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Breaking the law by being neighborly
Lisa Snyder of Irving Township, Mich., was trying to be neighborly, helping out other moms on the block by inviting their kids into her home for about an hour until the school bus arrived. Harmless, right? Not according to the Michigan Department of Human Services, which sent Snyder a letter warning her that if she continued her neighborly ways she’d be in violation of the law, a law that says no one may care for unrelated children in their home for more than four weeks each year unless they are licensed day-care providers.
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has instructed the state agency’s director, Ismael Ahmed, to work with the state legislature to change the law. Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd said although the agency was following standard procedure, the law was getting in the way of common sense: “We want to protect kids, but the law needs to be reasonable. When the governor learned of this, she acted quickly and called the director personally to ask him to intervene.”
back to top43 Comments to “Breaking the law by being neighborly”
I guess they’d rather have the kids wandering around the neighborhood or congregating on street corners.
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Ridiculous. It’s a law that could simply have been ignored in this speciic case.
The law should have specified a certain number of hours.
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Of course this is idiotic, because some are reading the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law.
Next topic, please.
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This is just the kind of UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE we get when laws are pushed through without a whole lot of discussion or forethought. It happens a lot when the government takes oversight of something. Laws get enacted that have unintended consequences.
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Yicks! I know I have other people kids at my house for more than 4 weeks out of the year.
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Klasko, excellent point. Oh, that we would learn from it.
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Thank God that they are going to correct the error. How would such a law effect kids sleep overs?
Blessings
Roger
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New ending to the story: “Snyder served five years in prison in the 1990s on a conviction of molestation. Her neighbors were apparently unaware of her past.” (Not true, so far as I know, but what if it were?”)
The purpose of the law is to prevent people who shouldn’t be around children having unfettered access to them. Maybe it’s too broad as written, but you all know that a seemingly nice person can be a secret creep.
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I agree, Steve, but there needs to be a happy medium. One that is usually found when the rules are put on the table and discussed with all the troubleshooting done beforehand.
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From the article:
“Snyder learned that the agency was responding to a neighbor’s complaint.”
I wonder why the neighbor complained.
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Steve,
IF the neighbor was indeed a convicted child molester, that would warrant some intervention, but she’s not. Parents have the prerogative to trust whomever they wish with their children. A threatening letter to the friendly neighbor who has done nothing wrong, is exactly the sort of invasive abuse of power and that rightly causes people to eschew government intrusion in a whole host of issues. (Healthcare included.) Parents are the best judge of the welfare of their own children. It’s better to have no law regulating childcare than a very poorly written one.
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You’re right, Steve. If I’m going to send my kid to the home of a convicted child molestor, I don’t want it to be for more than three weeks. It’s a good thing we have legislators to protect our children from spending too much time with convicted child molestors.
That’s silly, you say? Maybe you’re right. Perhaps it’s time to make it illegal for any child to enter the house of anyone who hasn’t been licensed by the state–including their parents. That’ll fix things.
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#3 Bart: yep, you’re right.
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I saw this on Today yesterday morning, and their representative is putting in legislation to change this. But what about that nosy neighbor who can’t mind his/her own business? Now there’s someone with too much time on his/her hands. A little jealousy perhaps?
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SteveG (#8):
In your hypothetical construct you presume to know the purpose of the law, i.e., keeping child molesters away from children. Do you have any evidence for that presumption—say perhaps, some excerpts from legislative debate when the law was passed?
I seriously doubt your “guess,” for that’s all it really is, I think. I believe you are grasping at straws and your effort to defend the state bureaucracy in this case is very weak.
More likely, and I’m guessing too, the purpose of the law is to support and enforce the state’s day-care licensing rules. These rules have to do with such things as the ratio of children to workers, number of bathrooms, square footage of facilities, food preparation standards, fire emergency procedures, etc., etc.. And, yes, the rules probably stipulate requirements for background checks on licensee’s and workers, but they would not be the majority of the rules.
Hence, this law’s main purpose is probably not meant to prevent sexual molestation (there are other laws for that purpose), but to support and enforce the pre-existing, day-care licensing rules. In Mrs. Snyder’s case we see the law at work, wielded by an unthinking bureaucracy and in defiance of common sense and good judgment. The result is a significant loss of human freedom as the government intrudes into a private home and, in this case, even into the fabric of personal friendships.
So, what does all this have to do with anything? Well, as a conservative, I see this as just another example of the built-in stupidity of most government programs, the unintended consequences of their application by unthinking bureaucrats, the needless expense and waste they often generate, and their tyrannical intrusion into the lives of the average citizen.
All of this will be compounded a trillion-fold in the Obama-care monstrosity that the Democrats are now attempting to shove down the throats of millions upon millions of Americans. We would like to keep this kind of government encroachment to a minimum, not create more of it.
