An Indiana mother let her kids walk to a nearby friend’s house on their own, only to have neighbors report her children to police because they were “alone.” Going by Such_Alternative_894 on Reddit, she shared a story on r/mildlyinfuriating, explaining that her 8-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter were only a minute’s drive away. “No street crossing, all sidewalk the entire way. This is a residential area,” the mother clarified. It all began when a stranger started following her children, interrogating them.
“Mommy, a lady is asking me a lot of questions, and it’s weird. She is following us,” the son said, after calling Such_Alternative_894 with his Bark Watch. The mom quickly drove over to their location to encounter a woman who thought they were lost. She reassures the stranger that her kids were fine, but wasn’t ready for her next encounter within the next hour: with the police.
According to Such_Alternative_894, the same woman and her boyfriend had reported the children walking alone to the local police via a Facebook post. The officers responded and then called her, demanding she come because “they are alone.” The mother goes on to recall how the cop spoke condescendingly to her, then told her kids to trust him and to call him anytime.
“I’m sorry, but I DO NOT inherently trust cops like that and I resent someone telling my kids to automatically trust them,” Such_Alternative_894 angrily wrote, and thousands of Redditors agreed. Among the hundreds who commented on her post, plenty criticized both the neighbors and the police for their behavior.
Reddit Believed the Indiana Police and Neighbors Were in the Wrong
“So they made a Facebook post instead of checking in to see if they were ok? Yeah, sure they were worried about their safety,” sarcastically remarked a user.
“It wasn’t out of ‘good-natured concern’ if they posted about it on FB,” remarked another. “Society should be looking out for the kids and encouraging them while being a safe space with eyes to intervene if necessary, not calling police,” agreed a third.
One commenter claimed that Facebook posts about children walking around alone could be an “advertisement” to dangerous predators. “You better watch out, that town sounds MAGA,” the Redditor wrote, to which Such_Alternative_894 replied, “I live in MAGA hell.”
The Indiana mother claims her frustration is that the neighbors and local authorities were meddling with letting her kids “grow up and be confident problem solvers” by letting them be on their own.
Though the concern of children being alone, even in a seemingly safe residential area, is still valid, as there are plenty of dangerous convicts everywhere. In response to that, the mom claimed she “has a printout of their addresses and faces” of the offenders in her neighborhood.
