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This happened right down the road from me. I know this gated community well.
I'm curious how other parents feel about this situation. Would love to hear your thoughts.
And not to sound too much like a GenX crank (although I guess I am), but when we were kids, we galloped our little feral ponies through miles and miles of countryside without any adult supervision at all. I would guess that the chances of encountering a pervert (either a stranger or a neighbor!) were about the same as young Sam's chances in his gated community.
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[Karyann Parkinson] was weeks away from giving birth to her fifth child when she took a walk with her son Sam through their gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia....Sam, 5, zoomed ahead of her and back on his bike, with the goose feathers he likes to collect from the ponds’ edges sticking out of his backpack.
When they returned home that day on June 5, Sam wanted to go back out to look for more feathers...Parkinson, who has a bachelor’s degree in family science and graduated from William & Mary Law School in May, said she allowed her son to do the roughly half-mile walk by himself because she and her husband, Dallin, believe it’s important for children to “encounter reasonable risks, to do anything that they feel confident doing within safe parameters.” And Sam knows how to safely cross the street, get back home or ask a neighbor for help because she taught him, Parkinson said.
“I know what he’s capable of,” Parkinson said.
She said she started making lunch, and, after 20 to 30 minutes, there was a knock at the door. On the other side was Sam, visibly shaken, with a handful of feathers, she said. Behind him stood a security guard, who told her a neighbor saw her son outside alone and was so concerned they called security, she said.
Parkinson said she insisted her son was safe and had the right to walk through his neighborhood by himself. But the guard said she had broken the law and called the police, she said.
When asked for comment, the neighborhood security office referred The Post to the HOA, which could not be reached.
On June 18, about two weeks after police first arrived at Parkinson’s doorstep, they returned with a warrant for her arrest, she said. Parkinson was charged and convicted last month of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to online court records...
Parkinson is appealing her conviction along with a substantiated finding against her by the James City County Department of Social Services, which has added her and Sam’s names to the Virginia Abuse and Neglect Registry, where they’ll remain for seven years, she said.
A representative of Child Protective Services in James City County, when reached by phone, declined to comment...
The family has visited the pond Sam walked to hundreds of times, Dallin Parkinson said, adding that he had no concerns with letting his son go to the body of water alone. He said his son, a competitive swimmer, was only allowed to visit the pond’s shallowest parts, so he was not worried about him drowning. In the unfortunate case that Sam fell in, it could be a learning opportunity for him, Dallin said.
“Sometimes life has hard things, and it’s okay for him to go through that,” Dallin said.
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Mother charged after 5-year-old walks to pond alone, stirring parenting debate
wapo.st
Her conviction in Virginia, for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, has sparked disagreement over how young is too young for children to walk alone.17 hours ago
This is such over reach. I’m another grumpy genX who thrived on roaming freely. As a parent, I would not permit my 5YO to go to a pond alone— 5YOs don’t have a lot of executive function yet— but this isn’t a police matter. Mom knew about where the kid was, it wasn’t very far away, and I’m sure he’d have been checked on— this was not neglect. Even in the 70‘s we were told not to go to the pond to go fishing without an adult until we were at least 7-9 years old. However, no matter how innocent it sounds, collecting those feathers is actually a violation of federal law (Canada geese are covered by the MBTA, or migratory bird treaty act). It’s worth teaching your kid to leave them in place. I wouldn’t arrest a kid or parent over that either, but they should be taught about the mbta.
The ONLY risk I see was the possibility of drowning in the pond. Goodness, I wandered the block and around the corner in New Orleans as a preschooler, and my children wandered the neighborhood as preschoolers going back and forth to friends’ homes. That’s the kind of neighborhood every parent wants—where it’s safe for them to be unsupervised outdoors.
This is why some states have free-range laws. A big part of why kids are struggling in school and in general, is because they have to spend their childhood under planned activities with adult supervision. Free play is so important to capability.
