Karyann Parkinson has five children and was eight months pregnant when she gave Samuel, 5, permission to walk alone to a nearby pond to collect goose feathers. They lived in Ford’s Colony, a gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia. The trip: half a mile, along a route that mother and son had traveled together before.
A security guard intercepted Samuel after a neighbor, alarmed to see him alone, called to report it. Two weeks later, Parkinson was arrested. The justice system convicted her of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor, with six months in jail suspended. But the real punishment came separately: she was placed on Virginia’s state child abuse and neglect registry for seven years, which prevents her from volunteering in her own son’s classroom until he reaches sixth grade.
The paradox is that Virginia has a law specifically designed to protect this kind of parental decision. Parkinson has already announced that she will appeal, with a hearing set for September 16. Meanwhile, she bears a label that no mother should ever have to explain.