It’s Monday, and I’m fired up. Like, I’m more than a LITTLE hot around the collar, mamas. You know why? Mom shaming. Mom judgment. Everyone knowing how to parent our kids better than we do. I’m SO tired of living in a society where moms. can’t. win. EVER.
So, what’s started my Monday rant? I’ll tell you. This morning I opened up the Internetz on my laptop to be greeted with this story on TODAY.com: “Mom gets called by social services after 8-year-old child walked dog alone.” Yes, that’s right. A suburban mom got social services called on her for letting her eight-and-a-half-year-old walk the dog around the block for five minutes in her suburban neighborhood. But, it gets better! The headline only tells half the story. Before the nosy neightbor called social services, she called the POLICE. This mom had the cops knocking at her door first, and then, when she thought her ordeal was over, social services came knocking two days later.
This is more than just mom shaming. This borders on harassment, in my opinion.
Corey Wilden, a 48-year-old mom of two from Wilmette, Illinois, explained what happened in an interview with the TODAY show. She had asked her daughter to walk the dog—a great way to teach a child responsibility—and then, she got the shock of her life.
“She was gone for about five minutes and the next thing I know the police were at the door,” Widen told Kristen Dahlgren on TODAY.
The police found nothing to pursue. The “concerned neighbor” that called had reported that a five-year-old was out alone, not an eight-year-old. Wilden thought the issue was closed, so she was surprised and more than irritated when social services came calling two days later—because the same neighbor had felt the need to call them as well.
Social services also found no wrongdoing, but told NBC Chicago that they have to investigate every call. Nothing like a little mom shaming to waste taxpayer money and social services’ valuable time. So unnecessary!
Wilden’s story has raised the oft-discussed topic of “what age is appropriate to leave a child alone?” That, of course, depends on the situation. But I’d say an eight-year-old walking a dog on a leash on her own street in a safe suburban neighborhood is probably a-ok, and that her mom is probably trying to give her some responsibility so that she can be a great adult one day. It seems an easy assumption for me to make, so why did Wilden’s neighbor make the complete opposite assumption?
