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Brittany Patterson had to take one of her four children to a medical appointment, and her youngest son, 10-year-old Soren, was going to come with them. This was a few weeks ago on a Wednesday afternoon. But at the last minute, Soren wasn’t around, and when Patterson called him, his phone was dead.
So, like moms and dads throughout history, she had to make a quick decision: Do I stay or do I go?
Credit: Evan Mann
Credit: Evan Mann
She thought about it rationally: She trusted her son. He often played in the woods. What’s more, his grandpa was home, and her mom and sisters live just a few minutes’ walk away in their quiet town of Blue Ridge, Georgia.
Off she went.
This would lead to her arrest.
Because, as it turns out, Soren didn’t stay at home and didn’t tell his grandpa where he was going. He simply decided to walk to downtown Mineral Bluff — a bustling metropolis that boasts a gas station, post office, Dollar General and church. No stoplight, population 370. The roads leading there are 25 or 35 mph.
When a woman saw him walking by himself, she asked if he was fine — he said yes — but she alerted the authorities anyway. That’s because America has become a place where it is so unusual to see young people doing almost anything on their own, it strikes some onlookers as dangerous.
It’s not. We’ll get to the crime stats in a sec. But long story short is that the sheriff who came to pick up the boy then called Patterson and asked if she knew her son was taking this less-than-a-mile walk. Patterson replied no, she thought he was home. The sheriff proceeded to read her the riot act: Anything could have happened! Her son could have been kidnapped! And Patterson didn’t even know where he was!
We pause now to look at crime statistics: In the United States, crime was going up in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. It peaked around 1993 and has been going down pretty steadily ever since, with a blip during the coronavirus pandemic. I know it doesn’t feel safer, but the homicide rate is basically back to what it was in the disco era. If we have to wait until there is zero crime before we let our kids do anything on their own again, perhaps we should also wait until there are zero car crashes before we drive them anywhere. Nothing is perfectly safe, including walking to town or driving to an appointment. But neither is particularly dangerous.
As for kidnappings: Statistically, you would have to keep your child outside, unsupervised for 750,000 years for them to be likely to be snatched by a stranger. So, not a big threat.
Nonetheless, that night the sheriff came to Patterson’s home and arrested her for “reckless conduct” — the crime of not knowing where her son was for a period of time, thereby endangering him. She was handcuffed in front of three of her four kids and taken to the Fannin County Jail. She had her mug shot taken. Her fingerprints taken. And her clothes taken away — she had to change into an orange prison uniform.
Quick question, readers: When you were a kid, did your mom know where you were every second? Mine did not. And that wasn’t irresponsible. It was good parenting!
A 2023 article in The Journal of Pediatrics looked at why kids today are so depressed and anxious. It concluded that, over the decades, as children’s independence and free play have plummeted, their mental health has too. The article concluded that this is not just correlation — it is causation.
We all need some independence, even kids. Think about how it feels to be micromanaged at work. You chafe! You rage! And yet that is the modern-day childhood we expect kids to endure: A helicoptered existence.
That is the very childhood the government wants Patterson to give her son.
Relatives bailed Patterson out before she had to spend the night in jail. But after a Department of Family and Children’s Services case manager did a home visit, the agency sent Patterson a “safety plan” to sign.
It said from now on Patterson must always let her children — now aged 11 to 16 — know anytime she leaves the house. She also had to assign a “safety person” to Soren, who will always know his whereabouts. She’d also be required to download a tracking app, while the case manager watched (speaking of micromanagement), so she could track her son.
In other words, the state was mandating full-time tracking of this young man because he’d walked to town on his own.
Even though full-time tracking mandated by the state was, until recently, something reserved for prisoners on work-release.
Before she’d sign this plan, Patterson tracked down attorney David DeLugas, founder of ParentsUSA, a nonprofit that often defends parents unjustly accused of child neglect. He had defended another Georgia mom in a similar case. DeLugas took Patterson’s case pro bono and, as her counsel, took a call from the assistant district attorney to discuss it. He recorded the conversation, and later let me listen.
The assistant district attorney implied to DeLugas that if Patterson would sign the safety plan, the criminal charges would be dropped.
DeLugas responded that if Patterson had to sign a safety plan simply because her son walked someplace without her knowing his exact location, “Are you saying that every time a kid says, ‘Mom, I’m going to play with my friends,’ and they go, ‘OK, be home by dinner!’ that is somehow criminal? Or subjects them to a safety plan because they didn’t know exactly where their child was?”
The assistant district attorney replied that Soren had been in danger. “I want to resolve this in a way just to protect the child.”
“Is it really protecting children when we lock up their mother?” asked DeLugas. He has set up a GoFundMe to help ParentsUSA cover the Pattersons’ legal expenses.
Because for now, Patterson is refusing to sign the plan. This is incredibly brave. If she is tried for reckless conduct she could face up to a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.
Here’s what’s really reckless: Arresting moms for not knowing where their kids are every single second.
It’s up to parents to decide when to give their kids some independence. And it’s up to the government to swoop in only when kids are in grave danger. Not anytime they walk to the dollar store.
Lenore Skenazy is president of Let Grow, the nonprofit promoting childhood independence and resilience, and founder of the Free-Range Kids movement. She also writes for reason.com.
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