Today Mrs. Snyder is being told she can’t even have her good friends’ children in her own home. Tomorrow she will be told by another government bureaucrat exactly who in her family is deserving of medical care, what kind of care she will be allowed to have, and what punishment the state will inflict upon her when she disagrees.
This is the “change” Obama wants for your family tomorrow. You may want this SteveG, but I and most other Americans don’t want any part of it.
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NJLawyer, perhaps. Maybe the neighbor was afraid that if Mrs. Snyder was watching 3 kids before school, how long would it be before it was after school as well (with more kids). I don’t know. The phone call WAS over the top in my opinion and created a problem where there was no problem.
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It does bring to light that legislation poorly written has consequences. A simple sentence that this did NOT apply to babysitting would have sufficed. I wouldn’t want to have to pay the legal fees to get myself out of this mess.
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Here’s a good compromise. Obama wants to extend the school year, but doing so would reduce the summer retail/tourism/etc season, and jack up utility costs for schools along with other expenditures.
Why not put kids in school from 730 to 530 instead? Now you’ve solved all the problems…Since they go that long, you could possibly even shorten the school year…increasing the summer.
Whats the reasoning behind 8 to 3 anyway?
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Another point to add #15: I’m guessing here, but the law Mrs. Snyder “violated” was probably not passed by the Michigan legislature. More likely, it is a law generated by bureaucrats at a state agency that the legislature has empowered to pass such rules in the legislature’s name. Regardless of whether or not this is the case with the Michigan law in question, the point remains the same.
We see multitudes of examples of this at the federal level with such agencies as the EPA, the IRS, OSHA, etc. The thousands upon thousands of “laws” these agencies enact govern almost every facet of our lives and they are never debated on the floor of Congress or passed by a democratic vote. They are imposed upon us by a few select individuals (bureaucrats) who “know” how we should live our lives and who make sure that we do so according to their dictates.
The plague of locusts the Egyptians of biblical times endured will seem minor compared to the swarm of bureaucrats that Pharaoh Obama will bring upon the land.
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Michael Martin: Agencies make rules only when empowered by the legislature to do so. Many, many laws pass Congress that included provisions for the relevant agency to create the specific regulations needed to attain the goal of the law. The agencies can act only with statutory authorization and boundaries; they don’t just make up rules on a whim.
As to your larger point, yes, I am sure that the day care provisions include much more than just the background of the personnel. But those are important things too. Do you want incompetent parents to be able to leave their children in a home with unhealthy or unsafe conditions, or inadequate space for the number of people, and there to be no legal recourse to prevent it?
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The plague of locusts the Egyptians of biblical times endured will seem minor compared to the swarm of bureaucrats that Pharaoh Obama will bring upon the land.
Perhaps, MM. But Pharaoh Bush was doing much the same, wasn’t he?
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Do you want incompetent parents to be able to leave their children in a home with unhealthy or unsafe conditions, or inadequate space for the number of people, and there to be no legal recourse to prevent it?
Until they are PROVEN incompetent—YES!
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Yes, Steve, I want parents to be able to send their kids to a friend’s house to play without state mandated inspections and licenses.
But if you believe that the children of “incompetent parents” need their children protected by the state through such laws, then why should the state not, even more, be involved in inspecting the homes and the private lives of the parents themselves to ensure that they aren’t harming their kids in any way. Why not require regular state inspections of all homes with children the way they inspect the homes and lives of foster parents? In other words, why not just make all kids wards of the state? In fact, I suspect that if a democrat-controlled legislature proposed such an idea with a carefully-worded rationale, you would be on board with it.
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Thorn, kids don’t have the attention span that adults do. Most of them have three hours of homework after school to boot. When do they have time to be kids and get exercise. Most school have after and before hours care for those those who need it. ?
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There is a DARK and SEAMY side to this story of this woman watching over the neighborhood kids after school that ALL of you are purposely ignoring.
SHE IS NOT INNOCENT, no, no, not at all.
Apparently, news stories are just beginning to hit the rounds that this woman PURPOSELY did NOT (I emphasize DID NOT) require the children she was watching to sing ‘Obama Loves Me’ (set to the tune of Jesus Loves Me) NOR did she require these same poor children to recite the MANDATORY Obama Pledge of Allegiance.
As a consequence, these children have been comprimised idealogically and will have to be lobotomized (still good for pursuing careers as Democrat Party activists, though) and the woman will have to be Trotskyized.
An ice pick is being shipped overnight from the White House even as we speak, so this crisis should be past pretty soon, thanks to our on-the-ball Administration.
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I know Kbells. Most schools include recess/studyhall/PE etc.
So whats the difference? They can sing Obama songs for a hour.
Isnt that entertaining?
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Do have to join a union too?
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oops! Do you…
that’s what happens when I don’t proof my writing
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No, you have to sign a card. The union will be sending someone by to persuade….er…check that you signed your union card.
