Scott Alexander

I live next to a rationalist group house with several kids.

They tried letting their six-year-old walk two blocks home from school in the afternoon.

After a few weeks of this, a police officer picked up the kid, brought her home, and warned the parents not to do this.

The police officer was legally in the wrong.

This California child abuse lawyer linked here says that there are no laws against letting your kid play or walk outside unsupervised.

There is a generic law saying that children generally need adequate, in quotes, supervision, but he doesn't think the courts would interpret this as banning the sort of thing my friends did.

Still, being technically correct is cold comfort when the police disagree.

Even if you can eventually win a court case, that takes a lot of resources.

And who's to say a different cop won't nab you next time?

To solve the problem, seven states, not including California, have passed reasonable childhood independence laws, which make it clear to policemen and everyone else that unsupervised play is okay.

There is a whole Free Range Kids movement.

Its founder, Lenore Skenazi, gets profiled in SRTHMK, trying to win this legal and cultural battle.

The Free Range Kids website has some tools and tips, but they don't go about it the exact way that I would.

Yes, I've thought about this a lot.

When Kai and Lyra are older, I fantasize about organizing the local rationalists.

We have five families with kids on the same block.

They'll all wear bright orange t-shirts and hats with free-range kids on them, and they'll all have a flyer, which they're encouraged to show any adult or officer who complains, saying something like, Thank you for your concern about our child.

We are part of the free-range kids movement.

You can read more about it at letgrow.org.

We've given our children permission to roam between...