Parenting and Childcare: A Response to Child Negligence by a Working Mother

This article discusses the issue of child negligence by a working mother in South Carolina and the challenges faced by working mothers in childcare. It provides a response to five questions related to the incident, including the concept of 'free-range' parenting and its unfair double standard. The article also includes references to relevant sources.

Running head: PARENTING AND CHILDCARE
Parenting and childcare
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1PARENTING AND CHILDCARE
Response to Question 1
The news from South Carolina about child negligence by a working mother is indeed
a matter that needs attention. Apparently I was stunned to hear such type of update. Secondly,
the area of the incident that drew my attention was the penalty served by the state law. It is
the responsibility of the mother as a guardian to keep a close trace on her until and unless the
child becomes self-sufficient (WFXG, 2014). If I were in her place, I would have definitely
appointed someone as an alternative for the time being. She failed to look after her daughter
thereby showing signs of not a very good mother.
Response to Question 2
From the news gathered, it seems Ms. Harrell is a single working mother who has to
play a lot of roles in order to render services for her family. On one hand, she looks after her
child as well as does her domestic chores while she is at home and serves her daughter on the
other. In contrary while she is at work, she fulfills her duty and simultaneously, wishes to
serve her child. As there is no provision in the real world, it is quite understandable that why
she left her daughter at the park unsupervised.
Response to Question 3
Based on the statistics it has been found that there is a surge in childcare prices. About
40 per-cent mothers are primary earning members (Steinberg & Darling, 2017). Ms. Harrell
is one such mother for whom it became extremely difficult to enroll her daughter in one of
the childcare camps, which ranged from $500 to $1000 (Covert, 2014). This the reason for
which the working mothers are finding it tremendously difficult to supervise their children. If
we look deep into the problem, we will be able to figure out that Ms. Harrell had no choice
other than leaving her child to play at the park.

2PARENTING AND CHILDCARE
Response to Question 4
(a) The law passed by the state council accounted for ‘free-range’ parenting which,
allow parents to involve in independent activities if their child was sufficient enough to look
after himself. Based on several incidents, the law exhibited signs of discrimination since it
allowed an unfair provision only to the parents who weren’t of dark complexion or a poor
economic class unlike Ms. Harrell.
(b) Going through the article I agree on this issue. One of such incidents included the
case of former columnist Lenore Skenazy who allowed her 9-year-old child to ride the
subway alone but nobody threatened to keep her child away (Calarco, 2018).
Response to Question 5
In my opinion I feel that my master status is being a student of the university. I
consider this as my master status because according to me a student of a higher standard gets
an opportunity to learn from his seniors and also gets an opportunity to teach his juniors to
test his knowledge. My master status of being a student favored me once when I missed a
class due to illness and my tutor guided me to catch up with the lessons the very next day
when I came to the university and stated the reason for my absence.

3PARENTING AND CHILDCARE
References
Calarco, J. (2018). 'Free-Range' Parenting's Unfair Double Standard. Retrieved from
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/04/free-range-parenting/557051/
Covert, B. (2014). Mom Jailed For Leaving Her Child In A Park While She Worked At
McDonalds. Retrieved from https://thinkprogress.org/mom-jailed-for-leaving-her-
child-in-a-park-while-she-worked-at-mcdonalds-a52549c3bc7b/
Steinberg, L., & Darling, N. (2017). Parenting style as context: An integrative model.
In Interpersonal Development (pp. 161-170). Routledge.
WFXG. (2014). Mother accused of leaving child alone at park while at work. Retrieved from
http://www.wfxg.com/story/25915268/mother-accused-of-leaving-child-alone-at-
park-while-at-work