Free-Range Kids

Lenore Skenazy | 7.23.2024 5:20 PM

J.D. Lott and his wife Britney were eating lunch with their eight kids on April 30 when he missed a call on his cellphone. The family was three years into a cross-country, home-schooling, Instagram-documented road trip in a bus they refashioned into an RV. A day earlier they had been staying at a Florida campground. The next day, they were in Georgia on their way to meet friends—or so they thought.

Half an hour later, the missed caller sent a text saying that they were from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in Florida. It continued: "Please respond we need to follow up and verify the children are safe. If we cannot complete this we will have to see an Order To Take Into Custody which is enforceable nationwide. Please work with us so we do not have to do that. Thank you."

A nationwide manhunt? With the possibility of having their children taken away?

"It's like a knife to the heart," J.D. Lott tells Reason.

The Lotts quickly pieced together what was happening: Online trolls had figured out how to weaponize child protective services.

The Lotts' Instagram account, @AmericanFamilyRoadTrip, has over half a million followers. On Reddit there's a group, FundieSnarkUncensored, that makes fun of people........

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