Free range parents have rights too

Lock up your daughters, free range parents are on the loose. What are so-called “free range parents,” you ask? It’s a newly fashionable term for parents who commit the terrible crime of letting their children run around outside, like all children in the history of mankind have always done.

In the climate of fear created by the 24-hour news cycle, we are told that there are predators lurking everywhere, and that letting your children walk around without adult supervision is tantamount to child abuse. Now parents are learning that the real predators they have to fear work for the government.

Across the country, there have been reports of Child Protective Services picking up unaccompanied children and threatening to take them away from their parents, a punishment almost unthinkably severe for the crime of letting your children play outside. In the latest instance, the authorities didn’t even notify the parents about what they had done for several hours, leaving them to fear for their children’s safety while they waited to be notified of the abduction.