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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Md. free-range parents to file lawsuit against CPS to fight the "unlawful seizure of their children."

http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/local/maryland/2015/04/14/free-range-parenting-lawsuit-cps/25759523/[/quote]

I don't like this couple and I'm on CPS side on this one, but I'm actually glad they're suing.  Let's get this issue resolved.  Is CPS overstepping?  I read the regs to be pretty clear that you're not supposed to leave a kid under 8 unsupervised, and the supervision must be by someone 11 (if sibling) or 13 or older.   But it's a bit fuzzy whether that applies to public spaces or just at home.  So let's get it resolved already.  Regardless, I expect there will not be any finding of liability on the part of the police or CPS.  They're going to be able to show that they're legally obligated to follow up on the report and not just turn the kids over to the parents without some investigation.  To me, the only thing they may have done wrong is take too long in resolving it.  But I'm not sure how that leads to any liability.
I also fully expect that if this couple (and all the spittle-flinging crazies on this thread) succeed in removing any regulations for young children being left unsupervised, they will then vilify CPS for NOT protecting unsupervised young kids when something does happen as a result of that.  Of course, most of the time, the bad stuff that happens to unsupervised kids doesn't make the news. [b] And I also think that a *lot* of the reason that people think these parents are good parents is simply because they look like us and our friends.  A lot packed into that level of bias[/b].[/quote]

Who has said that they are good parents?  The points have been:

1. It's not neglect to let your child walk home from the park.
2. It's ridiculous that society has evidently come to believe that it is neglect to let your child walk home from the park.
3. There is no reason to believe that the parents are neglecting their children (except insofar as you believe that letting a child walk home from the park is neglect).
4. CPS messed up here.[/quote]

You're making a lot of generalizations and assumptions.  You're assuming, first, that the story the parents present is the entire story.  I don't assume that.  Second, your statement that "it's not neglect to let your child walk home from the park" is obviously overly general.  If I let my 4 year old walk home alone from the park, that's neglect.  I think if I let my 6 year old walk home alone from the park, that would also be neglect, but that might depend on how far the park is, the maturity level of the kid, etc.  If I let my 8 year old walk home alone from the park, I don't think that's neglect, and neither does CPS.   So let's be clear on how awful this nanny state really is.  They agree if the kid is 8, it's all good.   Your disagreement is on where that line is (somewhere between 4 and 8, probably -- you'd say closer to 4 and I'd say closer to 8).
I don't know whether the parents are neglecting their children in other ways, but I do know that two separate people have reported these kids (according to that Fox news story that said the most recent reporter didn't know the kids).  That to me says there's something worth investigating.  That's what CPS did.   And the police report, while certainly not definitive, raises the issue of the kids being spotted in/near the garage and for long enough that the person reporting it called and when the police came the kids were still there.  That's not consistent with the story of the kids walking home from the park -- at the very least there was some dawdling near a parking garage with a homeless guy.  If my kids were doing that, I would want a police officer to check it out and get them out of that situation.  I'd of course want him to then bring them home to me.  But they can't do that, because once the report has happened, they have to do their due diligence to make sure the place they're returning the kids to is safe for the kids.
Your conclusion, that CPS messed up, isn't determined.  You would have to know a lot more about this situation before you decide that.  The may have, they may not have.

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