A very sad story...

A very sad story ... that displays the resistance here to California-style parental smothering.  In West Valley City (just southwest of Salt Lake City), a 12 year old girl was lured out of her house and (apparently) murdered by a 15 year old boy from the neighborhood.  The boy has been arrested.  The local police chief, Lee Russo, said this:

A member of the family knew she was leaving the house, but it's unclear how much her parents knew.

"This isn't about parenting," Russo said. "What we are investigating is the death of a 12-year-old girl."

From the TV coverage, I found that this was in response to a reporter's question about the parents' responsibility.  The chief's response is a very restrained version of what just about every citizen around here would say in the same situation.  That's a very different collective attitude about parenting than we were used to encountering in California.

Here in Utah, we often see:

• kids riding in the back of pickups
• kids riding bicycles without helmets
• kids, often quite young, wandering about, both in the country and in town, unsupervised
• kids roughhousing in places with glass and nails
• kids climbing trees, without safety harnesses or nets

Kids being kids, in other words.  Learning to be independent.  Learning to look out for themselves.  Learning how to deal with minor injury and pain.  Getting exposed to all sorts of bugs so they can build up their immunity :)  After being immersed in California-style parenting for all these years, it is so refreshing to experience this!