William Flew on Children

Mother of the Year candidate surprised by kerfuffle from leaving kid home alone for a week while she went to Taiwan. After all, there was plenty of water in the dish


A village woman is accused of taking the "Home Alone" scenario to a new extreme, leaving her 13-year-old daughter behind during her weeklong trip to Taiwan.Police charged the single mom, Winifred Chaffee, with misdemeanor child endangerment, despite her claim that she left her girl with plenty of cash, credit cards and prepared meals.

"If you want to leave your 13-year-old home for like an hour or two to go to dinner or shop, that's acceptable, depending on how mature the kid is," Croton police Sgt. John Nikotopoulos said. "We obviously felt this was not right and made the arrest."


Fark comments


The girl was 13, and there is no contradiction that food was not in the house or that she didn't have access to money, and she even went to school.

This is borderline for me, but I'm going with overreaction.


I'm going to stick around for what is sure to be a very rational and civilized discussion about cultural standards of child safety in various times and locations, from Danish moms leaving their children outside in prams while they get a cup of coffee to the 1970s 'latchkey kids' to how the free-range perimeter has diminished since our grandfathers roamed the prairies to appropriate ages and durations of children being under self-care, finally to conclude with snarky comments (as they are the only type of authorized comment on Fark) about the length and duration of this run-on sentence.

Leaving water in the dish doesn't mean safety. You have to tie the kid to a tree to make sure they don't wander.

I find it's better to give them some sort of a run to let them burn off extra energy. And of course if you're going to leave them out there more than two or three days it's a good idea to give them a tarp, or at least a big empty cardboard box.

Many states also hold parents accountable for their children's truancy, and Arizona was the first state to implement such laws. The rationale behind this movement was to coerce parents into taking an active role in their children's education and for all parties to take truancy laws and school attendance seriously. In Virginia, parents can be fined and jailed for failure to adequately supervise school-aged children, which includes making sure they are attending school. In Pennsylvania, parents can also be fined and jailed if they have not taken reasonable steps to ensure their child is attending school. In Texas and many other states, similar laws have recently been passed.

In the UK (new window)

Relevant Passage:

The local authority may prosecute you (they don't have to issue a penalty notice first) and this could result in a more severe penalty. You could get a fine of up to £2,500, a community order or, in extreme cases, a jail sentence of up to three months. If the court thinks it will help to stop your child missing school, it may also impose a Parenting Order.