Kay Eskridge is a Kentucky mom, former child protective services worker and fan of the free-range children movement. She wrote to me many times over the years about our shared passion for fostering independence in our children. They include a note she sent in 2021 saying a 7-year-old girl was stopped by police while riding her bike in a quiet Louisville neighborhood and the officers wanted to know where her mother was.
But earlier this summer, it happened to Eskridge’s own children.
“We called the police because my 8-year-old was riding a bike on our street,” Eskridge said.
Her message recently arrived in my inbox. We then connected via Zoom call. She sets the scene: Her daughter, Julia, has just finished second grade. Due to an odd schedule, Julia got home two hours earlier than her friends. This left her feeling bored and hungry for fun in the late afternoon. When a friend finally came home on May 18, Julia jumped on her bike and rode eight houses to his house.
“She was three houses away,” Eskridge said, “and the police stopped her.”
The police officer was actually someone the family knew. (Eskridge’s husband works in local politics.) According to Eskridge, he told the girl “it was not a good time to go out.” Julia assured the officer that she was used to traffic and knew how to ride a bike, and continued on her way.
The officer left her alone but decided to pay Eskridge a visit.
Her husband answered the door, but when Eskridge heard what happened, she decided to take matters into her own hands.
“I’m not going to let him deal with it,” she said. “So I swooped over and said, ‘Kids can’t ride bikes on the streets in this neighborhood anymore? Is that what we’re saying?'”
The police assured her that no, that was not the case. Instead, a woman called the police because she was “uneasy because there was a child outside.”
Eskridge told police it was not illegal for children to be outside. He agreed, but suggested that Eskridge needed to work the issue out with the woman.
She soon got her chance. When Julia got home, she told her mother that a woman was running toward her. Eskridge realized that the caller must have been a neighbor: an old lady who lived on the block. Eskridge went to talk to her and explained that the children needed some independence.
“I explained how she wasn’t on the screen when she got home,” Eskridge said. The woman, a former teacher, eventually agreed that the parenting decision was the right one, and the matter was over.
Now, Eskridge hopes other well-meaning people around the world will take a moment to think before instinctively calling the police when they have children outdoors.
