This is the fourth time I’ve read a story about kids being arrested for being outside.
America really is a country where you were not allowed to be outside unless you’re in a car.
Liability Hot Potato
-
Caller doesn’t want to accept liability just in case Something Happens to the kids.
-
Call-taker doesn’t want to accept liability just in case Something Happens to the kids.
-
Comm. Center supervisor doesn’t want to accept liability just in case Something Happens to the kids.
-
Dispatcher doesn’t want to accept liability just in case Something Happens to the kids.
-
Patrol supervisor doesn’t want to accept liability just in case Something Happens to the kids.
-
Patrol LEOs don’t want to accept liability just in case Something Happens to the kids.
The end product of this bureaucratic nightmare is harassment-by-proxy, where the cops show up to tell a lady kids aren’t supposed to play outside and everyone gets to go home not feeling like they were responsible for the insanity.
- Ex-cop, occasionally insisted on not responding to ridiculous calls that got cancelled when I pressed the issue, was eventually fired
-
In the 70s, every kid in the he area knew every other kid. The mother’s all knew each other or at least had phone numbers. Weekends and summers we would go play all day, sometimes in 1 house. The whole neighborhood looked out for all of us. If a mother needed to find a kid, just start calling the list of mothers. Regardless,when the streetlights came on, that was the signal to go home.
No one questioned it. That’s the way it was. We would play football in the streets and move aside for cars. We would drink from the garden hose. Every kid played… There was even one kid missing a leg who used a fake limb, we let him at football with the rest of us (granted he played line), but he was one of us.
Miss those days
Hey. That’s the way it is where i live in Norway.
Just depends on where you live
I grew up in the 90’s and it was mostly the same. Leave home at like 9am to just go start knocking on friends doors to see who was available. Get a group together for some tag or ballgame if the weather was good, stay inside and play with toys if the weather was bad. Rule was to call home by 5 so my mom would know if she should prepare dinner for us or not.
The combination of not giving kids independence then complaining how teens and young adults are dependant on their parents is diabolical.
I often look at the independence that kids and teens are given in other countries and wish that I could have been given that sort of a childhood. I seriously think I wouldn’t be as socially inept as I am today if I had that.
You can still learn though. It’s always awkward in the beginning but adults learn faster than kids.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted.
Life sucks, we’re all screwed up in some way or another. But just saying “well that’s how I am now” is the standard approach these days, and it only perpetuates the problem.
There are really no spaces for kids or teens do anything anymore which is crazy. Then if they are playing outside it is also an issue.
Much like the rest of society, the only reason to leave the house must involve spending money. Otherwise, you’re just tricking poor billionaires and business owners by getting their hopes up and making them treat you nice, without adequate financial compensation.
I’m neither and still feel this way
Its always a neighbor who hates kids. More to the point they can’t stand kids playing and having fun. I’ve had calls from the city on a few occasions for fixing my own car in my driveway. I know who is doing it. Its a elderly woman with a mid forties autistic son who is at her beck and call. I fear for that hateful young man when she passes. I had the hood off my car fixing something close to the firewall and he stood in front of my driveway with a really cheap fiip phone taking photos. I started to call the police but figured it wouldn’t result in anything useful.
Kids playing outside and people working on their car lowers the property value for the neighborhood. So many of these shitty aspects of suburban life are rooted in NIMBY-types who have a hatred of anything that would dare threaten the value of their property.
Lots of people not reading the article (me neither!) So i posted it here. My biggest question is why are all these people calling the cops? What is the other side of the story? Is Fox News fanning a moral panic about child trafficing?
A Pennsylvania Mom Says the Cops Were Called on Her 4 Times—for Letting Her Kids Be Outside
State lawmakers are mulling a law that would establish commonsense protections for families that give their children a reasonable amount of independence.
Lenore Skenazy | 7.30.2026 6:30 AM
(Midjourney)
Listen to this article
6 min
Listen to this article
6 min
Whenever Ms. Gordon lets her sons go outside now, she cleans house. “All right, my kid just went around the block to his friend, let me sweep,” she says. “Because I know if the house is clean, that’s the first step toward making a good impression on Child Protective Services. It’s a bizarre thought process, but—”
But not completely irrational. Gordon (who asked not to use her first name) has had the cops called on her four times for letting her sons, 5, 7, and 9, walk and play outside in Bala Cynwyd, a suburb of Philadelphia. Reason reviewed several private messages Gordon exchanged with friends corroborating her version of events.
