A single dad whose five kids all go to public school in North Vancouver has been told by the Ministry of Children and Families he can’t send them to school on a public transit bus from downtown Vancouver.
Adrian Crook, 42, a video game designer and blogger who lives in a Yaletown condo, said he’s disappointed by the nanny-state reaction of the province, which launched an investigation after receiving an anonymous tip that Crook was sending his kids – aged five to 11 – on the bus to school by themselves.
Crook calls it a massive overreaction to a situation in which he’s tried to foster independence in his kids and taught them how to navigate the bus route gradually before letting them take it without him.
“We really live in a helicopter parenting society,” he said, adding the state is “starting to prescribe a lot of these helicopter parenting norms.”
Crook and his ex-wife, who lives in North Vancouver, share custody of their children, who go to elementary school in North Vancouver.
Crook said when he first became a single parent, he drove his kids back and forth to school in a minivan during the time he had custody.
But after a while, Crook said he felt it was important to foster more independence and confidence in his kids, as well as promoting ways of travel that were safer and more sustainable. After checking with TransLink about whether there were any age restrictions on kids taking the bus by themselves, Crook began teaching his kids to use the bus. For a whole year, he rode the bus with them, teaching them at which stop downtown they had to transfer to the North Vancouver-bound bus. Then he rode the first part of the journey with them, allowing them to make the last leg by themselves. In the spring of this year, he let his children ride the bus 45 minutes to school by themselves.
Crook said all of his kids carried cellphones, allowing him to both track them on their journey and contact him. Their first bus stop is in sight of his living room and the last one is right outside their school in North Vancouver, he said.
Family – including the children’s mother – and school staff were aware of the arrangement, he said.
“The safest mode of transportation is public transit,” he said. “There aren’t a whole lot of hazards when someone is actually on a bus.”
But before the end of the school year, Crook said he got a phone call from the Ministry of Children and Families, telling him someone had made an anonymous complaint. The ministry investigated, eventually telling Crook that he can’t let his kids be unsupervised under the age of 10. Older siblings need to be at least 12 to supervise younger ones, Crook said he was told.
Crook said the ministry staff didn’t point to any specific problems and declined an offer to “shadow” his kids on their bus route. But the message he got was legal precedents in B.C. pointed to 10 as the minimum age kids should be left alone – inside or outside their home.
Crook said he disagrees with modern trends that have seen parents watch their kids closely all the time – despite crime statistics that show decreasing crime. Crook added he’s been getting lots of supportive responses from parents after going public with what happened on his blog and plans to launch a legal challenge, with help from almost $30,000 raised through GoFundMe donations.
It’s important not just for his family, but to challenge the “gold standard of parents having to chauffeur their kids around all the time” as the norm, he said.
The ministry said in a statement there is no policy or legislation that states when a child can be left alone. When a report is made about an unattended child, the ministry looks into factors like how long the child is being left alone, safety measures in place, and the child’s maturity and own comfort level with the situation, a ministry spokesman said in an email.
Kulvir Mann, a North Vancouver parent who has worked to promote walking and biking to schools and has met Crook and his kids, said she doesn’t agree with the ministry’s decision. “He spent quite a bit of time training them and showing them the route in small increments,” she said. “It wasn’t like he just said ‘You guys are on your own.’”
Mann added the decision sends the wrong message to parents.
“There are too many parents driving their kids to school when they could be walking, biking or taking the bus,” she said.
