Monday. Late-morning. Hotter than hot.
Not even 24 hours home from vacation, and I
was going through the piles of mail. There was a knock at the door, which was
weird because no one ever knocks on our door unless it’s the UPS guy, and he
doesn’t come until dinnertime. Corralling the crazy barky dog, I looked out the
front-door window and saw a woman I did not know — and my 6-year-old.
I whipped the door open, trying to figure out
what was happening. The woman smiled. My son frowned. And as soon as the door
opened he flew into the house, running as far away from the woman as he could.
“Is that your son?” she asked with a smile.
I nodded, still trying to figure out what was
happening.
“He
said this was his house. I brought him home.” She was wearing dark glasses. I
couldn’t see her eyes, couldn’t gauge her expression.
“You
brought …”
“Yes.
He was all the way down there, with no adult.” She motioned to a park bench
about 150 yards from my house. A bench that is visible from my front porch. A
bench where he had been playing with my 8-year-old daughter, and where he
decided to stay and play when she brought our dog home from the walk they’d
gone on.
“You
brought him home … from playing outside?” I continued to be baffled.
And
then the woman smiled condescendingly and explained that he was OUTSIDE. And he
was ALONE. And she was RETURNING HIM SAFELY. To stay INSIDE. With an ADULT. I
thanked her for her concern, quickly shut the door and tried to figure out what
just happened.
Chalking
it up to a well-meaning but overvigilant neighbor, I went back to the huge
post-vacation stack of mail and my son went to get himself a drink of water
(shocking that a 6-year-old has the complete faculties to not only play outside
but to get himself a cold beverage!). A few minutes later there was another
knock at the door, and the dog again went nuts. I could feel my hackles rising
to match his. I didn’t want to engage with this woman about my parenting
practices. I didn’t want to have a discussion about how children should be
allowed to play outside. I didn’t want to talk about how he’s the youngest of
three, has been under constant surveillance since he was born, has rules and
perimeters for playing outside, and had been outdoors a total of 15 minutes
that morning. I didn’t want to get into it with a stranger. Not at all.
I
opened the door, ready to politely and firmly tell her to go away, but it was
not her. It was a police officer.
The
police officer asked if my son had been outside alone. She asked why I thought
it was OK for him to be unsupervised. She took my ID. She wrote down the names
and ages of the children.
There
are not a lot of times in one’s life when you can use a word like
“flabbergasted” without hyperbole, but this was one of those times. I was
nearly struck dumb. I answered her questions until I gathered my senses about
me and began to explain the situation. I asked if she was really there to question
me about letting my children play outside WITHIN VIEW OF MY OWN HOUSE. We
seemed to agree that this was a little ridiculous. She offered a halfhearted
warning that “you never know what can happen in just a few blocks,” and I
choked back my retort of “you never know what can happen when you get out of
bed in the morning.” I choked back my, “The fact that this particular
6-year-old can play outside on his own is a miracle in and of itself, do you
think I would ever, EVER tempt fate with him?” I choked back my, “We celebrate
every day that he is independent and healthy enough to play outside.” I choked
back so many things.
The
police officer left with a curt nod and without filing a report.
The
children were awestruck and worried that a police officer had just questioned
their mother in front of them. I was mortified. And angry. They were just playing outside. I
can’t emphasize that enough.
I
tried to shake it off and go about the rest of the day, but I was so, so upset.
Then, that night, my 6-year-old cried because he thought someone would call the
police when he couldn’t fall asleep at his bedtime. We talked about how that
would never happen, how this was an isolated incident, how much we love and
care for each other in our family. We talked about how the neighbor thought she
was doing a good thing and that it was an unfortunate misunderstanding and
everything was all over now.
The
week moved slowly on. Preparations were made for the imminent start of school,
17 tons of post-vacation laundry was cleaned, doctors appointments were
attended. And then … later that week we were at the pulmonologist’s office when
I got a voice mail from a Child Protective Services investigator. She wanted me
to call her back immediately.
I
think if it was possible to base jump onto a diving roller coaster, the
swooping feeling in your stomach would still be only half of what I experienced
at that moment. I felt lucky to be at a pulmonologist's office, because surely
they’d be able to help me when I started hyperventilating.
I
somehow drove us all home without having a heart attack. Made lunch. Called an
attorney friend to see if I needed to start getting really, really worried, and
then I called back the CPS investigator. Within an hour she was at the house,
interviewing the kids one at a time, alone with her, while I had to sequester myself
upstairs. I wanted to argue. I wanted to protest. I wanted to stamp my foot and
say, “No, ma’am, you are NOT allowed to speak to my children without me being
present.” But I was cowed. And I understood why the process had to be that way.
