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Notes -
I think you'd be horribly, horribly disappointed. And do you want to be the one who goes first, and risks having CPS remove your kids because some childless cat lady keeps reporting you for "neglect"?
I mean, I live in a neighborhood where I won't have to go first, and I find that a very minor benefit towards expanding my house over moving. But I also live in a filter bubble of people who have gone first and gotten away with it- mine own parents were among them, once upon a time, for letting me bike to 7/11 or the library on mine own far younger than the other children in the neighborhood.
So I think if I had to make that gamble I'd feel comfortable rolling the dice. Lots of people I know did, and it worked out for them.
And we were talking about "parents in the city" — if you lived in such a place, instead of where you do now, would you still take such a risk? If, in that scenario, a bunch of busybody Karens call CPS on you for "neglect" by insufficient helicopter parenting, what then?
That, of course, was a different time, when people — especially cat-lady "karens" — were less likely to report people to the government for being more permissive than the norm. This is the age of "see something, say something (caveat: unless "seeing" would be racist)."
The city in this case is rural Georgia. I doubt whoever reported the kid was a ‘childless cat lady’.
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