A Mom Let Her 7-Year-Old Play in the Park. Arizona Arrested Her and Banned Her From Working With Kids.Sarra's name was added to the government's official list of unfit caretakers after she briefly ran an errand without her kids in tow.
ROBBY SOAVE
8.17.2022
It was a pleasant November day in Tucson, Arizona, and Sarra needed to procure a Thanksgiving turkey. The COVID-19 pandemic was still raging—this was fall 2020, before vaccines had been made available—and the supermarket's policy was to discourage excess people from entering the premises.
Sarra thus opted to let her 7-year-old son and his 5-year-old friend play at the park while she ran the errand. She instructed the kids to wait for her by the jungle gym; taking note of an adult acquaintance teaching a tai chi class in the park, Sarra told her kids to consult the friend in the event of an emergency. She then left to buy her turkey.
"It seemed like a nice, calm day," says Sarra. (In order to protect her privacy, her full name is not being used.)
Leaving the kids behind was an easy decision, one any parent might have made. The park was safe and the errand was quick.
And yet the state of Arizona has decided that the incident demonstrates Sarra's unfitness to care for children. Leaving two kids to fend for themselves even briefly—in a perfectly safe public park, with an acquaintance nearby—was an act of negligence, in the state's view, and one that warrants Sarra's placement on a list called the Central Registry.
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Source:
https://reason.com/2022/08/17/arizona-central-registry-park-kids-banned-due-process/
