JAMES CITY COUNTY, Va. — A mother let her 5-year-old son walk to a pond alone. Now, she's been convicted of a crime.
James City County mother Karyann Parkinson allowed her son to walk half a mile through their gated neighborhood past a pond to collect feathers. Parkinson has defended herself on the national stage after her case gained significant attention.
“We don’t interfere with children if they seem to be doing just fine," Parkinson told CBS News.
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“I gave him permission to go. I told him, go there, come right back," Parkinson recalled.
That’s the decision Parkinson told CBS News led her to be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She was eventually convicted and, as of Tuesday, was on Virginia’s Child Abuse and Neglect Registry.
“We just expected as soon as this gets in front of a prosecutor actually looking at it, and a judge, this is all going to go away," said Parkinson.
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In June, Parkinson let her five-year-old son walk unattended to a neighborhood pond half a mile away to pick up feathers. A neighborhood security officer saw her son and brought him home. Police were called, and that led to her being charged and convicted.
The case has ignited a debate about parenting.
“I don’t think that the conviction itself is out of bounds. Should it have been handled another way? Perhaps," said Virginia Beach attorney Sonny Stallings.
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Stallings said, in his words, the devil’s in the details, including where the family lives.
“Suppose she lived in Bedford County and they lived on a farm and they told the five-year-old to go check on the chickens and the chickens were a half-mile away and there was a pond near. Would that be child abuse? Probably not," Stallings said. "I’m sure there are rural areas in this state where five-year-olds go out a distance away all the time and the parents know it. But, it’s a different lifestyle. In a gated community in Williamsburg, probably not acceptable."
Parkinson has appealed her conviction.
Williamsburg-James City County’s commonwealth attorney declined to comment on the case but said, as of Tuesday, it was scheduled to go before a judge September 16 to have a trial date set.
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