Aaron Carroll and Jon Chait Try to Blame the Arrest of Mother for Letting Her Child Play in a Public Park on You and Me

Aaron Carroll and Jon Chait try to blame the arrest of a mother for Letting Her Child Play in a Public Park on you and me because we not provide public day care for the child!

Here is Aaron:

This news story about a mother arrested for letting her kid play in a public park while she worked has been making the rounds. It has me so angry that I’ve not blogged on it, for fear I might say the wrong thing. Luckily, Jon Chait did it better than I could anyway. Go read him. Now.

Key passage:

America has decided to punish Harrell if she fails to acquire full-time employment; her employment does not provide her with adequate child care; and the community punishes her for failing to live up to unobtainable middle-class child-care standards. There are many perpetrators in this story. Debra Harrell was not one of them.

 We’ve created a society where it’s almost impossible for some people to be parents. It’s pervasive in health care, too. You try being a low-wage earner figuring out how you can get off work to get your kid to the doctor.

• But I see nothing wrong with leaving your child to play in a park while you work.I spent many a day from dawn to dusk in public parks and I did not have a cell phone that girl had a cell phone with her!
• If you take a position like Aaron and John take by saying that we should provide day care, you are making a claim that the mother did something wrong which I do not think that leaving a child to play at a playground is bad. If the mother was wrong then what about the father of the child or the relatives or church members?
• The more services that you make available to the poor, like free day care, the higher the marginal tax that they face.
• You do not want to further tax intact families to provide services that subsidize single parenthood.
• Now if you believe that public parks are too dangerous for children to play unsupervised, I do not, then perhaps more police are needed but not necessarily free daycare services.

So who is to blame here:

1. The person who called the police. I know she meant well but she made a bad call.
2. The policeman who brought the girl into the system. He should have told the woman who called that the girl was fine there.
3. Whoever was at the police department decided that the mother should be arrested.
4. Politicians who make laws that can be interpreted that way.

Finally children in the USA are doing better than ever so let's just relax. Chill out folks.

Here is link too my favorite episode of A Prairie Home Companion where The News from Lake Wobegon, includes the story of Jimmy the school bus driver. Jimmy reminds me of the bus drives I had in my childhood.