Mom Arrested, Facing 5 Years in Prison for Leaving 8- and 10-Year-Old Boys at Home
A new Georgia law could protect Alexandra Woodward's parental decision—but it doesn't go into effect until July.
Alexandra Woodward, a mother of 8- and 10-year-old boys in Calhoun, Georgia, has been charged with cruelty to children in the first degree. If found guilty, she faces a minimum of five years in prison. Her crime? Letting her kids stay home alone for a few hours. They were fine.
Here's what happened: On April 15, Woodward and her boys made dinner together, and then played a game of Sorry. The boys did their homework. Woodward put them to bed and told them she had to drive to a storage unit about an hour away. (Woodward was having foot surgery the next week and wanted to take care of things while she could walk.) The kids asked her to bring home a few of their possessions.
Woodward left with her boyfriend, John McHugh. About half an hour later, one of the boys called their dad, or their dad called the boys (accounts differ on this point). Either way, they told him that mom had gone to the storage unit. Their dad then called 9-1-1 to request a welfare check on them.
Two police officers arrived in combat-style vests. They found the kids doing just fine on their own, but called child protective services, anyway. Child services summoned dad to come pick up the kids. Woodward and McHugh arrived at home around midnight, and the cops—now five in number—handcuffed them, and took them to jail.
They were fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in separate cells. After three days in jail, they were released on a $20,000 bond each. McHugh faces the same charges as Woodward.
While many parents might not make the decision to run an errand at night, that does not make it a crime, says attorney David DeLugas. DeLugas is the head of ParentsUSA, a nonprofit that provides pro bono legal help to parents arrested and prosecuted for child neglect in cases where a child was not in actual danger. A donation page has been established to help ParentsUSA cover Woodward's legal expenses, as well as other parents facing similar difficulties.
DeLugas noted that the charge of cruelty to children in the first degree is usually reserved for cases in which kids were beaten, locked in closets, or denied food.
"Not when you went out for a few hours," he says.
Georgia law states that first-degree cruelty to children occurs when a person "willfully deprives the child of necessary sustenance," or "maliciously causes excessive physical or mental pain." Anyone convicted of this crime, "shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than five nor more than 20 years." Since this case involves two children, the prison sentence could be doubled.
Woodward denies that her kids were incapable of fending for themselves.
"The more responsibility they get, the more they excel," she says.
She later showed me family videos of the kids setting up a tent, mowing the lawn, and cooking chicken.
On the night in question, she said: "When I started cooking dinner, they asked me, 'Can I cook?' It was one of those frozen skillet things." They took over the cooking, everyone ate, and Woodward told them, "After this, we're gonna run and do this thing." The kids affirmed that this was okay with them.
"Here's your phone," Woodward says she told them. "Call me if you need anything." She added that they could also call their neighbor.
Exactly why the kids called her ex-husband after she left—or whether he initiated the call—is unclear. When the first two cops arrived, they interviewed the kids, later writing in their report that the younger boy said he was nervous someone might break in, and that the older one was not scared because his mother often left them alone. In the body camera footage I reviewed, both the boys seemed perfectly calm.
The Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) publishes guidelines that state an 8-year-old child "should" not be left alone, but children aged nine to 12 can be, for a few hours. Woodward's younger son was a month shy of nine years old. The state guidelines also note that sometimes "a younger child has the maturity to be left alone to care for other children."
Either way, the thing about guidelines is that they are not laws. The DCFS website suggests following them. And now, a change in Georgia law, which will be effective on July 1, makes it crystal clear that charges like the ones leveled against Woodward and McHugh should not be prosecuted in the future.
Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed S.B. 110, the so-called Reasonable Childhood Independence bill, into law on May 14, making Georgia the ninth state to explicitly give parents the right to decide when their children are ready to be left at home, unless the parents show an "intentional disregard" of a "serious and imminent risk" that puts their child in obvious danger.
According to the police report, the cops entered the home and found "an open alcoholic beverage container"—i.e., a can of Twisted Ice Tea—and "a nicotine vape on the counter." It's pretty doubtful that an open can and a vape would meet the definition of a "serious and imminent risk" under the new law.
Unfortunately, the new law isn't in effect yet, so it technically doesn't apply to charges filed before its enactment.
After getting out of jail, Woodward met with child services representatives, who told her she can talk to her kids by phone, but can only see them on supervised visits for now. She is also required to undergo drug, alcohol, parenting, and domestic violence assessments. Meanwhile, McHugh expects he will likely lose his job because he works at the airport and now has a felony charge.
The assistant district attorney declined a request for comment. Reached by phone, the boys' father, who has sole custody of the kids for the time being, said: "I understand there are reasons why people would make the decisions they could make, but a parent's always required to keep their kids safe."
Of course, the kids were safe. Nothing happened to them. Were they 100 percent safe? No. Because 100 percent safety is impossible; after all, any time a parent drives their kid in a car, they are putting those children at risk of potential danger. Kids who live in homes with stairs could always fall down them and hurt themselves, and sometimes do. Perfect safety is an illusion.
Arresting a parent for allowing their child to do something that is extremely safe, like staying home alone for a few hours, is criminalizing a rational parenting decision, whether that decision is popular or not.