The first time was about 18 months ago.
“I was puttering around in the garden,” says Gordon. “The kids were around the corner, but they were never more than a few hundred feet away.”
She’d given the boys her phone to play Pokemon Go, the game where you find Pokemon nearby using virtual reality. “They said a woman called to them and said, ‘Are you lost?’” Gordon says. “And they ignored her because they were very busy. And she must’ve called the police.”
The boys were already almost home when the police pulled up. “My son [6 at the time] insisted on describing the whole Pokemon thing to this poor cop who I think decided to cut the visit short because of that.”
Incident No. 2 involved Pokemon again.
Gordon was in the little gym across the street from her home with two of her kids. One was in a soccer program, so the youngest, 5, asked to go out to the sidewalk to catch some more Pokemon. Gordon said he could for a few minutes.
“He performed perfectly,” says Gordon, and soon came back in. So did a woman who spoke to Gordon about seeing the child unattended. Either before or after this, the woman apparently called the cops. A cop arrived soon after.
Gordon told the cop she didn’t think her son had been in any danger. The cop agreed. When he left, Gordon followed him outside and saw him telling the woman and another man in the parking lot, “‘No, there’s nothing further I can do. There’s no signs of abuse or neglect.’” Concluded Gordon, “They wanted me arrested or something.”
Note that while it’s becoming unusual to see kids as young as 5 outside on their own, psychologists say that, developmentally, kids are ready to walk to school by that age.
In Incident No. 3, Gordon was walking around the neighborhood with her 5- and 7-year-old. The older boy wanted to go home, the younger one wanted to keep walking. So she told the 7-year-old he could walk back by himself. That meant he had to cross a couple of streets quiet streets he was already allowed to cross.
When he got to his corner, some pickleball players asked if he was lost. He said no. They asked him where he lived. “He pointed to our house because you could see it from the corner,” says Gordon.
He proceeded there. And at some point afterward, so did the police. This time Gordon’s husband spoke to them. “I don’t know the exact conversation, because I wasn’t there,” she says. “But basically it was like, ‘Yes, he’s 7. He’s allowed to walk up the block and around the corner by himself. He’s even allowed to go the playground by himself. I mean—it’s right there.’ And the cop was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t see anything here to worry about.’” Case closed.
Then somehow came Incident No. 4. Gordon and her 5- and 7-year-old were walking a few blocks to go put books in a little free library. On the way home, along the local commercial avenue, there’s a plastic elephant in front of a car dealership that the 7-year-old likes to “ride.” His mom discourages this.
On this trip, she and her younger son were partway down the block while her 7-year-old had stayed behind at the elephant. Her younger son had to go to the bathroom. So Gordon continued down the block, hoping this would help the older boy learn the natural consequences of his dawdling. He yelled at his mom to wait; she yelled back for him to catch up. But she wasn’t worried, because even if he didn’t, he’s taken this walk hundreds of times before. And each time she turned around, there he was—a block behind her.
Mom and younger son got home, as did the elephant-rider a few minutes later. But a few minutes after that, a cop arrived, too, saying, “‘I heard a report about a kid who looked lost by the BMW dealership.’”
“So it occurs to me that the person [who called the cops] must’ve followed us home,” says Gordon.
First of all: Let’s hear it for the cops who refused to escalate these calls into anything more than a check-in and goodbye. But then let’s think about what it means when anyone with a phone can set the power of the state in motion.
The problem, Gordon points out, is that when you have more than one kid, you simply cannot helicopter parent. For instance: What if you have a few that want to stay at the playground and one who needs to run home? (Exactly the situation Kansas mom Shaley Knickerbocker found herself in—and had the cops called on her.)
When she thinks back to her own childhood in Brooklyn, says Gordon, “The best memories I have are being away from adults.” Going to the library or store—even building a little clubhouse in an old widow’s bushes.
Now the Pennsylvania Legislature is considering a Reasonable Childhood Independence bill that would establish commonsense protections for families like Gordon’s.
Currently, Pennsylvania’s child neglect law is broad. It says parents must provide “proper” care. “But the word ‘proper’ is vague and it invites bias and subjectivity,'” says Kathleen Creamer, managing attorney of the Family Advocacy Unit at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia.
