Baby Steps: A look at free-range parenting

Twenty-nine years ago, when I was a child, parenting seemed simpler than it is now. I rode my bike around the neighborhood, walked to the post office and park, ate PB&J almost every day and did one after-school activity a year.

Today, parenting is a stream of debates, debacles and the degrading of fellow parents. I don't recall my mother getting in trouble with the police for letting me ride my bicycle all over the neighborhood when I was 8. My best friend and I would leave our house in the morning and return for dinner at 5 p.m. My mom never knew "exactly" where I was, just somewhere in the neighborhood, and no one complained or called the police.

Recently some parents on the East Coast allowed their 6- and 10-year-olds to walk a mile home from the park. This is now called "free-range parenting," whereas during my childhood, it was called "walking home." But in this case on the East Coast, a concerned citizen called the police, who came and picked these children up, took them home and called Child Protective Services on the parents for neglect.

Today, concerned citizens all over the country are videotaping your interactions with your children, taking pictures and sticking their noses into what I would deem not their business.

Are you allowed to let your child walk that mile home from the park? Is it OK to run in and pay for your gas while your sleeping toddler stays in the car?

Can you raise your voice at your preschooler who is throwing a tantrum in the grocery store checkout line?

These questions used to be a private, individual choice, but are now a debate of child neglect. Depending on where you are doing any of these things could get you arrested, ticketed and fined, along with a file opened with the Division of Family Services for the next five years.

When did parenting turn into a fight to parent as you see fit? For a country built on the rights of the individual, so many things are no longer our choice. I remember many a time when my mother flicked our ears, grabbed our arms or even spanked us when we misbehaved in public. Before pay at the pump, we were left in the car while she paid for gas and even when she ran inside for a gallon of milk. We played outside unsupervised. It was called childhood, not neglect.

A friend of mine posted on Facebook that she witnessed a young child at the grocery store get kicked by the adult who was accompanying him. She asked her Facebook friends what she should have done in a situation like that. Every person who commented on her status placed a "shocked" or "sad" emoji face and said she should have called the cops.

Out of fear of repercussions and a debate on my parenting skills, I abstained from voicing my opinion because it was not the same as that of the masses. Yes, I believe kicking your child is wrong, but my friend didn't know what had led to the adult disciplining the child in that way. She walked into an aisle behind a parent who was disciplining a child, and the first thing that popped into her mind was, "This is wrong." She didn't know if the child had been violent with the parent. She didn't know the age of the child, though he looked to be around 4. She didn't know how hard that child was kicked. We don't even know what, in her mind, constitutes a kick.

My opinion on the matter was that she should have done nothing. It was none of her business, or mine. My friend didn't know that mother or what she had gone through that day. The child may have just hit her or a stranger, or yelled an obscenity, or put unpaid merchandise into his pocket.

Instead of judging other mothers' parenting skills, we should offer a helping hand. When you see a mother struggling in the checkout line, offer to help with her three children instead of pulling out your phone to record the incident. When you see a mother go inside to pay for her gas, keep a watchful eye on her children until she returns, instead of whipping out your phone to call 911.

There is a difference between actual neglect and abuse and a harried mother of two young children trying to buy groceries and keep a meltdown from happening. Be vigilant for the real thing, but offer a helping hand instead of judgment. You never know -- it could be you one day. Today could be the day you just might be making a huge difference in someone else's life.

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Kristen Pind, a native of small-town Gower, Missouri, came to Southeast Missouri State University with big dreams of being the next Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer. She never thought that in her 20s, she'd be married with two kids and living in Cape Girardeau. Keep up with Kristen's adventures as a young mom who's still trying to figure out how her own life fits together. Turns out, she's living a dream she never knew she had, and loving every minute of it. Kristen invites moms of all types to find her "Baby Steps" page on Facebook.