rekrunner, go for a run or go to bed or whatever. Just get out of mom and dad's basement . You're presuming guilt and assuming the dad knew his son was in the VIP tent.
Maybe not that specifically "16 hours in public place in a strange town where you knew no one", but age 9 for me was 47 years ago and my memories are not specific, more of the usual routine. We didn't go out of town much. Adding descriptors like "public place" and "strange town" don't make things scarier. We played almost entirely in public places. Other towns are not strange, they are other towns. I was not at all spatially challenged because exploring what we did on our own all the time. A different town is not more unsafe than my own neighborhood.
Like malmo's experience, my personal self-confidence was the normal confidence for all kids my age at that time in my area. And like malmo, we didn't call it free-range back then. I use that because it's the current term and a good description. It was absolutely normal, responsible behavior by parents to have kids unsupervised outside all day, and certainly within the law back then.
There was a shift to thinking kids being outside alone is unsafe around 8 years after me in my family with my younger sister. At last that was when I noticed it. I thought it was just because she was a girl, but apparently it was a societal shift. If you grew up before that, you think about unsupervised kids as normal like me and malmo and other probably Gen X and older posters. If you grew up after that, unsupervised kids is somehow a crime.
It's not like crime suddenly increased. Crime has generally edged downwards since I was growing up. I think it was the increase in media coverage of crime to sell news that make the world seem scarier than it really is.
You say "we" a lot, but the kid was alone. He wasn't playing with his friends in public places, or cycling around his home town with his friends until 10pm.
Tell me a personal anecdote that compares to leaving a 9-year old child alone, not knowing anyone, for 16 hours -- that happened to you, as a kid, or that you did, as a parent to your kid.
I use "we" as the collective unsupervised kids outside. I didn't have any close friends in my neighborhood. My closer friends were from church or kids of parent's friends, none of them in my neighborhood. I'd go out on my bike by myself and explore places on my own, and stop and watch what other kids, both unsupervised and supervised, were doing outside. There were plenty of unsupervised kids messing around. . . a lot more than you'd see today. If kids were trying to ride something on their bikes on some features by the school, I'd interact, see what they were doing and may also try. But I didn't even know the names of the kids I'd see, they being a different set of kids than people in my elementary school classroom. I had an unusual kid's bike. It had rear suspension, with a big coil spring in middle of the frame. Other kids, who all had BMX bikes, would sometimes ask if they could try it out, and I'd let them. Main point was I wasn't cycling around town with friends. I was on my own when moving from location to location. L
A personal anecdote that compares with being alone 16 hours at age 9? That would be my parents sometimes going to all-day church conferences out of town. My sister was just born, and would be with my mom, but me and my brother would be on our own at home. I didn't play much with my brother most of the time. I'd being outside all day exploring on my bike and maybe spending all afternoon at the library too. That it was exploring from home didn't make it any different than being in a different town because I was always expanding my reach to places I hadn't been anyway. Home was just a base where I'd go back to eat. If my parents were gone all day like that, they'd probably have a specific plan for us on what to eat for dinner (the 'frig wasn't bare), like I assume the father here had a plan for the kid's meals (a packed lunch/dinner, spending money, or he knew ahead of time about free food in the VIP area or something).
Unsupervised kids being the norm in the past is not just something I and many other responders here lived, it was visible in the media/books I consumed as a kid. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. The Great Brain series. Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series. The Peanuts comic strip. Came out when I was in high school, but Calvin and Hobbes is about a little unsupervised kid being outside by himself all day with a tiger stuffed animal/plushie.
I did Olympic distance triathlons for a while after college when I was still single. The time commitment was a little over the top, even for that shorter distance. I couldn’t imagine trying to do that as a parent if it wasn’t one’s job. This type of behavior is not entirely surprising. I know some tri-Dads, and their kids tend to resent them (along with their wives in most cases). I stopped renewing my USAT mmemberahip when I got married. One of the better decisions I’ve made.
I could see this happening for a shorter race but more than an hour is too long. Find a childcare service. Maybe races could have a childcare monitored area.
rekrunner, go for a run or go to bed or whatever. Just get out of mom and dad's basement . You're presuming guilt and assuming the dad knew his son was in the VIP tent.
