Mom Faces Jail for Making Son Walk to School

[Twilla]

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An Arkansas mother is being charged with a misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a minor after she made her son walk 4.6 miles to school in order to "teach him a lesson."

Valerie Borders, 34, told police her 10-year-old son had been suspended from the bus for a week and she was making him walk to school as punishment.

A bank security guard spotted the boy walking alone in 30-degree weather on Monday and called police.

When the boy spoke to the responding officer, he told him: "Please don't take me home. Mother will beat me," the police report said.

The officer took the boy to his mother's workplace, only to be told she was on vacation. They found her at home, where she was cited for child endangerment.

"There were a number of things that could have happened to the child," said Lyle Waterworth, a spokesman for the Jonesboro Police Department. "The child could have been injured, abducted."

ABC News affiliate KAIT spoke with the boy, who made an impassioned plea on camera to keep his mother out of jail.

The boy's mother did not speak on camera.

If convicted, she faces up to one year in jail and a maximum fine of $1,000.

Mom Faces Jail for Making Son Walk to School | ABC News - Yahoo! News

I used to walk about a mile and a half to school, although it never got that cold. Have things changed so much that a person seeing a kid walking alone on their way to school calls the cops about it?

[Twitchin Kitten]

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I was just going to ask the same thing. We walked everywhere as kids and 30 degrees was not a problem. Unless you were not dressed for the cold. You didn't get bus privileges unless you lived more than a mile from the school. We got school bus service to and from for the first year of junior and high school and we got city bus passes for the rest of the grades. Bus passes were the best! We got to use the entire 5 boroughs bus system for a nickel a ride as long as we were in school, including summers. Kids in Brooklyn and Manhattan got subway and bus passes!

Is it so bad that kids are to be worried about being abducted every day of their lives? Shit, if it's that bad in the world, why would any young person want a child knowing the "dangers"?

[Biker Dude]

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10 is a little young for such a long walk.

But then maybe the government needs to keep the fuck outta raising a kid? Naw, that is too radical I suppose.

My son walked about 2 miles up until he got his drivers license. But he was a big kid, nobody was gonna take him. He woulda hurt the person that tried.

[Twitchin Kitten]

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Ten probably is too young for that. But they have gotten to the point of babying kids these days. I did forget about the age when I commented but either way, my comment stands sans including the age

[twisteroo]

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She shoulda just named him Sue.

[Rhubarb]

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That is just about the distance I walked every day to High School when we moved. I was eleven then. Although I did get a push bike the next term as a birthday present.
The difference maybe is the walk was on busy roads and as I got nearer to school more and more friends would join up until we were on the main road into town.
There was a routine, we never broke to keep us safe (even if we fell out with one another) Debbie, saw her on thursday walked the furthest. she met Sandra and I walked to Ann who is selling camel rides in Tunisa again this winter, where we joined up with Sandra and Debbie.
Crossed the road and took a short cut to Joanne and sometime Angela had to walk who lives on the corner from me, we 'do coffee' then we get to the pedestrian crossing to find Linda waiting with her father (who was very protective- who sometimes crammed us in his car to do the last 2 miles), or not. About 5 minutes before the school we would knock on the door of Mrs Pengelly and she would persuade Jane out to walk with us. She had mental issues and half the time would be off sick, but Ann insisted we called for her. Her mum made us tea if we kept her at school all day and got her home at the end of the day.
Jane wasn't bullied, she just didn't do mornings...or afternoons.
Linda was bullied- and did we have trouble trying to get her dad to see 'he' was her problem -

I wouldn't have missed walking every day - we would be late, but we were healthy (sometimes cold and wet) and had a good ole chin-wag and did well with what is now called 'networking'. We all ended with push bikes by the end of the summer (except Jane- who still can't ride a bike, so Ann tells me)

Angela married one of the fireman at the station we passed (divorced a year later, but hey)
Jane got a really good job in the solictors office at the crossing by the school (she would go in there asking could she sue her mother)
Debbie got a job at the nursery in Joanne's mother's, that was run from the house.

That kid could get himself a job in media after his mum goes to jail

[Aurora Moon]

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I think trying to arrest the mom for making his son walk is stupid, although red lights would go up at the boy telling the policeman about how his mom would beat him if he was sent home.

there's a difference between a beating and a simple spanking to me. "a beating" to me means whipping the boy all over with a belt, or maybe punching him repeatedly. now THAT would qualify as child abuse. It just strikes me as odd that the boy would use the word "beat" instead of the word "spank".

I would have both the boy and the mother clarify by what they meant by using that word to make sure that there was no actual physical abuse going on. aside from that, If I was a judge I'd just throw out the case and maybe fine the rest of the people for wasting the courts' time with such a trivial matter.

[LKTraz]

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Bottom line here is that the kid got thrown off the bus for a week. He must have done SOMETHING bad for that to have happened.

The fact that it was a 4.6 mile walk tells me that this happened in a rural area.

The assertion that the kid "could have" been kidnapped et al is not a really valid point. That's based on "if's"....if this or that or yadda yadda yadda. Well IF my aunt had balls then she would be my uncle!

I didn't ride a school bus until I was in 8th grade and even then I would sometimes opt to walk! It was just short of 2 miles to the school.

Around here they have become so wussified that they stop at each kid's HOUSE to pick them up. EVEN IF THERE ARE 2 KIDS NEXT DOOR TO EACH OTHER!

Until Max and our neighbor's kids decided on their own that this was ridiculous and simply started going to the common point of our property line, they would stop in front of our driveway to pick up Max then drive about 2 bus lengths to the neighbor's mailbox to pick up the neighbor kids!!!!!!

Fuckin' wow!

Now was a 4.6 mile walk a bit long for a 10 year old? I'd say probably. Mom could have driven him to within say a mile or so then made him walk the rest of the way. That should have been sufficient to get the point across to the kid that he shouldn't behave badly on the bus.

HOWEVER......sending mom to jail is NOT a proper course of action here.

As to the kid saying mom would "beat" him. Maybe she (like me) tells a kid they are in for a spanking by using the term "I will beat your ass!" if you (insert offense here).

[Rhubarb]

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I told a friend about this today- I forgot he works for a charity that assists child carers (they are the ones who look after other children in the family and or even their parents because they are disabled)

He said his boys were lucky the school bus stopped out side the door and once established at the school other local boys cycled to their house and left the bikes in his shed (big shed) and caught the bus from there.
It was 6 mile bus ride from there.
No one ever got banned from the bus or at worse the pupil was escorted on the bus by a parent or other adult. It was agreed that bus drivers could and should not be guardians, they needed all their attention on driving the bus.

[Gunnen4u]

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