It Takes A Village

A raspberry to the Michigan Department of Human Services for their inappropriate misuse of the law in the case a Michigan Mom who has stepped in to help with neighborhood children. Lisa Snyder lives in Irving Township, Michigan, and has a bus stop in front of her home. Three neighbor girls, whose parents have to leave early for work, stop in and hang out at Lisa's home with her daughter, Grace, while waiting for the bus to arrive in the morning. Lisa doesn't charge the other families, and shouldn't be required to license as a child care provider in order to let them play at her house while they wait. After all, it takes a village. She recently received a letter from Michigan DHS warning her that if she continued to allow the girls to be at her home before school, she would be in violation of a state law aimed at operators of unlicensed day care centers. The State of Michigan Department of Human Services apparently has nothing better to do than patrol neighborhoods looking for errant Moms doing favors so that other Moms can go to work. Interesting. Perhaps the State officials would prefer these kids stayed at home alone, unsupervised, or alone on the street while they await the bus each morning. What about in Winter? Do they stand out in the snow freezing because their parents had to leave 20 minutes earlier than they do? Just being a good neighbor has put Lisa Snyder into a situation of considering the law versus common sense. In this case, common sense does not apply to the law. The state legislature is now aware of how ridiculous the law and its enforcement has become, so perhaps they will change it. Hopefully Governor Jennifer Granholm will insist on some changes so that neighbors can help neighbors without fear of "big brother" interfering. If so, maybe this will enable the state licensing officials to find some real violators.