Mom Convicted of Misdemeanor for Letting Five-year-old Walk Alone

A Virginia mother of five was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for letting her five-year-old son take a short walk in their gated community alone.

Karyann Parkinson was given a suspended sentence of six months in jail and placed on Virginia’s child abuse and neglect registry after someone spotted her son Sam walking unaccompanied through their community that has “24-hour security, a 25-mph speed limit, and three golf courses,” reported Reason.

Prepared Parents

At the time of the incident — three months ago — Parkinson, her husband, and their children lived in a gated community in Williamsburg while Parkinson was studying at William and Mary Law School.

Both the senior Parkinsons are well-suited for parenting, including knowing how long a (figurative) leash to let their kids have. Karyann has a degree in family science. Her husband is a marriage and family therapist. Together, wrote Reason, they “oversaw the care of 35 girls” at a residential treatment center for three years. By June of this year, they had four children of their own with another just a month shy of emerging from the womb. One might think, therefore, that their parenting judgment could be trusted.

Alas, that 24-hour security company in their community was not so trusting. Someone in the community reported seeing the Parkinsons’ then-youngest child, Sam, strolling by himself one day. Security not only returned the boy home but chewed out Karyann, called the cops on her, and ultimately testified against her in court.

Sam’s Solo Stroll

Parkinson had taken a break from her bar-exam studies that morning to go on a bicycle ride with Sam. Along the way, they stopped by a pond about a half-mile from their home so Sam could do what he loved best: collect goose feathers. When they got home, Sam wanted to walk back to the pond for more feathers, and his mom gave him permission to do so.

As Reason described Sam’s trek, “It’s a short walk, along a sidewalk separated from the street by 10 feet of grass. Sam would have to cross two streets with crosswalks, which [his mother had] seen him do safely hundreds of times — including six times that morning, she says.”

A passerby noticed Sam on his walk and called security, which dispatched a guard to take the boy home. If the guard had simply dropped Sam off and had a friendly chat with Parkinson, that would have been the end of the story.

However, Parkinson told Reason, the guard “scared the crap out of” Sam by telling him his mom had done something wrong by letting him walk alone because he might be snatched by a stranger. Then he “gave Parkinson an earful,” noted the website.

Parkinson was understandably upset about all this and demanded the guard tell her how she had violated the homeowners-association rules. Instead, the guard informed her that letting her son walk by himself was illegal — and then called the police, who responded by sending an officer to her house.

Parkinson’s Unease

Becoming ever more peeved — and, as a prospective lawyer, knowing her rights — Parkinson told the officer, “I don’t have any interest in talking to you.”

The cop, who was apparently petrified of a heavily pregnant woman, called for backup. Two more officers showed up, as did two Child Protective Services (CPS) workers, also at the first officer’s request.

According to Reason:

At that point, Parkinson asked her husband, who was having lunch with their daughter, to come home. “I told [the authorities] that kids need to be able to take reasonable risks,” he says, “in order to grow up non-anxious.” CPS responded, he recounts, that “a 5-year-old child can never be unsupervised.”

Both the CPS workers and the security guard were, in fact, wrong about the law. Virginia has a statute specifically protecting parents’ right to let their kids play and walk outside unattended. That law, passed in 2023, defines neglect as putting one’s child in serious and obvious danger.

Conviction of Her Courage

Despite having the law on her side, Karyann was investigated by both the police and CPS.

CPS settled on a “Level 2 finding” of lack of supervision of her child. For that, she was placed on the child abuse and neglect registry, where she will remain for seven years.

The police, meanwhile, charged her not with neglect but with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a move Parkinson believes was designed to circumvent the 2023 law.

“At the trial,” penned Reason,

the security guard, his boss, and the police testified against Parkinson. The CPS worker testified that Sam seemed happy and healthy when she saw him that day. Parkinson’s friend testified to Sam’s maturity, and that he could be trusted to walk to the pond without going rogue.

Furthermore:

No one proved that the boy was incapable of walking a few blocks safely by himself. After all, that would have been difficult to do, seeing as he had already done it without issue.

Nevertheless, the judge convicted Parkinson of the delinquency charge, a first-degree misdemeanor carrying a six-month jail sentence. While the sentence was suspended, the criminal conviction remains on Parkinson’s record. She fears it will prevent her from volunteering at her children’s schools or even from getting her law license.