a video game. I quietly knocked on his door. He asked who was there. My reply was another soft knock on his door. Again he asked who was there. Again, I simply knocked on the door again. All of a sudden the door flies open and he is standing in a crouched defensive position holding one of his skinning knives for field dressing a deer. I am so thankful that I had not jumped through the door to scare him otherwise he would have gutted me.

So who was he in there skinning?

[BurntEyes 6,038]

1 hour ago, mininghorn88 said:

My son, now 29, is a no nonsense person. While he did play some video games the bulk of his time was spent outdoors being the typical country boy. When he was about 9 years old he was left at home alone which was a common thing to do. However, this time when I came home he was in his room with his door closed playing a video game. I quietly knocked on his door. He asked who was there. My reply was another soft knock on his door. Again he asked who was there. Again, I simply knocked on the door again. All of a sudden the door flies open and he is standing in a crouched defensive position holding one of his skinning knives for field dressing a deer. I am so thankful that I had not jumped through the door to scare him otherwise he would have gutted me.

Does your son hang out on Rainey Street and despise "drunk" people while loving Chilean Sea Bass?

[Gatorubet 30,328]

8 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

I figured once my boy was strong enough to break the chain keeping him in the pit out back, then there weren't no harm in him wanderin because he was likely the meanest cuss in the neighborhood.

We all know that the “no harm” was your boy getting free food from places other than your pit….after he out-fought the hogs for it. 

[RDCanecutter 26,509]

1 minute ago, Gatorubet said:

We all know that the “no harm” was your boy getting free food from places other than your pit….after he out-fought the hogs for it. 

Hell him and the hogs banded together against the Pit People, why'd you think I had him out there in the first place?

[Gatorubet 30,328]

3 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Hell him and the hogs banded together against the Pit People, why'd you think I had him out there in the first place?

[CooterBrown 18,038]

So who was he in there skinning?

We all know what he was doing…

[Willfully Horn 8,067]

8 hours ago, Rex Kramer said:

If there’s grass on the field, play ball. 

Yeah, the average age of puberty for girls in the USA is between 8 - 13 years, dude. 

I know the joke, but we are fathers.

 

[F250 28,854]

10 hours ago, gsoda3 said:

... for a kid to walk alone.

 

https://abcnews.go.com/US/georgia-moms-arrest-puts-free-range-parenting-back/story?id=116004039

 

In Texas there's no law stating how old a child has to be to be left alone at home.  We started leaving our kids alone around 5 to make quick trips to the library to return books (1/4 mile away) and around 7 to drop the other kids off at daycare etc.  We let our three oldest kids (13, 12, 10) walk to the library or bike around the 10 miles of trails in our neighborhood.  I've let them bike to soccer practice (1 mile on the trails)- their school's closer than that.  This is crazy to me.

Eh, 5 years old is pretty fucking young to leave alone. That's neglect. I say this as a traditional Gen-X latch key kid.

 

[safe sex 11,800]

11 hours ago, Rex Kramer said:

If there’s grass on the field, play ball. 

Fucking gross, dude

[AUS-97HORN 11,825]

13 hours ago, JMFP said:

 I admit I don't understand people but there has to be more to the story. 

there isnt more to it, the story is more than 3 weeks old and been covered in other parts of this site and ive seen a few youtube videos about it.  and to make matters worse, he turned 11 very shortly after this. so this story is even more ridiculous.

 

its a small mostly rural town in Georgia,  The kid walked to town on his own, in nice October weather. his mom thought he was in the backyard, and drove one of her other kids to an appointment. and a worried "Karen" calls the cops to say theres a kid walking along the county road by himself.  Thats it full stop. nothing nefarious.

The excuse used to arrest mom is best described as "worst-case wishing"   

The actual story originally told to the local paper, which asked the sheriffs dept why was mom arrested, was that the sheriff said that something "could' have happened to the kid.   That he could have been kidnapped, or hurt, or fill in the blank.

thats not a fucking crime, and all the "could have's" in the world dont matter if none of them didn't happen.  Thats mom's job to tell the kid that not the fucking sheriff's job to arrest the mom for that.

 

But that was literally the reason the sheriff went back and arrested Mom-  because some jackass in authority decided that because something could have happened, that the child was in endagered in his own fucking rural town walking in full daylight  to the local store which was a mile away.

 

 

Edited November 22 by AUS-97HORN

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2,100]

14 minutes ago, AUS-97HORN said:

there isnt more to it, the story is more than 3 weeks old and been covered in other parts of this site and ive seen a few youtube videos about it.  and to make matters worse, he turned 11 very shortly after this. so this story is even more ridiculous.

 

its a small mostly rural town in Georgia,  The kid walked to town on his own, in nice October weather. his mom thought he was in the backyard, and drove one of her other kids to an appointment. and a worried "Karen" calls the cops to say theres a kid walking along the county road by himself.  Thats it full stop. nothing nefarious.

