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Riding mass transit has been added to the list of activities that are too dangerous for our children.
In fact, one father — Adrian Cook — was investigated by social workers because his kids rode the public bus to school.
Cooks’ five kids had been riding the public bus in Vancouver, British Columbia, for two years without any problems. The father even received an email from another bus passenger praising his well-behaved children.
“So imagine my surprise when I received a call from the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD),” Cook wrote on his 5 Kids 1 Condo blog.
Following an anonymous tip, ministry case workers visited Cook’s home and interviewed his kids.
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Cook, who lives in downtown Vancouver and does not own a car, relies on public transit to get around. Cook taught his kids to ride the bus to be independent and self-reliant.
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“Our 45-minute bus ride is straightforward,” Cook wrote. “It begins with a bus stop visible from my living room window and ends at a stop directly in front of the kids’ school. We’ve had no issues riding the bus over the last two years, unless you count losing a cell phone or getting off a stop too early (their GPS-tracked cell phones easily resolved that).”
Despite that, Ministry social workers made Cook sign a safety plan stating his kids wouldn’t take the bus alone because they are under 12. That means Cook now must spend several hours a day escorting the kids to school and back.
Cook’s description of the MCFD’s rationale for its actions is chilling.
“The Ministry had checked with their lawyers ‘across the country’ and the Attorney General, and determined that children under 10 years old could not be unsupervised in or outside the home, for any amount of time,” he wrote. “That included not just the bus, but even trips across the street to our corner store, a route I can survey in its entirety from my living room window.”
It looks as if childhood freedom is dead in the United States and Canada.
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