Left to their own devices, these kids might join ISIS.
Apparently you all want the terrorists to win.
6 Likes
A neighbor apparently saw the children walking alone and called 911 to report it. FOX 5âs Marina Marraco reports the children were walking about a third of a mile from home at the time.
Their neighbors⌠again. A grudge?
Seriously, a third of a mile is a few blocks.
10 Likes
Eff joo teddy bear cholla, you are pretty BOT EFF JOO. 
My parents sent me to Mexico solo when I was 13 for 5 weeks with my grandfather and an assortment of cousins, aunts, and uncles. The scheduled 5 hour layover in Miami was just the beginning. Basic Spanish. No cellphones. Taking city buses around, walking throughout the city, an obvious foreignor in a part of Mexico so far off the beaten parh only Germans dared to visit, and I wasnât even of German descent.
Today my parents would be considered unfit and my grandfather too. Best summer ever, and I did it all again the following two summers.
4 Likes
What the hell is âFree Rangeâ? When I was a kid, this was called, âPlaying Outsideâ.
21 Likes
Hahaha. I forgot about that cute nick-name for the CACTI FROM HELL.
One night some friends and I snuck out during a full moon and went wandering around the desert (I lived in the middle of nowhere) because why the fuck not? I was picking spines out of my fingers and lower legs for DAYS. My mom was an EMTI at the time but obviously I couldnât be like âHI MOM I SNUCK OUT! And walked into a cactus.â
Note to all adults walking the desert: Do not wear shorts. Especially at night. Just a tip from a 10-year-old me.
DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME:
3 Likes
GAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA⌠GAAAAAAAAH!!!
(The desert is gorgeous, those fuckers can die in a fire)
4 Likes
Tangent:
Ever walk into a pack of 13 wild pigs at 1am with an⌠Excited pit bull, next to a mountain you used to go to for scorpian photography?
(The tall tales and the yarns, I got them covered)
1 Like
my mom would yell at me to get OUT of the house after school, and not come back till dinner (6:30p) of course it was the wacky 70s
In my neighborhood today? NO kids outside, ever.
Hooray, we have 'safetied" ourselves into a generation of social ineptness, fear and loathing.
and a serious lack of sunlight.
5 Likes
Wow, thanks - Iâm not alone anymore. Sorry to anyone else whoâs experienced this, but it is nice to know Iâm not the only one. One of these guys âjumped outâ and embedded itself in 3 fingers of my left hand when I was riding my bike in Baja. Luckily my step dad was there, he used the dogâs leash to yank it out. I was in shock, no idea what to do. I donât think I even said anything, just kinda held me hand up and whimpered.
Maybe they never left Falluja. Maybe theyâre just your run-of-the-mill little-dick fascists who get off on inflicting abuse on people because of their own cowardice and self-loathing.
âHey! Thatâs weird⌠When I punch this weaker kid in the face, I donât feel so bad about my own inadequacies. I donât feel as powerless as I did when my daddy beat me when I was five. Maybe I should keep punching weaker kids, so I donât feel weak!â
2 Likes
Javelinas are awesome but scary!
One time my mom opened the front door and immediately slammed it shut: âRATTLE SNAKE!â (It was curled in front of the door trying to get warm.)
Also gila monsters are super cool.
We used to hunt scorpions with black lights, and I still have an affinity for fuzzy wuzzy tarantulas. The one thing I notice in Vermont is the distinct lack of actual bugs and spiders worth any sort of real attention. Those house centipedes are down-right adorable compared to stepping on scared baby scorpions.
And wild donkeys earned the name âjack assesâ for a fucking reason.
We had to make a quick exit from accidental donkey run-ins on more than one occasion. They are faster than you might expect, and very protective of their off-spring.
Also, they like to get into trash and then look at you like, âWhat? It was delicious.â
That is the look of a very satisfied wild jack ass.
7 Likes
Our dogs would sometimes walk face first or back into cacti. Poor doggies. Poor, stupid doggies.
Porcupines are pretty bad for dogs to encounter as well. I donât think dogs can really get the concept of âsharpâ.
Iâd post a photo of a dog that had a run-in with a porcupine but after doing the google image search, Iâm kinda off my lunch now.
My cousinâs large pointer-setter mix got introduced to a porcupine and only had maybe a half-dozen spines in her face. We were able to remove them all pretty quickly with pliers and some doggy tramadol afterwards. But the results from google images are a lot more gruesome than that. To the point where it looks like half these dogs have beards.
1 Like
This happened in my neighborhood, so I can say with great confidence that the main danger is one of the kids getting impatient and jaywalking or else a careless driver running a light. Itâs a lot safer for kids to be âon their ownâ on the street than inside, for sure. Outside in an urban area during sunlight hours, there are plenty of people they can ask for help if they need it and I think itâs easier for younger kids to conceptualize things like street-crossing rules than using the stove.
3 Likes
Wrong site! Youâre thinking of BBC News.
1 Like
I agree, but I think getting judge involved might cause them more trouble than solving it. Perhaps the right judge with the right legal team trying to get the injunction would work.
There is no specific statute about being outside mentioned in the articles I have read, but there is one about having to be 13 years old to supervise younger children that might be relevant (by which I mean applied in an unjust and nosy manner).
Is this a civil rights issue?
From another desert rat: Always carry a comb with you, its the only way to get those damn things off.
1 Like
I grew up both in North Carolina and Abu Dhabi, UAE. In the former, my mother was always worried that Iâd get taken away by CPS for spurious reasons and in the latter, that Iâd get hit by a car. Both fears, it seems, were entirely reasonable.
I used to go everywhere in Abu Dhabi. I would take taxis by myself at eleven or twelve years old. Other kids did too. People care about their kids there as much as they do in the US, but people werenât overly paranoid. Iâll be the first to say that the UAE needs better prenatal care, better safety regulations, and a lot of other things directly pertinent to child safety, but American fears about kids existing in the world without their parents are entirely overblown. You know what increases child safety? Other kids being around! Kids can and will do stupid stuff, but having other kids around to tattle or get a grown-up when things go wrong is amazingly effective.
5 Likes