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It seems that Michigan needs a Babysitting Tzar. Obviously, ordinary citizens are not capable of making appropriate decisions about who is qualified to take care of their children.
It must be too expensive for many people to afford day care providers for their children who are waiting for the school bus. If we only had a public option providing competition to make it possible for everyone to have equal government approved waiting-for-the-bus child care…..
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Ree: In fact, I suspect that if a democrat-controlled legislature proposed such an idea with a carefully-worded rationale, you would be on board with it.
I am about done with having people assign positions to me.
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SteveG (#20):
You miss the point of #19. Your rebuttal attempts to make it seem that I am against the obvious logistical necessity of empowering agencies to make rules, within defined constraints, to achieve the goal of a particular law. That is not what I am saying at all. When necessary, I agree that agencies have to make additional rules as they are empowered by the legislature to administer the basic laws and programs that the legislature passes. That’s obvious and I have no disagreement with that necessity.
But how much of that do we want? I say, as little as absolutely possible because it limits freedom and is often abused by dictatorial types of people.
That equally obvious point, is demonstrated by Mrs. Snyder’s case where the government is undeniably intrusive and threatenly abusive. Governments do this by their very nature. We should do everything we can to minimize this, not encourage it. Thomas Jefferson is commonly given the credit for this maxim: “That government is best which governs least.” As a general principle, I think that is true and our adherence to that principle for the majority of our history has made us, until recently, the most free country on earth, economically, politically, and religiously. To the degree that we depart from that principle, the less and less free we become—that is logically undeniable and it is clearly seen in what happened to Mrs. Snyder.
For the most part, I agree with your assertion that agencies “…don’t just make up rules on a whim.” However, agencies, or humans in authority, often make rules based on personal whim, and do so egregiously. This very case proves that. Someone in authority in a Michigan agency reinterpreted the existing law, or made up a corollary to the existing law. They did this in order to say that the act of Mrs. Synder in having the children of her friends in her home for an hour before the school bus arrived was unlawful day-care. Why? Apparently the new rule was based on the nebulous complaint of a less than friendly “neighbor” and then the capricious decision of a bureaucrat administrator in agreeing with that “neighbor.” By any objective analysis, this injustice was driven by the whim of a neighbor and the caprice of a bureaucrat.
Or take the subject of abortion and the question of when protected human life begins. Despite all scientific evidence to the contrary, liberal answers to this question have been all over the map for twenty-five years. Whim and political caprice are the only ways to describe the liberal approach to that question and the body of laws and rules on this subject. SteveG, you are in error when you say that agencies don’t make laws based on whim. They surely do.
So the combined points of #15 and #19, is to be very careful in empowering government to make laws and rules that inevitably intrude into our lives. Be doubly careful when those in authority are todays liberals. They are naturally of a dictatorial mindset and those like Obama are not to be trusted in anything they say or do. They should be restrained in their power as much as possible. The injustice done to Mrs. Snyder is but a small example of that which will inevitably come to pass under the name and authority of “Obama-care.” We had best avoid it like the plague, for that is what it will surely be.
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Thorn, so an extra half hour recess would make them capable of putting in a 12 hour work day. Could you do it?
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I could do it if they promised ice cream..twix ice cream. But aside from that, no.
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“I am about done with having people assign positions to me.”
Two options I recommend. 1. Ignore them 2. Dont assign positions to them in response. It’s better to simply address the issues without going all Republican or Democrat on it.
I’m not saying I do either of those well myself or that youve done that here. Just saying I realize the assigning assumed positions or stereotypes doesnt help the conversation.
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Steve,
I said that I suspect that this would be your reaction. Not that this is your position now, but that you seem so sympathetic to the logic leading to such a position, that if were couched in just the right terminology by just the right people, I can imagine you buying it. But you can just ignore that last line of my post and respond to the rest of it.
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SteveG, Of all the people who post here you seem to me to be one of the most unpredictable. Yes, I see a liberal leaning tendency, but I am often wrong in my preconception about how you will respond to a particular issue. Some things I believe are consistent with you: 1. you don’t try to play with people’s hearts and minds. 2. You don’t write to impress others. I appreciate your thoughtful, and thought provoking posts.
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Ree: There is a balance to be struck. The law (correctly) gives parents the benefit of the doubt about their own homes. And it recognizes (rightly) a blood bond that should be presumed to elicit good care. In other words, we assume that parents take decent care of their children unless we have a tangible reason to suspect otherwise. And when we do have that reason, the law also properly provides a mechanism for the authorities to step in and take children out of a bad situation.
But for people providing long-term care to other people’s children, those presumptions are not necessarily valid. Many caregivers are, of course, loving, caring and competent people. But some may be predators, or negligent, or well-intentioned but not capable of really doing the job. The law (society) has every right and good reason to put a greater degree of oversight over unrelated caregivers.
