Neglect?

So what would you say about a parent who lets her child go to the park every day where neighbors watch her child and there is supervised breakfasts and lunch?  What would you say about parents who let a kid roam over pastures and creeks for hours at age 8 with only a dog for supervisor?  What would you say about parents who let an 11-year old ride 180 miles through the wilderness and camp at night with no map or guidance whatsoever.

            The first case is Debra Harrel who let her daughter go the park in Augusta.  The South Carolina child custody folks charged her with felony neglect carrying a lengthy prison term, despite the protest of the neighbors who say that many kids are left to play in a group by parents who can’t afford child care. 

            The second case is my parents who often let me explore the pasture and creek below the farmstead.  With nothing more than a stick for protection and a big dog who was my best friend, I encountered rattlers and poison ivy and bulls.  Did I survive?  Yes, and learned a great deal for the experience.  I didn’t fall in the pond, either because my mother admonished me, “You don’t have to jump in the water to know you’ll get wet.”  And when me and the dog found a recluse steer, we drove him home just for fun, prompting my granddad to say, “been looking for that onery sucker.” I first discovered that chesnut trees have a blight and will not grow to maturity, that thistles bite back and if you pick up a rock, always turn it over toward you so if there is a snake underneath, he’ll be on the far side of the rock.  Were my parents neglectful?  No one in the 50’s thought so.  All farm kids had this upbringing.  Of course we turned out self-reliant, resourceful and confident which the liberals detest.

            The third case is that of Joe Miller.  In 1879, at the age of 11, his father put him on a horse and sent him from Pond Creek to Miami in the Indian Territory.  The 180 mile ride took 3 days.  He had to avoid outlaws and cross major rivers.  Why was he sent on this mission?  Because George Washington Miller, the trail boss whose life inspired Mr. Favor in the Rawhide TV series, had heard that the Ponca Indian tribe was being given a choice of two reservation sites, one near Pond Creek, one near what would become Ponca City. Miller was friends with the tribal elders, thought they had been mistreated, wanted them to choose the Ponca City area as better for their needs, and dispatched his boy to tell them about the two tracts.  Little Joe stood in front of the chief and clan leaders answering questions about the prevalence of wild plums, turkeys, grass types and rivers.  The tribe’s leaders were so confident of the kid’s answers that they agreed the Ponca area was best where they could put tribal headquarters on the hill between Salt Fork and Arkansas rivers. 

            I catch myself asking if anyone in the South Carolina bureaucracy could answer Joe Miller’s interrogators.  Indeed would they predict a good outcome for Joe as an adult, given what obviously is child neglect and endangerment by 2014 standards.  Probably not.  But Joe grew up to be head of the largest ranch in America, the 101 Ranch, and honorary chief of the Ponca Tribe.  Did I mention, he risked partnership with some inexperienced oilman named EW Marland who discovered the first acclaimed geologic oil find? Or that his ranch in conjunction with Oklahoma A&M perfected the first hybrid seed corn?  Or that in memory of his dad and their old time cattle drive friends, he created an honorary organization and hall of fame for those who drove 10 million head of cattle over trails from Texas to Kansas from 1870-1885.  Or that he organized the world’s largest Wild West show in 1905?

            Which brings me to another interesting thought.  Bloody Kansas in the 1880s had 89 murders and the 1885 population was roughly 225,000.  Compare that ten year murder rate to a single year in Chicago which has about ten times the population.  Answer is 500+ murders.  And these are caused primarily by gangs.  Maybe we should ask what constitutes reasonable parenting.