'Karens' Gone Nutz: The Disturbing Rise of Fake Endangerment Complaints Against Parents
Their children were alone outside. So police visited the family—twice.
Their children were alone outside. So police visited the family—twice.
(Lenore Skenazy, Reason) - Nick and Shaley Knickerbocker’s story shows how some people’s idea of “neglect” goes well beyond real risk.
Eighteen months ago Shaley Knickerbocker was living in small-town Kansas—Baldwin City, population about 5,000—when she sent her kids out to play one morning. It was about 7:30. They were 8, 6, and 4 years old at the time. She could see them from her living room.
That evening, Knickerbocker said, “I’m putting the kids to bed and a police officer shows up at our house.”
Knickerbocker’s husband, Nick, answered. The cop said he’d gotten a report that their children had been playing outside unsupervised.
That was news to Shaley Knickerbocker, who assured her husband she had been home all day. She homeschools and sometimes the kids play outside. (The horror!) “The cop was understanding,” says Knickerbocker. He told her husband, “I just have to do this [because] a report was made.”
“Probably someone made a call to [the Kansas Department for Children and Families] or a hotline and it got filtered to law enforcement and they had to do a welfare check,” says Knickerbocker, herself a forensic nurse.
Things went no further, but Knickerbocker couldn’t shake the funny feeling knowing that a neighbor had reported her.
A few months later…