In my daily sojourns for news, I occasionally encounter SM posts from Millennials or Gen Zers, wondering aloud why those of us in Gen X have either avoided blame for all of today's financial and social woes or why we have managed to stay out of the generational conflicts. The truth is, you can blame us if you want to. We won't care. We'll never care.
We are the generation responsible for some of the best (and worst) music and fashion trends in the nation's history. We are tech-savvy enough to navigate social media, set up our own wireless router systems, and master touchless payments. And we can still write in cursive, read an analog clock, and drive a stick shift. We don't need positive affirmation, and we don't give a box of canary feces about pronouns.
All of that was made possible because, in large part, many of us were left to fend for ourselves. It isn't that our parents didn't love us, but we were expected to be responsible enough to make ourselves scarce, not get arrested, and get a job when we were old enough. We were the beta test for latch-key kids. If I wanted to go somewhere, such as the corner store, I walked. If the destination was too far to walk, I hopped a bus. I even made the six-mile trek from my home to the closest mall on my bike on a few occasions.
That isn't something a kid can do anymore. Some would argue that the world is more dangerous than when I grew up, although crimes and atrocities happened even when I was a kid. A friend of mine was abducted, raped, and murdered while walking to school one morning.
The skyrocketing crime rate and the general lack of civility across the spectrum are large parts of society's ills. America has become more violent and more perverted. For examples of those problems, feel free to peruse the pages of PJ Media at your leisure.
On the other hand, in recent decades, Americans have seen a tendency on the part of government entities at various levels and any number of other busybodies to tell everyone else how to live their lives. Independent thoughts and actions can be viewed as suspicious. Even subversive.
This brings us to the story of the Widner family in Canton, Georgia.
Reason notes that the Widners homeschool their three kids. Back in August of 2018, the kids were on the swim team at the local YMCA. One day after practice, the kids were walking home when the youngest, seven-year-old Jackson, stopped at the local grocery store because it handed out free cookies. Fair enough. Jackson's presence as an unaccompanied minor raised some eyebrows and he was detained until the police could respond. Jackson refused to tell the cops anything since he had been taught not to talk to strangers. The police were able to deduce that he had been at the YMCA. They also told the boy that he was guilty of a serious infraction. Jackson took the opportunity to inform the police that he would go home if they just left him alone. Instead, the officers brought Jackson home and gave his father, Glenn, a stern talking-to. Glenn was told, "You just can't raise kids like that anymore—it isn't safe.”
Glenn disagreed and had the stats to back up his assertion. But the stats were not enough to keep the cops from calling CPS. A caseworker spent six hours talking with the family and eventually decided that nothing was amiss. She even admitted that the Widners' approach to child-rearing might have some value for her own children.
The following Jan. 2, Jackson decided to take his new bike for a ride, and a lady at a nearby park told him that he was too young to ride his bike unsupervised. He returned to the grocery store for another cookie. Jackson called his mom, Beth, on his new watch phone. The cops had arrived again, and she came to the store to find Jackson sitting in the back of a patrol car. Beth was able to take Jackson home, but CPS was alerted. On Jan. 18, Jackson and his bike were back at the store, and he was in search of another cookie. His parents had told him to knock it off, but the siren song of free cookies was too strong to resist.
This time, the cops brought Jackson and his bike home and informed Glenn that he was breaking the law by letting Jackson roam about unsupervised. Naturally, Glenn wanted to know which law he had violated. He was told to "Google it." "Google it," of course, is code-speak for "I don't have a leg to stand on, but I am hoping to scare you into agreeing or complying." Another officer threatened Glenn with a felony charge and jail time for neglect and "contributing to the delinquency of a minor." Naturally — because there is no greater danger to society than seven-year-olds on bikes looking for free cookies. Not since the days of Al Capone had a city faced such a terrible crime wave.
A new CPS caseworker arrived. She told the Widners that they had broken a law that she could not cite, accused Glenn and Beth of having a problem with child supervision, and said that the Widners would need to follow a parenting plan crafted by CPS. The Widners informed the CPS worker that they would do no such thing. That was followed by the requisite threat on the part of the CPS worker to inform her supervisor. Two caseworkers subsequently stopped by the house to talk to Glenn, but he was not home. Nothing ever came of the incidents, but the Widners were concerned enough that they eventually moved outside of the city limits.
Reason and the group Let it Grow recently arranged a meeting between the Widners and the governor of Georgia to discuss the issue and talk about creating a "Reasonable Childhood Independence law which would codify the difference between parents who put their kids in danger as opposed to those who let their children out of sight for an hour or so. Like when they go to the store for a free cookie.
Lavrentiy Beria, one of the most feared members of Stalin's secret police, once boasted, "Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime." Such is the fate of societies that place too high a value on government and power and not enough value on people. After all, once all of those guns, badges, credentials, and IDs have been issued, somebody has to do something, right?
No one is arguing that there is not a need to protect endangered children. But that does not include a seven-year-old who wants some free cookies.
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