I condone the concerned neighbor calling security, security bringing the child home and checking with the parents, perhaps even CPS or the police called for further investigation. I do not condone charging the mother with abuse and arresting her. In my mind it should have been enough for the security officer to determine that the child was safe and parented well.
In the book Anxious Generation, the author commonly refers to our time as the phone based childhood instead of the play based childhood.. And that we are over protecting in the real world, and severely under protecting in the digital world. Much more can be said....
This isn't a decision I would make as a parent. My kids are fairly feral, but they didn't go to the creek until they are both older and with a second person. However, I don't think it's a criminal decision.
My parents had no idea where we were during the day. We rode our bikes everywhere. Knew to come home for supper
I can only replay in my head from Sesame Street- a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter. This is crazy.
This is one of my biggest fears with letting my kids do things independently... I worry less about their safety than I do about the judgment and potential confrontation of strangers, who don't know my children or their capabilities.
My kids were pretty feral but I would not let them walk to a pond alone, or around our neighbor even, at age 5. A little older, like 8 sure but not 5.
I grew up living on a lake. There was really no way for me to be constantly supervised. I received swimming lessons young and my mom checked on me frequently, but an *accident* could have happened. It's crazy to think my parents could have been criminally charged.
I'm with the parents up to the point where water is present, regardless of the child's competence and behavior. Kids make mistakes and bad choices. When I was five, I was asked to and from kindergarten by myself and roamed up and down our little stretch myself. But that was 65 years ago.
I need to find what that law says! I was not aware Virginia has a law about how old a child has to be to be outside on their own.
We are missing key details. What are the rules of the HOA they are referring to? Here our kids walk to school alone beginning in kindergarten.
While this is not a safety risk I would personally be interested in taking, I do think this generally falls within the spectrum of parental judgement. Also, reading the headline alone, I thought this story was going to be much more tragic, on multiple levels. I hope this family can get some peace and healing as this seems like it must be causing totally unnecessary trauma to all involved.
Only a parent can know whether a 5 year old is mature enough to handle this. Some would be and some wouldn’t be. I can see people asking questions and even calling the police given the pond, but actually charging the mother?? Clearly a massive overstep
I walked 1/4 mile in the neighbor’s yards to go to my friends house. I was 7 or younger. That’s when we moved. I think it’s a slippery slope telling people what their own children are capable of. My MIL lived 4 houses down and across the street. My daughter walked there by herself more often than not.
When I turned 6, I walked to and from school with a friend (and sometimes alone). It was around 2 1/2 miles one way in a mostly undeveloped (still farmland) part of our suburban neighborhood in Omaha. I understood that I was not to go anywhere near the creek, and I didn't. I couldn't swim! That was in 1968. Kids ran feral in those days.
When I was 5, my dad was in the navy stationed in Italy. A few of the kids in my building, not on base, roamed pretty freely. I can still remember the smell of the vineyards and green pea fields!
On Netflix you can watch the series old Enough! where Japanese children who are 4 and 5 run errands in busy towns. Charging her for neglect and having that on her record and as a risk to her other children is a waste of overtaxed social services
I'm not a parent, so I can't really say much, although 5 strikes me as a little young to be allowing a child to go to a pond alone. However, I'm wondering WHAT law was allegedly broken, and how realistic it was for the mother to be expected to know about it.
1. I think people should know the law. 2. I believe they know their child would be safe but this is the world we live in-it’s not Little House on the Prairie 3. safety in numbers is a smart rule to live by
I walked to my Virginia primary school by myself from age 6, including crossing Main Street, and no one thought a thing about it. Decades ago, of course. My homeschooled sons were stopped by police in a Mississippi Pizza Hut. They were young teens. They had their backpacks full of library books and they were reading while munching on the buffet. They were a safe bike ride from home, and I thought it was an important part of their independence. The police thought they had ditched school. Sigh.
