Free-range parents worried by strangers trying to protect their children

It has happened again – children picked up by child protective services because their parents allowed them to play unsupervised.

Rafi Meitiv and his sister were again picked up by the police after their dad left them to play alone at a public playground outside Washington DC.

“We drove past the park on Spring and Georgia, and we stopped and I said, ‘Dad, can you please drop us off here,'” Rafi said.

Of course neighbors saw the kids playing alone, called the police, and according to their mom, Danielle, they sat for three hours in a patrol car, and two and a half hours in the Crisis Center – without dinner – before finally coming home.

“All we did was let our kids go to the park and we’re just amazed that this is such a big deal and considered neglect,” Danielle said.

Danielle you see, is part of the free-range child movement and believes that the real danger to kids is too much coddling due to parents behaving like Secret Service details.

And even though we, in the media, have spent countless hours trying to convince Danielle that her family is surrounded by terrorists, predators, kidnappers, and identity thieves, she remains stubbornly unafraid.

For free-range parents, there is something much scarier than the predators who want to kidnap their kids; and that’s the strangers trying to protect them.