House Bill 1873 would amend the definition of neglect to exclude age-old independent activities, like walking to school, playing outside, or being home alone for a reasonable amount of time. The bill advanced out of committee in late 2025 and awaits further action from state lawmakers.
Gordon and her husband bought their house because it is across the street from a playground. She wants her kids to have a healthy, happy childhood—running errands, riding their bikes, and playing, without the threat of government intervention.
After all, she says: “What’s the point of living across from a playground if my kids can’t go there?”
First of all: Let’s hear it for the cops who refused to escalate these calls into anything more than a check-in and goodbye
What a low fucking bar. After all this and they still can’t help but bootlick
“Give it up for the cops not murdering anyone this time”
I’m happily in camp fuck the police but I think she just wanted it to be known she didnt blame the police for simply responding to the calls. Of course it’s a low bar to applaud them for not escalating, but it doesn’t feel right to call her a bootlicker.
Not a given in this day and age
I mean, bootlicking or not, that’s still pretty impressive for American cops to not just show up and shoot everybody involved, unfortunately
another person was trying to helicopter her seven yr old using police.
I would like a news story to investigate what’s going on inside these people’s heads
When I was 9 my friends and I would ride our bikes miles from home on a regular basis.
I did this too in the mid 2000s before most kids had a cell phone. There was no way to contact my parents or for them to contact me for hours at a time. I would even be out by myself all day. I know people today who are afraid to let their kids do that because of how dangerous it is, but they’re kids have smartphones with gps location tracking on it. They somehow think it’s more dangerous for kids today.
There was a documentary a few years ago about a German correspondent in the US. She let her teenage kids have the same freedoms as in Germany: roam the neighborhood, bike to school etc. The neighbors called CPS on her when the kids were in the street and the school talked to her that her kids weren’t allowed to come by themselves, she HAD to drive them.
Which is wild, cause when I was in elementary school, I would walk/ride a bike like 5 miles to school, and the school had a massive bike lockup because so many others did the same as well.
Crazy how we’ve gone from “Get the hell out of the house and don’t come back till the street lights come on” to “OH MY GOD, CHILDREN ARE IN PUBLIC. CALL THE POLICE! CALL THE NATIONAL GUARD! CALL ANYBODY!!!111!”
Well we can’t actually do anything to stop the literal blood-drinking pedophiles who run this country, so instead we try to make sure children are never seen outside. It’s the next best thing.
implying that it isn’t the blood-drinking pedophiles who want the children locked up at home; so they stay numb and isolated and grow up to be adults making money for the pedos.
They don’t want to rape all kids (not physically or sexually, anyways). Of course, they all want to rape kids.
Crazy how we’ve gone from “Get the hell out of the house and don’t come back till the street lights come on” to “OH MY GOD, CHILDREN ARE IN PUBLIC. CALL THE POLICE! CALL THE NATIONAL GUARD! CALL ANYBODY!!!111!”
I daresay it’s because of the kids in that first scenario growing up and remembering what they witnessed while they were out on their own. Not all of them, of course.
I wont deny that there may be people out there who are a definite fit for your scenario…
But generally speaking, I think its more encouraged addiction to technology. I see it so often, in my own family and elsewhere, where whenever children start needing attention… the response isnt to give them attention, its to shove a phone/tablet in their hands and shooing them off to a corner to sit down and occupy themselves.
while back in the day, parents did give their kids attention. Still encouraged them to go outside and shit, but kids did get attention. They did raise their kids.
Today its Cellphones/Tablets raising kids.
Some school’s insurance policies prohibit kids from arriving in any way other than by parent’s car or school bus.
This makes no sense. Why would a school’s insurance policy cover kids outside of school (excluding the bus which might still be school jurisdiction)?
And if insurance doesn’t cover them anyway, it shouldn’t care what they do.
I think the policy covers payouts for kids getting hit by cars between entering school property and walking into the building? That’s the only thing that makes sense.
Heh. Here in Germany schools are really trying hard NOT to have “parent-taxis” bring their kids to school by car, as that causes a lot of traffic in front of the schools - and endangers those kids that walk on their own or ride their bikes.
Typically stopping in front of schools is frowned and where possible they try to remove stopping places right in front of the front door (e. g. by making them “school bus only”)
My daughter (adult now) was walking 70m to Kindergarten (crossing a street which we trained a gazillion times with her) on her own from a few weeks before her fourth birthday. (Yes that was unusual, too, but we lived practically next door and she was so proud and happy about the trust we put into her).