And because not all parents are good parents, sometimes they do make bad choices about whom to entrust their children to. Even good parents can do this if they’re misled. So while I do not necessarily agree with the law at work here — in truth I do think it sounds over-reaching — I do agree with the basic reasoning behind it.
To extrapolate, as some do, that it’s somehow draconian or statist or even “nanny state” is misguided; if the law were lax enough so that children were walking around in unchanged diapers all day long, most people would be livid about that. But you can’t prevent situations like that without some laws that provide a mechanism by which the government can regulate. Licensing is a very common and entirely reasonable way to do that.
For you to “suspect” that I would approve of intrusive inspections of the homes of biological parents, and especially to suggest that my assumed support would be based on party loyalty, is simply insulting. And, you are dead wrong.
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Gee, I wonder what would have happened if the nosy neighbor had just spoken to the mothers.
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SteveG,
No offense, but I would bet that you do not have children.
For one, hardly any women with children are ever convicted of child molestation – so we moms don’t worry about that with other moms.
Secondly, most moms are not going to leave their children with a neighbor that they do not know pretty well. It sounds like these women traded off babysitting on a regular basis, so they probably all knew what each other’s houses looked like.
Third, these are moms in a rural area, so they probably know each other even better than urban moms in the same situation.
Fourth, almost no moms would leave their children with someone who wouldn’t take care of their children well. I know I feel even more responsible and cautious when taking care of someone else’s child because I would hate to have to tell another mom bad news about an injury or other trauma that happened while I was in charge. The exception to this rule seems to be boyfriends. I have seen quite a few news stories about boyfriends being left with children who are not their own and then abusing or neglecting them. I cannot recall any cases of moms doing that to other moms’ kids.
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Beth: You’re right, MOST moms would do all the things you say.
The laws are intended to protect the children of the few moms who are not that good.
Look, I have basically two things on this case:
1. I think the law in this case went too far and penalized someone who was doing nothing wrong. The governor (Mickey forgot to mention she’s a Democrat) is right to step in to intervene and ask for the law to be changed.
2. BUT, I do not see this as an example of a “nanny state mentality” or worse. There are simply too many cases of child neglect for me to believe that we don’t need laws to regulate the care of children by unrelated persons. Licensing rules are an effective and unintrusive way to do that most of the time. Michigan’s law needs some refinement, or else the agencies that enforce it need to revamp their practices, but either way, such laws are necessary.
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When my son was a baby (about 17 years ago), one time Grandma couldn’t watch him (as she usually did while I was at work), and somehow I had gotten the name of a neighbor (on the next block, so I didn’t know her) who did daycare and could watch him on an occasional basis. I visited her apartment and felt she was OK to leave him with for a few days, though I wouldn’t do it long-term without getting to know her better.
When I went to pick him up, no one answered the door. It wasn’t locked, so I went in, calling out “hello!” No one answered. I found my son in his carrier, and he seemed to be just fine. I don’t remember if I saw the woman in the next room and she was sleeping, or if I just guessed that was the case – it was dark and I didn’t turn the light on. I just picked up my son and left, leaving her to wonder if I had come or some other intruder had kidnapped him.
I couldn’t believe anyone would leave their child with such a woman a second time, but there had been other kids there, and I’m betting it wasn’t the first time for all of them. So some mothers must have been willing to entrust their kids to a woman who didn’t even know when someone walked into her house and walked out with a baby.
And I never left my son again with a neighbor unless it was someone I knew well.
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Scary, Pauline!
And Beth, I don’t think it’s just “moms” who rarely molest kids. Women period rarely do. (Well, men rarely do too, but men and teen boys are a much higher “risk factor” for that.)
As a teen I made a mental note not to entrust my own kids with someone just because that person was a parent, however.
When I was 19 or so, I did occasional babysitting for babies down the street from me. There was a boy and a girl, nine months apart (the girl, the younger one, was two months premature). When they were something like barely two and fourteen months (the younger one not yet walking, as I recall, but old enough that she could have been), I went to take care of them. The father invited me in and spent several minutes going through the written list–what they’d have for supper and when, or whatever. I assumed the kids were napping since they weren’t playing in the living room. After several minutes of chatting with me, the father said, “Oh, the kids are in the tub, and it’s probably time for them to come out.” I was very young, but even I knew that no one should leave two babies unsupervised in a bathtub for even a few seconds! I myself wouldn’t even answer the phone in that situation unless I could take the baby with me and come back into the bathroom with the baby and phone within seconds. (I don’t remember if that was the same time he informed me that the girl had gone poop in the tub, and left it for me to deal with it!) Sure, moms are better at that stuff than dads are, usually, but it still told me not to make assumptions that someone is good with kids just because they have a few.
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