School closures during pandemic worsen home alone perils in US

On a summer morning in May 2020, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, Melissa Henderson, a single mother of five from Blairsville, Georgia, headed out to work, leaving her eldest daughter Linley, 14, to care for the other four — all at home because schools and daycare centers were closed. Engaged in her online learning course, Linley did not notice that her four-year-old brother, Thaddeus, had slipped out of the house to go down the street to play with a friend he had seen outside. A neighbour who saw the child alone outside called the police.

Although Linley found her little brother at the friend’s house within 15 minutes, the local police responded to the 911 call from the neighbour, looked into the issue, and took down details of the incident. Why the neighbour would call the police instead of simply taking charge of the child perhaps speaks a little about American society at this juncture. Still, the matter seemed to have ended there.

But the police returned two weeks later after finding out that there had been a previous instance of Thaddeus wandering out of the house when he was three. Henderson was charged with criminal reckless conduct, and arrested and handcuffed in front of her children. The charges carry a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine of $1,000. She spent a night in custody before her ex-husband bailed her out. The arresting officer, Deputy Sheriff Marc Pilote, wrote in his report that anything terrible could have happened to Thaddeus in the time he was outside, including being kidnapped, run over, or “bitten by a venomous snake”.

While Henderson was under scrutiny a year before the incident, Georgia state guidelines do allow children who are 13 or older to look after siblings for up to 12 hours. Such guidelines vary by state and even counties. But broadly, America is strict when it comes to childcare supervision. Children under 16 are seen as good “mother’s helpers”, but are not recognised as babysitters.

The nanny state can come down hard on offenders, including those who leave children even up to the age of 14 alone at home. Parents have been prosecuted for allowing children as old as 10 to walk home alone from a neighbourhood park.