Parenting is hard these days, and technology and the law don’t make it any easier. Children are obsessed with their phones and devices. Even worse, they see them as something they deserve, not something that is a luxury.
Take a teenager’s phone away, and they will lose their minds.
This makes it a good way to help make kids behave. If they don’t do as they are told or if they act up, they lose their phones. It’s enough to get most of them to act right.
One mom was arrested the day before Mother’s Day for taking her teen daughter’s cell phone. The woman’s ex-husband claimed that the phone was his and that taking it from the daughter, she had stolen it. It was enough for police officers to arrest the woman.
She was eventually questioned and then released on bail.
The case went to court, where it was quickly proven that the phone belonged to the teenager. The father had given it to her as a Christmas gift, which meant it was no longer his. The mother had the right to take it from her.
The woman, Jodie May, said:
“I was just being a mom, a concerned parent, and disciplining my daughter. I think it’s ridiculous. I can’t believe I had to be put through it, my daughter had to be put through it, my family. I’m very surprised, but I’m very happy with the outcome.”
May was charged with misdemeanor larceny and larceny by conversion.
Both charges had a maximum punishment of 93 days in jail. She was nervous that she may have to go to jail for simply parenting her daughter.
Ottawa County Assistant Prosecutor Sarah Matwiejczyk knew that the case should have been thrown out from the beginning. She thought it was ridiculous and immediately requested that the case be dismissed. She explained:
“I’ve had an opportunity to discuss this case with the victim in this case, or at least the person we believed owned the property. The mother defendant being the mother of the minor child, I believe that changes the case significantly. Therefore, we’re requesting that the charges be dismissed.”
To make matters worse for May, she had a new baby and was still nursing her.
The baby was only 4 weeks old and hadn’t been given a bottle. The woman begged an officer to let her turn herself in on Monday after she could make arrangements for her newborn, but the officer refused. May said:
“He had told me that he was going to arrest me, and I asked him if I could turn myself in on that Monday by myself, that I had a new baby. She wasn’t taking the bottle yet.”
She also believes that the police officer knew that there was no reason to arrest her and could have easily found out it was her daughter’s phone and not her ex-husband’s.
She said:
“It was an easy question to have answered.”
Defense attorney Jennifer Kuiper-Weise said that this case simply came down to parental discipline and was never anything more than that. It seemed to be more about the ex-husband getting his wife in trouble than anything else. He was also apparently more worried about the phone than his daughter was. Kuiper-Weise said:
“We knew it would come across that way. The case was authorized on a probable-cause basis, and unfortunately, at times, there are misdemeanor cases that are not thoroughly vetted. Unfortunately, Miss May was a victim of that.”
Cases like this are becoming more common, and it’s sometimes hard for officers to know which person is right and which one is wrong.
They make the arrests and let the courts figure it out. Still, it’s hard to see how someone couldn’t show compassion for a nursing mother of a newborn. Luckily, May can now put this behind her and focus on parenting her teen daughter and her baby.
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