I didn’t like it. I DON’T like it. But I understood. I understand. I complied.
My
kids reported that she asked questions about drugs and alcohol, about
pornography, about how often they bathe, about fighting in the home. And again,
I understand the need for these questions. I understand CPS investigators have
an incredibly difficult job. But the conflict I feel is immense. My children
were playing outside,
within sight of the house,
and now my 6-year-old and 8-year-old and 12-year-old have seen their mother
spoken to — multiple times — as if she, herself, was a child being reprimanded.
They have all been questioned, by a stranger, about whether they’ve ever been
shown movies of other people’s private parts. And no matter what I say, I can
tell that they think they’ve done something wrong.
After
the children were interviewed, I was interviewed, my husband was called (again,
making me feel as if I had acted like a disobedient child), even our baby
sitter got a phone call. Then, finally, once the caseworker consulted with her
supervisor, I was reassured that because the kids really were just playing outside, and
their stories matched mine as well as the police officer’s account, the
incident would be marked as a non-event and the case would be closed. (It has
been.)
But
I was also warned: The neighbor can call CPS as many times as she wants. If she
truly feels there’s neglect, she can’t be prosecuted for making false
allegations. We could try to sue her for harassment. We could try to press
charges for kidnapping if she approaches our son again and tries to get him to
move from where he’s playing. But in all reality, when children are involved,
the person who makes the complaint gets the benefit of the doubt. For parents,
it is guilty until proven innocent.
Do
I know how lucky I am to be able to call friends who are attorneys, to be able
to Google my questions, to have a working phone to call the CPS investigator to
get updates, to have a circle of friends I can trust to be supportive and
indignant along with me? I see my privilege. I want to apologize for it. I know
this has been just a taste of what others go through. I get it, Universe, you
have thrown open the floodgates of perspective. I am drowning in it.
Our
neighborhood is small. There’s a wide-open green space with walking trails
right across the street from our house. The lawns are (sometimes forcibly
through the homeowners association) well-maintained. There’s a playground at
the top of the hill. And there are no children outside. Anywhere. It is a
creepy vista of green grass and beautiful trees without a living soul marring
its surface. It is a place where, when children are playing outside alone, the
police are called immediately.
The
real estate literature says “Perfect for families!”
This
whole incident has left me very angry and disillusioned. And sad.
I
could list statistics about how America is safer now that it has ever been.
About how child injury stats can be interpolated in such a way that leaving a
kid with a stranger is actually statistically safer than leaving a child with a
parent or a friend of the family. I could talk about helicopter parenting and a
24-hour news cycle that is making the country paranoid and couch-bound.
But
what I want to talk about are children who don’t feel safe outside — not
because of stranger-danger or threat of immediate injury, but because the
police will be called if they’re just playing like we played when we were
young. What will members of the Always On Screens Generation be like when
they’re adults? When they weren’t afforded the ability to play and explore and
test limits and problem-solve, when everything was sanitized and supervised,
when the crimes committed against them were more likely to happen online than
in the park across the street? What will this do? How will society be affected?
I
guess we’re about to find out, aren’t we? Because my children aren’t allowed
outside until we can sell our house and move to a more hospitable neighborhood.
Though,
I wonder: Do more hospitable neighborhoods even exist anymore? Is everyone so
terrified of the world that they sit in their Wall-E chairs, watching 24-hour “news,”
rifles on their laps, and their phones pre-dialed to 911? How do we make sense
of the dichotomy that our country is safer than it has ever been and yet
small-town police departments have tanks and automatic weapons? How do we teach
our children that it’s OK to play outside and to learn on their own, to enjoy a
taste of freedom — but to be very, very careful when wearing a hoodie,
especially if they have dark skin?
You’d
think, with all this perspective, that I could see far and wide, that I could
find an answer for these questions, that I could help cobble together a
solution (“All Kids Play Outside Day”? “Look We Can Climb Trees Without Dying
Day”? “National Don’t Shoot Anyone In A Hoodie Day”?) But I haven’t been able
to. I can’t reconcile anything. All I know is that my family, while still
feeling kind of bruised and grouchy, is lucky. And that my neighbor, if given
the resources, would probably write a blog post about this terrible mother down
the street who lets her babies play outside all alone.
So,
for now, we stay in the house. And we try not to fall victim to fear like
everyone else. We try not to be afraid of the outside world. We try to learn
from our privilege. We try not to be daunted by the view perspective affords
us.
We
just try.
Really,
really hard.
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