I use "we" as the collective unsupervised kids outside. I didn't have any close friends in my neighborhood. My closer friends were from church or kids of parent's friends, none of them in my neighborhood. I'd go out on my bike by myself and explore places on my own, and stop and watch what other kids, both unsupervised and supervised, were doing outside. There were plenty of unsupervised kids messing around. . . a lot more than you'd see today. If kids were trying to ride something on their bikes on some features by the school, I'd interact, see what they were doing and may also try. But I didn't even know the names of the kids I'd see, they being a different set of kids than people in my elementary school classroom. I had an unusual kid's bike. It had rear suspension, with a big coil spring in middle of the frame. Other kids, who all had BMX bikes, would sometimes ask if they could try it out, and I'd let them. Main point was I wasn't cycling around town with friends. I was on my own when moving from location to location. L
A personal anecdote that compares with being alone 16 hours at age 9? That would be my parents sometimes going to all-day church conferences out of town. My sister was just born, and would be with my mom, but me and my brother would be on our own at home. I didn't play much with my brother most of the time. I'd being outside all day exploring on my bike and maybe spending all afternoon at the library too. That it was exploring from home didn't make it any different than being in a different town because I was always expanding my reach to places I hadn't been anyway. Home was just a base where I'd go back to eat. If my parents were gone all day like that, they'd probably have a specific plan for us on what to eat for dinner (the 'frig wasn't bare), like I assume the father here had a plan for the kid's meals (a packed lunch/dinner, spending money, or he knew ahead of time about free food in the VIP area or something).
Unsupervised kids being the norm in the past is not just something I and many other responders here lived, it was visible in the media/books I consumed as a kid. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. The Great Brain series. Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series. The Peanuts comic strip. Came out when I was in high school, but Calvin and Hobbes is about a little unsupervised kid being outside by himself all day with a tiger stuffed animal/plushie.
So your closest comparison to "left alone in another town with a tent full of strangers for 16 hours" is "left at home with my brother for the day".
I did many of these things as a kid too, growing up in the "latch-key" era -- riding bikes with my brothers and friends, sometimes riding by myself exploring the next county, or the next state, reading books from the library, all without constant supervision.
This laid sufficient foundation for me to free-range myself to university, then from the mid-West to Los Angeles to live an active single life for a few years, then from California to Europe to pursue an amazing opportunity, alone in a foreign country without any of my old friends or any family, where English was a third or fourth language, none of them being the Spanish I learned for 2 years in high school.
All these stories about your personal growth and how being unsupervised only made you stronger later in life don't seem particularly impressive or relevant to the responsibilities of your parents.
My parents never drove me to another town and left me alone in a crowd for 16 hours, and I never did that to any of my children. Sounds like your parents didn't do that either. I don't personally know any child or parent who has experienced or done anything comparable.
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While safety concerns are valid, the response seems excessive. Has America lost its mind? Perhaps. The balance between overreach and protection often tips too far, fueling ongoing debates on parenting norms.
lol. I was babysitting other people’s kids by 9yo. In what world is a 9yo in mortal danger if not in the immediate presence of their parents for a couple hours. Who was the Karen that called the cops?
The parents who hired a 9 year old to watch their kids should be arrested too.
Lol. 10 was standard age for babysitting when I was growing up, and I'm a millennial. If it was someone you really knew and trusted, and it was for a shorter period 9 was totally normal, but by 10 every girl in my class at school had a babysitting side hustle.
I use "we" as the collective unsupervised kids outside. I didn't have any close friends in my neighborhood. My closer friends were from church or kids of parent's friends, none of them in my neighborhood. I'd go out on my bike by myself and explore places on my own, and stop and watch what other kids, both unsupervised and supervised, were doing outside. There were plenty of unsupervised kids messing around. . . a lot more than you'd see today. If kids were trying to ride something on their bikes on some features by the school, I'd interact, see what they were doing and may also try. But I didn't even know the names of the kids I'd see, they being a different set of kids than people in my elementary school classroom. I had an unusual kid's bike. It had rear suspension, with a big coil spring in middle of the frame. Other kids, who all had BMX bikes, would sometimes ask if they could try it out, and I'd let them. Main point was I wasn't cycling around town with friends. I was on my own when moving from location to location. L
A personal anecdote that compares with being alone 16 hours at age 9? That would be my parents sometimes going to all-day church conferences out of town. My sister was just born, and would be with my mom, but me and my brother would be on our own at home. I didn't play much with my brother most of the time. I'd being outside all day exploring on my bike and maybe spending all afternoon at the library too. That it was exploring from home didn't make it any different than being in a different town because I was always expanding my reach to places I hadn't been anyway. Home was just a base where I'd go back to eat. If my parents were gone all day like that, they'd probably have a specific plan for us on what to eat for dinner (the 'frig wasn't bare), like I assume the father here had a plan for the kid's meals (a packed lunch/dinner, spending money, or he knew ahead of time about free food in the VIP area or something).