In the US we would probably have gone to jail for that.
The same just for sending out the kids to play outside in the traffic-free block where we lived at that time. “Go outside” was something we told them to do.
Im in the US and live literally across the street from my kids school. He starts kindergarten in August and I told some neighborhood parent friends I was going to just let him walk himself to school while I watched from the stoop sipping coffee. A lot of them were mortified and a few thought the school wouldn’t allow him in without me dropping him off. Wtf
I’m in the US, kids regularly walk or bike around the neighborhood on their own, or go to school or the bus stop on their own.
There are crazy and weird places in the US, but there are also normal places.
Please extend us your hope that we can get out from under this fascist state government.
I walked to school by myself since I was 10. I rode a bus to school by myself when I was in middle and high. Everyday I find scores of kids riding the same bus I use to go to work.
I live in Spain, by the way, in one major city. Never happened anything bad to me (except missing the bus and having to wait for the next one, or having to stand when the bus was full).
Where I live, younger kids (can) walk if closer than 2 miles AND not crossing any large roads. But if they can’t walk the school system provides busing. Lots of kids get dropped off by car anyway because parents are driving to work, I have made that loop for mine some years. But there isn’t a situation where car riding is required for public school (except for school choice schools, if there is room you can put them in a not neighborhood school, like if you work across town and want them close to your work not your house) - school won’t bus them there - for magnet schools like performing arts they do have a school bus system to get them farther. My high schoolers (teenagers) took the city bus.
Schools do sort the kids at dismissal, into a bus group, a car group, and walkers, in the elementary/primary school, and all of them have to have someone adult or close to it come for them, they can’t just wander home like I could.
Having kids outside will mess with flocks data set
My mom took me to school for kindergarten, after that I walked. But, I didn’t walk alone, I walked with a group of kids of different ages. It wasn’t organized, it just happened. I’d wait for the kids to pass my house, and join them, a few friends from first grade would be mixed in. The group would grow as we got closer to the school, by the time we got to the crosswalk there were probably fifteen to twenty of us.
This was the early 70s in suburbia, all the kids in the neighborhood at least knew of each other because everyone was outside all summer long, and of course we went to school together. The school was right in the middle of the neighborhood, and only four blocks from my house.
For as much as people bash suburbia, I have fond memories of growing up there. Ultimately I think most of our woes as society stem from capitalism, we just don’t see it. It’s not that car culture allowed for sprawl, it’s that capitalism required us to drive into the city every day to make a living, to earn slave wages. Work from home, or from smaller, distributed locations has been viable for 80 years, apart from factories that make complicated products, but they want us all together for the same reason they don’t want us working from home now. It’s greed, hubris, and their deep desire to be worshiped by their worker bees. They want to stand on a platform, hands on hips looking over their mini-fiefdom, and admire what “they’ve” accomplished.
Towns like this do still exist, but they are getting very rare. When we were looking for our house we specifically tried to find a town like you described, and we did. The elementary and middle schools are about 10 minutes walk from our house, and about 3/4 of the kids in town walk to school. The farthest walkers are maybe a bit over a mile away. Because they are all used to that walk for school, it also translates to the rest of life. My kids will walk or ride their bikes and scooters to the pizzeria or ice cream shop, the town pool is just a few minutes farther, and there are 3 parks within a 5 minute walk. I’m so incredibly happy with our choice and would recommend looking at these things when choosing a place to move to.
What’s wrong with people. Don’t these kids have PlayStations? Why do they need to play outside?
Don’t they know the outdoors is for cars, not kids?
No, outdoors is for adults. Kids should only be allowed outside when properly leashed.
No no, mcv is right.
The outside is for cars.
Its why we keep tearing down everything and paving it over for cars.
Also, Kars is 4 Kids…to be indoctrinated by representatives of a fascist apartheid state.
Kids these days never play outside!
Holy shit is that a kid outside? Better call the fucking cops.
There is a better and healthier way; it’s called Europe - where the children enjoy the freedom to be children.
That just means it will catch up to Europe in a decade.
That’s a very hopeful outlook. Unless the setup in Europe (Germany in my case) - public schools, really well organised football competitions for children of all ages, various clubs and activities, playgrounds everywhere, etc - changes drastically, I don’t see how this is happening in Europe in a decade. Here we literally chase the children to go out, while we sometimes beg them not to go out because it too much. At the height of the last heatwave, right after returning from vacation, our boys wanted to go out.
