The kids are all right

WHEN MY KID was little, my gut told me when she was ready for more independence.

I have visceral memories of the first time my husband and I let her walk by herself to the corner store. To her surrogate grandma Lorraine's house, two streets away. To her karate class across town - via SEPTA, alone.

Each time she returned, unharmed and exhilarated, I felt pride and dread; I knew the next sortie would take her even farther from our protection. But we tried not to hold her back when it was obvious she was ready for more autonomy. To do so would have been more about indulging our fears than about honoring the kid's need to keep growing.

She's at college now and most of the time we have no idea where she is, who she's with or what she's up to. She's happy and doing well. We miss her like crazy.

As parents, that's our bittersweet job, isn't it, to prepare our children to leave us? To make them capable and self-reliant so they'll be OK as adults?

But our notions about how to get them there are as different as our own families are. Which brings us to the unfortunate tale of Alexander and Danielle Meitiv of Silver Spring, Md.

In December, the couple allowed their kids - Rafi, 10, and Dvora, 6 - to walk a mile home alone from a park. The kids had walked shorter distances by themselves in the past and had acted responsibly.

They were picked up by police, who drove them home and lectured their parents about the dangers of the world. And then the local child-protection agency was asked to evaluate the kids' safety. The Meitivs were found to be responsible for "unsubstantiated neglect," which is shorthand for, "Your style of parenting, which we cannot prove endangered your kids, is just weird."

Last week, the Meitivs once again allowed Rafi and Dvora to walk home alone, and the kids were once again picked up by cops. This time, the cops turned the kids directly over to the child-protection agency, where they were held for more than five hours.

Talk about stranger danger! No wonder the Meitivs have decided to sue the county.

Said their lawyer, Matthew Dowd, in a statement, "We must ask ourselves how we reached the point where a parent's biggest fear is that government officials will literally seize our children off the streets as they walk in our neighborhoods."

In interviews, the Meitivs come across as loving parents who know Rafi and Dvora well, recognize their increasing need for independence and accommodate it thoughtfully. They also know that the U.S. crime rate is lower than it has been in decades (go to www.freerangekids.com to read the astonishing statistics).

It doesn't feel that way, of course. Thanks to our 24-hour news cycle, we have the ability to hear about every crime being committed at every minute of the day. But that doesn't mean it's unfolding all at once just outside our door. There are dangerous neighborhoods, of course, and kids need to be protected accordingly. Common sense is common sense.

But if putting the stats into perspective and adjusting your parenting accordingly is considered "neglect," then my deepest wish is that more parents would neglect their children the way the Meitivs have neglected theirs.

My wish is also for more cops to behave as appropriately as Philly cops did one morning last month. They were summoned by a passer-by who saw two little girls walking alone near 25th and Snyder. The kids told police that they'd missed their school bus and were locked out of their house.

The officers' supervisor had them drive the girls to school and bring them to the office. The girls' mom wasn't alerted to what had happened, though, until a neighbor told her she'd seen the girls driven away in a police car.

The mom told Fox 29 News, "I was hysterical." She met with 1st District police to let them know they should have called before taking her kids anywhere.

Sometime during the meeting, I hope she also told them "thank you." And I hope she was as effusive as Jaclyn Mager and Timothy Ridgeway were when police put their daughter, Annabelle, 4, into a squad car last month.

Unknown to her parents, Annabelle had left their home at 3 a.m. in search of "a slushie." A passerby saw her and flagged down a passing SEPTA 56 bus, whose driver, Harlan Jenifer, allowed Annabelle to wait in the warm vehicle until police arrived.

"She's a small little thing," Jenifer chuckled to 6ABC News. "It kind of just shocked me."

Annabelle's mom and dad were equally shocked when police tracked them down. The parents made their 38-inch-tall daughter promise never to take off again, and then profusely thanked all who had looked out for her, especially bus driver Jenifer.

"There are no words; he saved my daughter's life," Mager said.

No doubt. Because a 4-year-old alone outside on a cold March night, crossing streets in the dark without the knowledge of her folks or the sure hand of an adult is clearly a child at risk.

The Meitiv kids were at no such risk. Yet they and their parents have been punished as if they were. If a brother and sister are at risk just by walking home from a park with the consent of parents, in a neighborhood they know well, then I guess my own childhood was rife with danger. So were the childhoods of every friend I have.

Thank God we never knew it. We'd have been too scared to grow up.

Phone: 215-854-2217

On Twitter: @RonniePhilly

Blog: ph.ly/RonnieBlog