The excuse used to arrest mom is best described as "worst-case wishing"   

The actual story originally told to the local paper, which asked the sheriffs dept why was mom arrested, was that the sheriff said that something "could' have happened to the kid.   That he could have been kidnapped, or hurt, or fill in the blank.

thats not a fucking crime, and all the "could have's" in the world dont matter if none of them didn't happen.  Thats mom's job to tell the kid that not the fucking sheriff's job to arrest the mom for that.

 

But that was literally the reason the sheriff went back and arrested Mom-  because some jackass in authority decided that because something could have happened, that the child was in endagered in his own fucking rural town walking in full daylight  to the local store which was a mile away.

 

 

Arresting mom because *someone else* could have been a criminal is an excellent use of the law. 

[Deej 76,986]

17 hours ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

The internet makes us more aware of dangers

Funny, because the internet is the real danger. 

[MonkeyDoughnut 10,372]

Story is ridiculous. He was at home with his grandfather and went to the store by himself without permission and they arrest his mother who was talking a brother to a doctors appt? Would have made more sense to arrest the grandfather... except that's just as ridiculous.

[jimmyjazz 46,344]

I had multiple arguments with my wife about our son's behavior when he was in elementary school.  He was (and is) a very good kid, but he was a typical boy.  My wife freaked out when he climbed a tree.  A tree.  I had to explain that boys climb shit, they wander, they throw rocks at each other, sometimes they fight, but the odds are in the kids' favor.  

I don't know if parents are becoming overly protective or if kids just aren't pushing the envelope as much as we did, but it certainly seems like something has changed.

[Gatorubet 30,328]

20 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

 I don't know if parents are becoming overly protective or if kids just aren't pushing the envelope as much as we did, but it certainly seems like something has changed.

Tell me about it. Why, when I was a kid, we used to have to search construction sites at night when crews weren’t working to find long shards of broken glass.  We needed them because our parents would only pay for the new school year’s clothes If we showed them some item from a Hobo Camp down by the tracks - indicating we had won a battle with them.  Like an eye or a severed finger…

Kids today are weak. 

[B00M 6,515]

26 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I don't know if parents are becoming overly protective or if kids just aren't pushing the envelope as much as we did, but it certainly seems like something has changed.

Yes

kids need to take minor risks to learn and become functional adults. Preventing them from climbing trees or walking to the store alone is how you create a generation of anxiety riddled basement dwelling neckbeards. 
 

 

[BabaYaga 15,332]

I walked multiple times from Maplewood elementary area of E. Austin to Kealing MS carrying my big ass band instrument.

[Nivek 17,006]

Depends on the maturity of the kid.

My kids all learned to safely cross the street at different ages. Doesn’t matter what I did or how I tried to teach them. It just didn’t sink in until they were each ready.

[gsoda3 3,284]

17 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

I walked multiple times from Maplewood elementary area of E. Austin to Kealing MS carrying my big ass band instrument.

useful as a shield from stray bullets.

[huge 3,795]

20 hours ago, texasdago said:

I think when I was 11 or 12 I would walk about 1/2 a mile to Sav-on Drugs by crossing two major roads to go buy baseball cards.  

There was a Sav-on at Dairy Ashford and Memorial

[royiv 9,403]

8 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

useful as a shield from stray bullets.

It’s crazy how much that neighborhood has changed over a relatively short period of time. My school bus made a stop there to drop the magnet kids off on my way to mighty Johnston High, Pride of the East Side. Both of those neighborhoods have gentrified a ton.

[GabrielsHorn 2,186]

And here I thought this was going to be about Cormac McCarthy. 

[safe sex 11,800]

23 minutes ago, GabrielsHorn said:

And here I thought this was going to be about Cormac McCarthy. 

That story is b o n k e r s

[Prepuce of Doom 21,112]

1 hour ago, BabaYaga said:

I walked multiple times from Maplewood elementary area of E. Austin to Kealing MS carrying my big ass band instrument.

Which large instrument did you play in the ass band? 

[texasdago 7,589]

38 minutes ago, huge said:

There was a Sav-on at Dairy Ashford and Memorial

[BabaYaga 15,332]

30 minutes ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

Which large instrument did you play in the ass band? 

Baritone.  Fucking thing was heavy

[BabaYaga 15,332]

1 hour ago, gsoda3 said:

useful as a shield from stray bullets.

I still remember the one time:

"Look at that skinny ass white boy!  Don't you know where you are!  What the hell are you carrying?"

[Vegas64 678]

I had a single key that I put in my wallet and so you could see the key outline after a while. I was 10 when I started riding the bus home alone and staying home alone (basically when parents wanted to stop paying for after school care, both worked outside of the home) and I had to call to check in when I got home and I was supposed to stay in doors and not answer the phone until they got home.

By 12 I was allowed to go out when home alone and generally ride my bike wherever i wanted, which was functionally around 2 miles because round trip 4 miles in the city fighting busy roads and crossing overpasses sucked.

Then I got my bike stolen at a putt and place type arcade, so I hoofed it around then.

At 12 we neighborhood kids started smoking Marlboro lights. So between rollerblading and camping out at the Diamond Shamrock looking for young adults who looked cool enough to buy us our $3.00 Marlboro lights in a box, we walked around so we could smoke cigs and then later pot.