Yeah, all those things you mentioned are here in the US.
I don’t think so, and even if they were you’d need a car to go anywhere and everywhere. My little children’s school is 2 minutes walk from home. There are three playgrounds within 2, 4 and 8 minutes walk. My boys football club (with proper pitches and lighting) is 8 minutes on foot away from home. All the kids walk there.
This is the way
I’ve got a school in my back yard, a park at the end of my block, it’s not that there’s nowhere for kids to go, it’s that you’re not allowed to let the kids go there alone.
Which makes it even more ridiculous and speaks of a bigger fundamental issue.
You don’t think so? Where do you think I’m at? But no, I’m sure you would know better about what the US has. From Germany. You don’t even seem to know the US has public schools almost all kids go to.
I assumed from your instance from the onset that you’re also based in Germany, or have something to do with this place. But, my argument still stands. I didn’t mention only schools, did I? And even if we limit ourselves to schools, you should know that the school concept in Germany is entirely different from the US. In Germany you HAVE to go to the primary school within a defined school boundary - whether you’re rich or poor. Privatisation of schools is almost non-existent. Walking to and from school is the norm - this is absolutely encouraged. For example, my kids school bars parents from driving anywhere within 800 metres to drop their kids off. This encourages self reliance as children walk alone or in groups to school each day.
I want to know if all these calls were from different people or from the same busybody. If the latter, then the real police involvement ought to be going after that person for harassment.
Some busybody that also doesn’t want to deal with it themselves.
The article even says they asked the kid if they were lost and he literally pointed to his house. Ridiculous they still called the cops. Also says something the cops knew EVERY time which house to go to.
My friend’s parents (who he is now no-contact) are those people! Fox News brain got them calling up the police on anybody suspicious.
Ten times in three months, and after two fines for abusing the police lines, 911 now refuses to take their calls.
Last my friend checked, they were ranting on Nextdoor and writing sympathy posts on Facebook to get people to call 911 for them.
from the article it sounds like the same person…who they suspected had even been following them. I’d say a restraining order. cuz only a creep would take that much interest in a 7 yr old like that.
You could know. It’s only one click away.
You could also read the article and realize it’s not very clear. It’s only one click away
No, I fucking can’t. As I already said, I did read the article and it wasn’t actually clear whether all four calls were from completely distinct groups of people.
Caller #1 was “a woman.”
Caller #2 was “a woman… and another man.”
Caller #3 was “some pickleball players.”
Caller #4 was completely undescribed.
For all we know, it could’ve been the same woman in all four cases: maybe she’s with a man sometimes, and maybe she plays pickleball. It isn’t specific enough to rule that out.
I’m getting kinda tired of assholes making stupid assumptions about whether I read the article or not and getting them wrong.
Bet money kids and mom are POC as well.
I bet they aren’t. The cops didn’t escalate.
I would encourage you to read the article, often you’ll find additional information there. It was different people or groups of people every time.
I did read the article. It didn’t say it was the same person, but it didn’t say every call was from a different person, either.
True story. I took a city bus to the library, by myself, when I was 6 years old. This trip included a transfer.
Still here 63 years later …Matilda?
Still here 63 years later
wow jesus christ 63 years!! You should go ask the library assistant, they will prob help you. Your family are probably worried sick!
My parents only gave me a dime for the trip there …
No dime for the return trip, eh?
Some say he’s still riding on the MTA.
Vote for George O’Brien!
That’s neglect! Someone call the cops!
I chuckled
I didn’t realize this sloth was in fact our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I was recently talking ro someone about the gokd ole days.
When i was a kid, my friend and i would take a bus from Canada to the US to go hang out at the hockey arena to get autographs on our hockey cards.
We took a bus.
Went through customs. (All we needed back then was a birth certificate.)
Walked through a notoriously bad area to get to the arena.
Hung out for hours.
And returned home safely.
We were 10.
We used to cross the border between Quebec and the US to go jump off of a bridge and a set of cliffs over a river on the US side. We would go as a group of five or 10 kids on bmx’s and 10-speed bikes. Border guards never even talk to us. They would just wave us through as we came in. And most of the time they were all smiles.
Yep, quite relatable!
60 here. Parents used to send my brother and alone on the subway to go to the museum. I was 5 and he was 9.