When I was a kid, my friends and I would walk all over the neighborhood without any supervision. Heck, we walked to school by ourselves. We rode bikes everywhere. We walked down to the corner store or the schoolyard by ourselves.
When my husband visited Japan a couple of years ago he was amazed to see unaccompanied children that age walking the streets, visiting stores, and utilizing public transit. Our culture is so hyper anxious about these things. As others have said, I’m way more worried about having someone report me than about my children going down to road alone. Being a mom is made so much harder these days because we are expected to never let our children do things alone.
Fellow authors, are you seeing any movement on this front? I haven't gotten any notification about the FOURTEEN plus titles that Anthropic ripped off, so I'm also checking with my publishers.
From today's Publishers Marketplace newsletter
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Authors and publishers who filed claims in the Anthropic lawsuit should receive a first payment between November 1 and November 15, according to a status report filed with the court by class counsel. That schedule applies only to "works where all rightsholders are in agreement and where all necessary payment information is provided."
The first payment should be approximately $2,203.56 per title in gross proceeds, "after deduction of fees, services awards, and expenses." Anthropic has deposited $1.05 billion so far into an escrow account, which has earned nearly $25 million in interest. The company will deposit another $450 million plus interest on or before September 27, 2027, after which point rights holders will get paid again. That payment is likely to come much sooner. If Anthropic successfully launches their IPO, which constitutes a "qualified financing," that will trigger the final payment. The parties have agreed that the two appeals by law firms over the awarding of legal fees will not hold up payments to rightsholders.
By today [September 4], all claimants should receive an email "listing their percentage share of any settlement award(s), by work." If everything is accurate, claimants will get their first payment by November 15.
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Widespread Problems as Authors Receive Anthropic Settlement Notices - Publishers Lunch
lunch.publishersmarketplace.com
Authors and publishers who filed claims in the Anthropic lawsuit should receive a first payment between November 1 and November 15, according to a status report filed with the court by class counsel. That schedule applies only to “works where all rightsholders are in agreement and where all necess...3 days ago
According to some author groups I’m in, the e-mails are going out in batches. Some recipients were surprised they were being asked for a SSN/TIN, but I guess it makes sense if they are going to pay you money. I hope you get yours soon! My two historical mysteries were also scraped. I didn’t join the suit but now wish I had.
Just this week I got an email regarding how my claim was supposed to be divvied up between my publishers and me. I had to confirm a couple of things and then fix a couple things. If you haven't gotten an email yet, you might check your spam and try going to their website to see if there's a customer service type link where you can follow up. 
It seemed like people with possible disputes over percentages were getting emails. I got the email and have to submit some info.
Be careful. I think the notice asking for your social security number is a scam.
I have 3 uncontested books that I need to enter my EIN to claim the money and 3 books Harper Collins is apparently contesting because they seem to NOT remember they reverted rights to all 3 novels back in 2020. Sigh. I’ll probably wait until NINC and get direction there on how to fill it out and what exactly to upload.
Can you all help me play detective?
I check my name alert once a week or so, to make sure I'm not being misquoted or mis-attributed (if it's just a plain old personal attack, I usually ignore it). This week, the following quote popped up on a Christian news and opinion site called The Washington Stand. Link to the page is below.
Here's the challenge: I have no memory of writing the words that the author, Hannah Tu, quotes as mine, and there doesn't seem to be a way to contact either the author or the site to inquire.
I have written a whole lot of words in the past thirty-five years, so it's entirely possible that I did write this and I've just forgotten it. But I can't find this quote anywherein my published works or in my electronic archives, and somehow it doesn't quite sound like me (although if I wrote it in a post-baby haze, it could well be).
So can anyone point me in a useful direction?
Postscript: I ran the quote through an AI detector and it came up as "95% AI generated", which has never happened with anything I've written myself. Those tools are not infallible, but it does make me even more skeptical.
