The grieving parents of a 7-year-old child who died hours after being hit by a car were charged with involuntary manslaughter after allowing him and his brother, 10, to walk home unaccompanied by an adult from a nearby grocery store.

  • justgohomealready@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    At seven I went to school and back home on foot and alone, about a mile, everyday. I did once have a close call with a car that didn’t stop for a crosswalk.

    Are parents supposed to accompany their kids at all time until they are 18?

    • RBWells@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Yeah 2 miles here. It’s still the rule, school bus service available if you are more than 2 miles away from school OR would have to cross a dangerous road.

      And no, obviously we are supposed to be precognitive and able to tell if something will happen.

      That said - I would let my kids walk to the shop themselves only if there was no big road to cross. Drivers here will run kids right over. Everyone knows someone with a family member killed by a car.

    • OfCourseNot@fedia.io
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      8 months ago

      Yeah when I was seven my sister and I would travel laying in the backseat of the car, no seatbelts, with four adults in a car legally limited to five occupants, and they would smoke inside (rolled down the windows at least). I’m alive, and so is my sister. That doesn’t mean it was alright and we should keep on doing it.

      Parents are supposed to teach their kids to navigate the world and be sure they’ve learned before letting them loose into traffic, which these people didn’t do. Also unloading the responsibility on the older sibling(s) is something that have to stop, a ten years old shouldn’t have to carry that burden, imagine the guilt and trauma of that poor child.

      • django@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 months ago

        Yeah sure, blame the victims of horrible infrastructure. I walked myself to kindergarden, when I was around 4 or 5 years old, when I was 7, I would walk home from school.

        There wasn’t some busy four-lane-road on my way in my rural town. Four fucking lanes? What the hell?

        • OfCourseNot@fedia.io
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          8 months ago

          Living in a city, I wasn’t allowed to cross roads by myself when I was seven (some thirty years ago) much less four lane ones. The horrible American infrastructure make it even worse for the parents to let their kids go alone. Was the mother not aware of that road being there?