Virginia mom gets 6-month sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond alone

“A mom of five was convicted last week of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Her offense: allowing her 5-year-old son to walk about a half-mile by himself in their gated community,” reports Reason Magazine.

“Until very recently, Karyann Parkinson lived in leafy Williamsburg, Virginia. She and her husband, Dallin, moved there from Utah so Parkinson could attend William and Mary Law School.

In June, when Parkinson was preparing for the bar—and also happened to be eight months pregnant with her fifth child—she and her then-youngest, Sam, went for a bike ride, as they often do. They stopped for her son’s favorite activity: collecting goose feathers from the path near their community pond. When they got home, he asked if he could walk back and get some more.

Parkinson said yes. It’s a short walk, along a sidewalk separated from the street by 10 feet of grass. Sam would have to cross two streets with crosswalks, which she’d seen him do safely hundreds of times—including six times that morning, she says. Off he went while she made lunch.

A passerby saw Sam and alerted security. One of the community’s security guards escorted the boy back and gave Parkinson an earful. Pretty soon there were three cop cars, just as many cops, a security vehicle, and two Child Protective Services (CPS) workers at Parkinson’s door.

CPS ended up investigating her for abuse and neglect.

The cops, meanwhile, charged her with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. CPS found the allegations substantiated and placed Parkinson on the state’s child abuse and neglect registry. She will remain there for seven years.

The ordeal reached its nadir last week when a judge convicted Parkinson of the delinquency of a minor charge, a first-degree misdemeanor. This comes with a six-month jail sentence.

While the judge immediately suspended the sentence, pending good behavior and compliance with CPS’ conditions, the conviction remains. Parkinson assumes this means she will not be able to volunteer in her kids’ schools. She fears it could also mean she will not get her law license….

At the trial….The CPS worker testified that Sam seemed happy and healthy when she saw him that day. Parkinson’s friend testified to Sam’s maturity, and that he could be trusted to walk to the pond without going rogue.”

Back in the 1980s, it was common for 11-year-old girls to babysit children in the neighborhood. The kids turned out fine. Yet today, some local governments will arrest you for child endangerment for letting your 14-year-old daughter babysit her own siblings. As lawyer Alison Somin notes, “In the late 80s/early 90s, when I was growing up, there was a hugely popular series of novels about a Babysitters Club. The charter members were 13 and the junior babysitters 11. Nobody thought that was unusual or worrisome.”

But times have changed, for the worse, and we have become a nation of paranoid people and helicopter parents. As a result, a mother was handcuffed and jailed for letting her 14-year-old daughter babysit. Lenore Skenazy described what happened:

When COVID-19 shut down her children’s daycare in May of 2020, and Melissa Henderson had to go to work, she asked her 14-year-old daughter, Linley, to babysit the four younger siblings. Linley was engaged in remote learning when her youngest brother, four-year-old Thaddeus, spied his friend outside and went over to play with him. It was about 10 or 15 minutes before Linley realized he was missing. She guessed that he must be at his friend’s house, and went to fetch him.

In the meantime, the friend’s mom had called the police. Now Henderson, a single mom in Blairsville, Georgia, is facing criminal reckless conduct charges for letting her 14-year-old babysit. The charges carry a maximum penalty of one year in prison and fine of $1,000. The arresting officer, Deputy Sheriff Marc Pilote, wrote in his report that anything terrible could have happened to Thaddeus, including being kidnapped, run over, or “bitten by a venomous snake.” (When Henderson protested that the kid was only gone a few minutes, Pilote responded that a few minutes was all the time a venomous snake needed.)

Here is a photo of the busy street and jungle-like conditions Thaddeus faced. That’s his buddy’s home on the right, photographed by Henderson from her porch.

The case has been dragging on for almost two years now, while Henderson’s lawyer, David DeLugas, argues that charging a mom for a normal parenting decision was declared unconstitutional by the Georgia Supreme Court in 1997. In that case, a mom left her 11-year-old babysitting a younger sibling who died in a tragic accident. Even then, the court ruled, it was arbitrary and subjective to call the mom’s decision reckless. What’s more, DeLugas points out, Georgia’s own child protective guidelines say kids can babysit at age 13. DeLugas is founder of Parents USA, which exists to fight cases like this.