Lisa Marie Palmer got it all wrong ... and the local sheriff got it all right.
Did you miss the Lisa Marie Palmer story? A Tennessean who was arrested for driving without a license ... and, since that drive she was on happened to be during the same time she was forcing her 8 and 10 year old daughters to walk a few miles to school for having missed the bus, she also was charged with child neglect. In some of the news coverage, the husband, presumed to be the daughter-daddies (but who knows?), also showed up with *his* daddy, and his daddy (arrested for having drug paraphernalia on that day) got into it with the officer, saying "that's the one who beat me up last time" -- so you just know they are upstanding citizens.
More information to help set the scene ... it was cold. And foggy. And the girls were walking on the highway with the mother in the warm car driving ahead and waiting on the shoulder every so often for the little ones to catch up. Plus, the girls had a dog keeping them company.
Full disclosure ... "walking to school" is a trigger for me. I used to have to walk to school, and I was on the border of where one side of the street went to the city school, and the other side of the street went to the school in the suburbs, so my walk was about two miles each way. My dad's wife-at-the-time and I had a war of wills over this ... with instructions that I had to walk a certain way -- all the way down Cumberland and then all the way up 8th (for those from Lebanon in the know), and my knowledge that I could zig zag and save time seeing as how the shortest distance between two points was a path more as the crow flied, and less the other sides of the triangle.I was being forced to walk.
We battled for months, and combined with morning chores on which she needed to sign off before I could leave to start my two mile walk, I eventually got to the point where I was late so many times that I was sent to in-school suspension (although my guidance counselor then signed me out of that punishment, seeing as how I was basically there due to mandatory discipline sentencing that was ultimately outside of my control). For awhile, I even walked two blocks and then snuck into my sister Sharon's apartment and watched MTV in the morning until *she* left for work and dropped me off so I wouldn't be late again and besmirch my record further.
To that end, during the Greentree days, when the townhouse was basically a fraternity and the Whitman boys (still in high school) were frequently crashing there ... even though the school was only two blocks away, I would get up in the morning and drive them those two blocks -- especially in the cold of winter --because I had decided long ago that no loved one of mine would ever have to walk to school if I could help it.
Knowing all of that background, it could be that I'm experiencing a little bit of what the psych doctors would call transference when I read this article. But even so, I am perfectly fine with the state relieving Ms. Palmer of her motherly responsibilities ... and I hope they take away the dog too and give it a more loving home. Sure there will be those who say the long arm of the law has reached in to interfere with parental rights ... and for all I know, the 8 and 10 year olds are the biggest brats in the world and deserve a little taste of the hillbilly version of the Bataan Death March ... but I don't care. They are 8 and 10. There were other ways to address this kind of issue.
I know it's inappropriate to suggest forced sterilization with the history of eugenics and all ... but it does make a person wish it could be used to protect the world from those with no parenting skills from damaging more presumably innocent young souls ...
THE NEWS STORY:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/tenn-mom-made-daughters-walk-highway-punishment-article-1.2586443
A MOTHER'S VIEW:
http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/1117739/woman-makes-kids-walk-to-school-as-punishment
ALTHOUGH WHO REALLY WALKS TO SCHOOL ANY MORE ANYWAY?:
http://www.wnyc.org/story/284604-why-so-few-walk-or-bike-to-school/
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