The issue here is that this woman was trying to fulfill her expected duty and hold down a job, while at the same time confronting a dilemma in which she perceived a need to protect the welfare of her daughter.. She has my complete sympathy, notwithstanding the fact that I would not have left my nine year-old home alone.
The fact that she was so desperate to attempt a solution of this nature indicates to me that her daughter's plight had gone on for some time and was not addressed by school authorities.
It is all very well to set up institutions in which we are expected to deposit our children for their education and lessons in conformity, however, when these same institutions fail to provide duty of care and preside over a child's misery, we should be asking some very searching questions.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear, we cannot expose our children to any sort of risk can we? We simply cannot trust people to make parenting decisions for themselves. God help them if they ever need to go to work.

Cornflower

"Wouldn't it be good if the independents of the hung parliament could demand such improved counselling and support?"

In an ideal world.... which is why I suggested to Antiseptic that this is the perfect time to lobby our pollies. Somehow Katter doesn't strike me as all that concerned about single parents.

As for the mother who left her daughter at home, I don't know enough about this case to presume anything, however, I had to care for my 7 year old sister when I was nine for about 10 hours, after an accident meant my father had to take my mother to hospital - finances were such that an ambulance was out of the question. I never felt like I was abandoned, rather that I was being treated as very responsible. I don't think one rule applies to all situations. However, my daughter gets driven everywhere - but then I am not the custodial parent.

The world wouldn't have to be ideal, what I am suggesting for youth support is perfectly easy to do.

There needs to be direct involvement of the community in education. It is not good enough that policy is made by professionals who claim to know best what the community wants and will work. I am not talking about the farce of focus groups.

CJ asserts:

<< Obviously, you haven't had much to do with raising kids. >>

And TZ asks:

<< Ludwig do you have children? >>

Hells bells fellas, what’s having kids or not having kids got to do with the price of eggs? Does a person really have to have had kids to be interested in parenting, child welfare, the rule of law, blah blah?

Of course they don’t.

It is irrelevant to this thread, but I’m pleased to have not had any kids thus far and I have no intention of ever having any.

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Houlley, I love Boris Johnson’s quote – “taking the sword of common sense to the great, bloated encephalopathic sacred cow of elf [sic] and safety” (in the article to which you supplied the link).

Hahahahaaa!

Well…it would be funny if the situation wasn’t so stuuupid!

I mean, OF COURSE parents should be allowed to let their kids ride to school and OF COURSE parents should be allowed to let their kids stay at home unsupervised sometimes!

Laws against such things are just legal madness!!

<< I don't think that a single-mother leaving her child at home for a day makes her a bad mother, but it is neglecting her responsibility of care for her child. >>

Dotto, this statement would appear to be a tad contradictory, as neglect for one’s motherly responsibilities would make her a bad mother, at least in that instance.

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<< Leaving a 9-year old child alone all day is quite a different thing to allowing them to walk to school. >>

I can’t see that CJ. Why is it so different? There are dangers in both. I’d be inclined to think that there are less dangers in the home, especially if a parent lays down strict ground rules to a child that is being left at home for the day, on the odd occasion, and stays in regular phone contact, etc.

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<< Ludwig, leaving a 9 year old child alone for a WHOLE day is NOT the same as allowing the child to go to and from a nearby school alone, or to walk to a nearby friend's place alone or to walk from point A to point B in a shopping centre etc >>

TZ, I respect your strongly held view, but I don’t see leaving a child at home as being any significantly more hazardous than the other things that you mentioned.

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