How Letting a Young Child Go for a Walk Can Become a Criminal Offense

Some readers may have seen Lenore Skenazy’s Reason article about how local authorities in Williamsburg, Virginia prosecuted Karyann Parkinson because she decided to let her five-year-old son walk by himself to collect goose feathers by a pond in a gated community. There is more to the story, but not anything that makes the government’s actions seem any more reasonable.

I was at Ms. Parkinson’s trial. She is a former student and neighbor. On this basis The Free Press asked for my thoughts on her prosecution and conviction. My article begins:

On a sunny day in June, Karyann Parkinson made a fateful choice that could affect her life for years to come: She let her 5-year-old son, Sam, walk alone to a neighborhood pond to collect goose feathers.

Nothing happened to Sam, at least not physically. But for her choice, Parkinson was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a first-degree misdemeanor in Virginia. In August, she was convicted by a local judge after a bench trial in the Williamsburg Juvenile & Domestic Relations District Court and given a six-month suspended jail sentence.

Knowing Parkinson—a then-neighbor and former student—and having attended the trial, it seems she was punished less for making a debatable parenting choice and more for refusing to come to heel when questioned about her decision. It’s not so much that she let Sam collect goose feathers so much as that she did not genuflect to the proper authorities. That makes the case no less of an outrage. Parkinson has found herself in every parents’ nightmare—hence why it made national news. So how, exactly, can a mother be given a suspended jail sentence for simply letting her son go for a walk?

My article concludes:

Parenting involves myriad difficult choices, not the least of which is determining when each child is capable of taking independent steps. Here there is a risk of allowing too much as well as of allowing too little. If a parent is too permissive, they risk seeing their child coming into danger. If a parent is not permissive enough, on the other hand, they risk stunting a child’s development, including of their fortitude and resilience. Failure to allow and encourage greater independence at an earlier age no doubt contributes to the rise of anxiety and other mood disorders, particularly among children of middle- and upper-class families. Finding the right balance necessarily involves some degree of trial and error, as it is impossible to know whether, with a given child, a particular decision was overprotective or not protective enough until after the fact. On top of that, parents will weigh the balance differently, both for themselves as well as for children with varying capabilities.

Parents understandably agonize over such choices, acutely aware of the consequence of a wrong decision. This is enough for them to worry about. They should not have to worry about government officials second-guessing their choices or threatening criminal charges if a given cop or prosecutor determines a given choice was too permissive. One can conclude Parkinson was too permissive with Sam without thinking her decision was criminal.

Parkinson has appealed the judgment against her. And under Virginia law, she is entitled to a jury. A lone local district court judge was convinced debatable parenting choices could be subject to criminal sanction. We will see if a jury of Parkinson’s peers agree.