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Teens babysitting is now illegal in Florida. Well, not technically, but practically so. A mother has been charged for leaving her 14 year old to watch her other kids (9, 11, 12) for a few days while she was on a work trip. She hired an adult babysitter to check on them twice a day too.
The youngest accidentally dropped a weight while working out, the type of accudent that can easily occur under adult supervision, they called 911 to get him medical help, and the cops proceeded to arrest the mom upon arriving back home. For the children's safety, they have now been placed with the father who is facing domestic abuse charges and has a restraining order against him, a very safe place indeed.
Here's another summary real quick of the important parts https://x.com/niah_x03/status/2115452369043652617
I've talked about this topic before here on themotte, how children and teens are now treated as completely incapable babies and this will be enforced not just socially but through the law. If it's not immediately clear I think this is ridiculous. When I was a teen, my older sister (15) was babysitting other people's kids. There's even a popular book story from the 80s about young teens and tweens (yes, some were 12!) in middle school babysitting children as part of the babysitters club. And it's not just fiction, people did that in real life. For the younger folk here, this hysteria about leaving a teenager to watch over younger children as neglect is very new and very modern.
I've talked before about how my parents and grandparents would play all around the neighborhood in their own childhood, and yet now even walking in a gated community is deemed too dangerous. At this point I can't even let my own children have independence even if I wanted to (which I do), they literally are not allowed to grow as normal human beings used to because the cops might show up cause they're out on the front yard!
It is just another part of the helicopter parent hysteria as I've talked about before as well. There are young adults now in college who need their parents to walk them through basic life, come visit to do the laundry, and clean for them! We need less "parenting" and more freedom so kids can actually be mature instead of still crying for their mommies in college! Tweens now aren't even allowed to go to another aisle in the grocery store
I once had a great 25-26 year old intern recent graduate who still had her mother trying to butt in once when something happened at my work. She's lucky I'm very forgiving and understanding of her situation and I know that she was embarrassed about it too (I even helped her find a better living situation) but it's another example of how a lot of parents are so crazy nowadays like that!
And again, it's legally enforced now. It's so legally enforced that they'll take your kids away and give them to an abuser with a restraining order! Is this really the society we're stuck with now, where our children are increasingly coddled in their teens, sometimes into their 20s and 30s, never expected to grow up or learn responsibility?
I immediately recall the Virginia Mom convicted for letting her 5 year old walk ½ mile in a gated community.
This isn’t a Florida problem; in fact, that it happens in Florida, the State of Parental Freedom™️, is a testament to how bad it is. This is a US problem: it doesn’t happen in Europe and I’m sure it’s not happening in India, South America, China…(maybe it would in Australia if you could walk anywhere there). Yet at least Europe has less child mortality (albeit only measuring up to 5 years).
That the children are sent to a suspected abuser is at worst government incompetence. In fairness, if he’s still husband maybe it was mom’s and children’s choice, and foster care would probably be worse (though maybe other relatives could take them, if they aren’t familiar or are estranged, that would also probably be worse).
Who defends the police in these cases? I think if the child doesn’t seriously complain, there must be a very high bar to take them away, which is certainly not met here. There aren’t enough good parents, so an OK parent who may recklessly get their child killed (and “may” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, kids aren’t made of glass), is probably the best and actually safest option; lest they end with “parents” who don’t really care about them, or have several other foster children to divide their attention.
it's out of control . The war on drugs, which is when this began, morphed into a war on freedom.
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