The Neighbour Who Cares

"Every eight-yer-old is different, every neighbourhood is different, and every parent is different, so you can't make an overall judgement like that."
"Apparently whoever called the police didn't think the police were a good enough judge of what was okay and not okay."
"Then they called DCFS [Department of Children and Family Services]. The police did not call DCFS."
"The funny thing is … I’m a joke with my friends because my kids are around me all the time. These are upper-middle class, stay-at-home moms [her friends] who have been investigated because someone didn’t have anything better to do with their time and called the police on them."
"For something like this to happen to me, there’s something really wrong. She was gone for five minutes. I was in the backyard and I could see her through the yard."
"Everyone needs to allow the parent to do what is best for their family. No one will dictate my parenting choices."
Corey Widen, 48, mother, Wilmette, Illinois

Corey Widen (right), daughter Dorothy and dog Marshmallow near their Wilmette, Illinois, home

Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty

Parents have a duty and an obligation to teach their children many social and personal lessons, building on their natural traits as they learn how to become disciplined and responsible individuals. And Dorothy Widen's mother Corey, took her responsibility as a mother seriously. When her children clamoured, as children do, to have a family pet she considered their request and spoke to them about their zeal for the pleasure of having a little dog around, having to match the level of personal responsibility they would exhibit in learning to take care of that pet.

Most parents know that when their children wax enthusiastic about the sweet little dog they see being walked by someone on the street and how wonderful it would be to share a little companion animal of their own, that it is they, in the long haul, that will have to do the required maintenance work once the excitement of acquiring a family pet has become normalized with the pet in place and no one wanting to offer to do the work of care, feeling satisfied with doing the playing about with the pet.

Corey explained in an interview that when she and her children discussed acquiring a pet it was with the proviso that they would have to share all the responsibilities of pet care, including walking their pet. In the interests of teaching her daughter Dorothy, eight years of age, a little responsibility and giving her a sense of independence along with it, she allowed Dorothy to go out with leashed Marshmallow for a walk on August 2nd.

A neighbour, seeing the child and the dog and no adult accompanying them reported to police, claiming a child who looked about five years old was walking a dog on her own. The concerned neighbour has not been identified. Wilmette police in their response to the call visited the Widen home, arriving just as Dorothy returned from her walk with Marshmallow. When Dorothy saw police at the door linked to her walk with her little dog, she was understandably upset.

"I was like really scared. I saw the police just there, like the police's car and I heard the like sirens going off", Dorothy later recalled of her experience. While no charges were filed after the police spoke to the family, swiftly determining there was nothing awry, the investigation was dropped. The unnamed neighbour, however, forged on, contacting the Illinois DCFS which launched a weeks-long investigation of their own.

The DCFS representatives interviewed family members, family friends and went so far as to interviews the pediatrician looking after the Widen family, eight-year-old Dorothy and her 17-year-old brother. As it was explained by a spokeswoman from the DCFS, when a complaint is lodged the agency doesn't know whether it represents a legitimate concern until it investigates. When it did so in this instance the agency closed the case since nothing amiss was revealed.

So is this an instance of a 'neighbour's' legitimate concern for the welfare of an under-age child exposed to a situation that could be a problem for that child's safety, just doing the responsible thing by alerting authorities when she could have approached the mother to discuss her concerns and have them allayed? Or is it conceivably a malicious intervention by someone who disapproves for whatever personal reason of the family concerned?

Does this call for the police laying charges of unjustifiable mischievous slander against a neighbour by a nasty character posing as a social conscience?

Wilmette, Illinois, resident Corey Widen was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services after an anonymous caller reported that her daughter was walking the family dog alone.WBBM