Postcript #2, which is actually even more interesting: A very old friend of mine located the quote. It's for an essay I wrote in 2001 that was published in 2002 in an anthology edited by Leland Ryken, www.google.com/books/edition/The_Christian_Imagination/kd0WKh3Sr-AC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=bauer
So I did write it, long ago, and yes, I was in a post-baby haze.
Did you clock the date? 2001 writing, 2002 publication. AI detection tools say that there's a 95% chance that quote was generated by AI, 25 years before AI generation was even possible.
I really did think this was a fake quote, for what it's worth. I don't feel much reassured by the reality...
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We have two major issues to consider. The first is that sin and evil are real parts of our experience. The second issue is that, since we are sinful people, we are more or less drawn toward expressions of darkness. So how do we acknowledge the first issue without encouraging undue interest in the second? More specifically, how should Christians approach themes of light and darkness in creative expression?
Susan Wise Bauer, Ph.D. and author of “The Well-Trained Mind,” frames the question excellently: “But moral evil, the wickedness we inflict on each other is most troubling for the storyteller. Tales of physical and metaphysical evil can ultimately become stories of goodness, as victims exercise strength, faith, and compassion in response to the difficulties they face. But how can descriptions of moral evil be anything but destructive for readers? What good can come from a careful chronicling of murder, and abuse, or a faithful investigation of the twisted thought paths of a serial killer?”
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Dragons to Be Slain: The Role of Sin and Evil in Storytelling
washingtonstand.com
We have two major issues to consider. The first is that sin and evil are real parts of our experience. The second issue is that, since we are sinful people, we6 days ago
Oh sheesh. Now I've just read the whole actual article. How does this person actually think Anne (in Anne of Green Gables) didn't actually suffer true traumatic hardship? Did she not READ about the abuse, the fear, the ... everything ... that informed every one of Anne's actions throughout that first novel? This person is not even a credible source.
Those postscripts that resolve the mystery are fascinating.
Wow. That's crazy. Are you one of the many authors whose works were used to train AI? How ironic is that. Our work trains the beast and then we get pegged as the beast ourselves...
I don't know, but it doesn't sound like you to me either, and there's a comma missing (but that could be a typo on anyone's part)... you don't generally mess up on punctuation! Also, the points contradict each other ... "most troubling for the storyteller" and "how can [these] ... be anything but destructive for readers?" are presupposing an answer and not the argument you would craft without a much more nuanced approach than one paragraph. (ETA: FB spell-checked me on "typo" of all things, and I had to put it back to typo!)
How strong are the name/image/likeness laws in VA?
I believe this is the website of the same Hannah and she has a contact form: hannahtu.com/about
If there's a 95% chance your quote was written by AI (as you state) yet the quote was published in 2002, it seems there's a good chance it was used to "train" AI. But write the same quote today and you'll likely be accused of using AI to write.
Susan, it doesn't sound like your writing style at all. I know that isn't definitive, but I am skeptical, and if the author is attributing a quote to you, that person better be able to produce proof.
Curious which AI detector gave you that result...
I agree your work was used to train AI. I have a theory that more often than we suppose, AI stumbles on examples of the erudite, “old fashioned” ways of expression assuming it’s fake within the framework of today’s writing (scribal) milieu. Long ago, an eighth grade teacher encouraged my occasional waves of elegant phrasing. She said she could tell I’d read great authors of the past. Now I dread those inspired phrases when they come and try to focus on pasting scraps on collages instead.
Thank you for sharing. I think I’ll have my 16-year-old follow this thread. (He has been mostly homeschooled, but is attending traditional public school this year. Earlier this week he was discussing his dread that his instructor might assume he is using AI to write his English essays.)
I don't know enough about AI and AI detection to comment on that part. However your quote makes me think about how pointless it is for us to obsess over crime (Clancy trial, Miller documentary, and just True Crime genre is general!) these days. It says another about our mental and emotional and spiritual state!
Listening in on this…
"Frankenstein" when run through an AI detector comes back as absolutely AI. Those detectors are trash.
