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Comment by wincy | Hacker News Reader

This is a really naive take. I tried literally what you’re advocating. And what happened was some busybody lady in my neighborhood kept calling CPS when my daughter would walk to play at a friend’s houses down the block. When I was her age (6) I ranged an entire town on my bike. But this lady just kept calling on us. She’d bring my daughter home whenever she saw her out. It was infuriating. Once we got the Apple Watch the calls and helicopter stuff stopped. Also, the GPS tracking on the cellular Apple Watch isn’t even super accurate, but I can call her to let her know it’s time to come home.

The other kids seemed to have followed suit, their parents relented (mostly, the Muslim families on our block seem to keep a very tight leash on their kids) and run around the neighborhood freely. But before our kid started going out nobody was going out.

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There must be something you can do about that lady other than sticking a watch on your child. Something about harassment surely.

If it weren’t her, it’d be another one. There are whole swaths of the populace convinced any child out alone is in mortal danger. They’ll post to the neighborhood Facebook group in panic if they see a child walking to the convenience store unattended.

The funny thing about this is that it's all about reinforcement and standing up for what you believe in. If more parents reported ridiculous busybodies like this woman for harassment, rather than caving in and changing their parenting style, then more potential busybodies would be on notice that their busybody behavior won't be tolerated by the community.

The problem is that the busybodies are usually well-meaning neighbors, trying to protect your kid from what they think is mortal danger. So throwing a fit about it is not a good look, if you care about getting along with your neighbors. The stakes are also very high: if someone gets mad enough, they might well report you to CPS, which is terrifying, especially when local laws in many places in fact allow CPS to decide that you were in fact neglectful. A more effective course of action is to work toward getting your state to pass laws protecting children’s independence.

Well, thank god I don’t live in the US. I can just send my kid to the convenience store and everyone will comment on how great it is they’re already able to do it by themselves, and how they’re helping out.

> There must be something you can do about that lady

No. Not a blessed thing. Most calls to CPS are anonymous and will never be investigated, no matter often or egregious.

My neighbor called CPS so often my kid would say "Oh. You again" when they showed up in school. I was designing a brochure for CPS agents to hang at the front door. It had all the schools and relatives with their contact info, along with a map to the fridge and bedrooms.

There is something fundamentally wrong with this. How do you end up feeling so insecure you feel the need to call every single time?

How did the Apple Watch keep the annoying lady away from your kid?

It’s a lot easier to get busybodies to leave you alone if you can call your mom on your watch. My kid also wanted to roam free at age 7, and he got the cops called on him. He’s in middle school now and still salty about it. If I could have gotten him a reasonably-priced phone in watch format, I’d have done it.

woah WTF, is this what it's like in the US???

Here in the UK we don't have Japan-level super-younglings walking to school on their own etc, but you certainly wouldn't get any bother walking around at age 6 unless you looked obviously lost.

Hearing your experience is just so mindwarpingly boggling it's unreal..

This is not the overall US. This is a particular type of middle class suburb that is full of busybodies and helicopter parents.

It's any population center, city and metro area. They all have police and there's no shortage of cops who believe John Walsh's false stranger-danger narratives.

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