Disturbed

This morning at 2:45am in Eagan, a 3-year-old child was found walking along Highway 55.  At 5:30am, his parents discovered he was missing and called the police.  They said he got out by using an electric garage door opener.  The child is being held by social services for the next 72 hours while they investigate the parents.

This doesn't seem fair to me.  In fact, it outright disturbs me.  I thought that there must be something the article didn't say, like the parents looked like they were stoned or something when they came to get their child.  So, I called Dakota County social services to find out.  They told me that they don't just do this, that the police have to tell them to take the child into custody and do an investigation.  They suggested I talk to the police.  So I called them.  They said that when they can't find the parents, they place the child with social services, and have no control over when the child is released.  "That's funny," I said. "Social services just told me it was the other way around."

This could happen to you or me.  In fact, I am awfully lucky it hasn't happened to me.  I have had three-year-olds escape the house by going into the garage (the door of which they figured out how to open, despite the child safety doorknob), finding a car door unlocked, and opening the garage with the opener on the visor, just as they have seen me do.  I have had a three-year-old sneak out after dusk, when I thought he was asleep, only to have a neighbor call and tell me that my child is two blocks entertaining a crowd of people, including the sheriff.

I told the person at the Eagan police department that I thought that it was unfair to keep a 3-year-old from his parents for three days for escaping home without another reason.  She told me that there are unexpensive things a person can do to keep their child from escaping the house.  I told her that nothing is ever foolproof, and that this just isn't right.  She told me that she had gotten my voice mail, and that she really didn't need to further the conversation.  As I hadn't called her previously, I told her that this was my first call, and this just shows that other people are concerned with this, as well.

I got off the phone feeling like this isn't really the free country we think it is.  I cried.

I am afraid for the day when Katie figures out how to use a child safety doorknob.