Then we got cars and fake IDs and getting drunk became our god.

The life of a latchkey kid. 

[Bill Brasky 1,468]

I walked from school starting at 5 years old unless the weather was really bad.   Google Maps says it is currently a 15 minute walk.  It wasn't solo the whole way, there was a group of us that would dwindle down along the way and there was a girl a year older that went to her grandma's across the street that was there the whole time.   We as a group would sometimes get in trouble for stopping to play in a creek along the way.  1980's 

[BabaYaga 15,332]

Elementary school was less than a block away so I walked always.  Latchkey as well.  Couldn't wait to get home and peruse the dozens of channels we had on TV at our disposal.  The one window unit AC kept that room nice and cool as well.

I'd zip from the far left to the far right, dad would get pissed.  "You're gonna break the damn thing!"

 

[Deej 76,986]

2 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

I walked multiple times from Maplewood elementary area of E. Austin to Kealing MS carrying my big ass band instrument.

[BabaYaga 15,332]

1 minute ago, Deej said:

So........

[jimmyjazz 46,344]

35 minutes ago, Bill Brasky said:

I walked from school starting at 5 years old unless the weather was really bad.   Google Maps says it is currently a 15 minute walk.

Same.  Google says it's 0.8 miles and 16 minutes.  I usually got dropped off in the morning, and walked home in the afternoon from 1st grade on.

There was one time I went to a friend's house without telling anyone -- including my friend -- and the whole town freaked out because nobody knew where I was.  I was in the local Wal Mart playing pinball.  Probably 3rd grade.

[Snake Diggity 4,628]

I am admittedly a helicopter parent.  Part of that is just my personality, but I was definitely affected by an experience I had early in my parenthood.  When my first kid was 3 months old, she got rsv and was really sick, so we took her to Dell Children’s.  While in the ER exam room waiting to see the dr, there was some scuttlebutt out in the hall.  Directly across from our exam room was another room, where I watched thru the window as a doctor and social worker pulled a young woman in to tell her that her child was dead.  The scream she let loose is something I will never ever forget, and I will also never forget seeing the woman sitting on a bench outside the hospital sobbing when we left, with an empty stroller next to her.  I found out she was coming out of a Home Depot in south Austin and the child walked out into the parking lot and was run over by a truck.  The driver had to be chased down because he didn’t even know he’d hit anything.  Anyway, ever since that experience I’m a total fucking freak when it comes to my kids walking by themselves, especially in busy areas.  My 9 year old has always been super responsible and I’ve trusted her since she was 5, although I have never left her alone, mostly because of her younger sister.  My 6 year old has the personality of a butterfly and still does not ever look before walking somewhere; I doubt she will be allowed to go anywhere alone until she’s a teenager.

I think it’s ridiculous to arrest a mother for leaving a 10 year old unattended for a short time.  A poster above nailed it: 5-12 is when it’s acceptable to start leaving a kid unattended or “free range”, but context should always be considered.  

[Rex Kramer 1,373]

14 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Yeah, the average age of puberty for girls in the USA is between 8 - 13 years, dude. 

I know the joke, but we are fathers.

 

 

11 hours ago, safe sex said:

Fucking gross, dude

FFS it was a joke. Lighten up Francis. 

[safe sex 11,800]

You're right; jokes sexualizing pubescent girls are sooooooo funny. That's my bad.

[Rex Kramer 1,373]

4 minutes ago, safe sex said:

You're right; jokes sexualizing pubescent girls are sooooooo funny. That's my bad.

You know my favorite part about 10 year old girls?

[Billy Pilgrim 1,987]

How’re they going to find playboys stashed in the woods if they’re not allowed to go out exploring?

[jimmyjazz 46,344]

12 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

I found out she was coming out of a Home Depot in south Austin and the child walked out into the parking lot and was run over by a truck.

Ugh.  I was at a soccer match next to Old Settler's in Round Rock when a kid got run over and killed.  We were probably 1/4 mile away, but could see the whole first responder action.  It was so depressing.  We're watching our kids run around and kicking a ball, and a parent nearby was trying to process the death of their toddler.

[0xdeadbeef 1,653]

6 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

You know my favorite part about 10 year old girls?

In case of an investigation by any federal entity or similar, I do not have any involvement with this group or with the people in it Rex Kramer, I do not know how I am here, probably added by a third party, I do not support any actions by the members of this group.

[gsoda3 3,284]

7 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Ugh.  I was at a soccer match next to Old Settler's in Round Rock when a kid got run over and killed.  We were probably 1/4 mile away, but could see the whole first responder action.  It was so depressing.  We're watching our kids run around and kicking a ball, and a parent nearby was trying to process the death of their toddler.

We were there that day and just missed it happening.  Found out a couple hours after.  My wife and I both were shaken to the core.

[jimmyjazz 46,344]

Just now, gsoda3 said:

We were there that day and just missed it happening.  Found out a couple hours after.  My wife and I both were shaken to the core.

Yeah, it was rough.  Put things in perspective.