Unsupervised kids being the norm in the past is not just something I and many other responders here lived, it was visible in the media/books I consumed as a kid. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. The Great Brain series. Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series. The Peanuts comic strip. Came out when I was in high school, but Calvin and Hobbes is about a little unsupervised kid being outside by himself all day with a tiger stuffed animal/plushie.
So your closest comparison to "left alone in another town with a tent full of strangers for 16 hours" is "left at home with my brother for the day".
I did many of these things as a kid too, growing up in the "latch-key" era -- riding bikes with my brothers and friends, sometimes riding by myself exploring the next county, or the next state, reading books from the library, all without constant supervision.
This laid sufficient foundation for me to free-range myself to university, then from the mid-West to Los Angeles to live an active single life for a few years, then from California to Europe to pursue an amazing opportunity, alone in a foreign country without any of my old friends or any family, where English was a third or fourth language, none of them being the Spanish I learned for 2 years in high school.
All these stories about your personal growth and how being unsupervised only made you stronger later in life don't seem particularly impressive or relevant to the responsibilities of your parents.
My parents never drove me to another town and left me alone in a crowd for 16 hours, and I never did that to any of my children. Sounds like your parents didn't do that either. I don't personally know any child or parent who has experienced or done anything comparable.
You are still viewing this through the cultural lens of your Western middle-class upbringing. There are many places in the world where children have to fend for themselves at a young age every day.
My wife is from the rural area of a country in SE Asia. When I asked her about it she recounted the situation of a family she knew. The oldest daughter was 15 or 16 and there was a brother aged 12 and a younger sister. The father had left years ago and the mother needed to go into the nearest city 4 hours away every week to earn money to support her kids.
For 5 days or so at a time it was the responsibility of the eldest daughter to cook, clean and run the household while caring for her younger siblings while their mother was staying in the city with relatives. There are no school buses and to get to school every day the brother would drive the 3 of them on their motorized tricycle on what we could consider to be very dangerous roads. Of course this was illegal, but everyone knew about it and no one cared, because it there were no other options. Certainly, no one considered calling protective services or whatever equivalent there was.
Obviously, this is very different from our triathlete's situation. This was in an area where eveyone knew each other and there were people that could check in on the kids once in a while. But in the US most people would consider leaving the kids alone in that situation to be an extreme case of neglect and child endangerment. In other countries or in other times it's just practical survival.
Children have had to be indepedent and fend for themselves throughout human history, sometimes on their own. The idea of keeping track of children and monitoring their wherabouts 24 hours a day is really a very recent phenomenon.
This just screams “parents got divorced bc of dads addiction to tris, dad had the kid for the weekend and is so addicted to tris that he thought this was a good move, mom had no idea this was happening. Also dad is a former drug/alcohol addict that found a new ‘passion’”
Think it's pretty clear the harsh response is Ironman not wanting this to set any sort of precedent. They don't offer child care & don't want people doing this. They're all about cutting off liability. The guy didn't tell staff or anyone else in the VIP area what he was doing. He just did it. If you can drop $1k on race entry + thousands more on all the gear you need to compete, then you can figure out child care. I know child care isn't great in the US but this is the exception -- a bunch of people with money out in the woods. You can't just leave your kid somewhere for 10+ hours (who knows what time he was projected to finish that's when he was pulled -- could have been 15-16 hours & now a 9 year old is by himself close to midnight). This isn't about being soft, or whatever the premise of the thread was. This is about the race making sure it doesn't happen again. Plus it is reckless. A 9 year old shouldn't be spending their day like that. Figure it out.
I have three kids. I started leaving them home alone by age 9 or 10. I started leaving them home alone for long periods by 12. So it's true I wouldn't leave a 9-year-old unattended for 10 hours. But it seems well within reasonable discretion to leave a child in the VIP tent for the duration of an Ironman. The fact that the parent was arrested is just completely absurd. I'm guessing this is a liability situation.
In my state (WA) guidance is that children under 9 cannot be left alone. This kid was 9. New York is kind of nuts though. The guidance in NY is that 12 or 13 years olds can be left along for brief periods. I leave my 13 year old alone all day sometimes when we go skiing (as she doesn't want to go). She also babysits.
In my opinion, the state should have clear guidelines under which you can be arrested or not. So if it's illegal to leave a 9 year old for longer than 2 hours, that should be explicitly stated. Otherwise, it's a judgment call. The fact that this guy's judgment was different than mine shouldn't be a reason to arrest him given that the kid was not harmed in any way.