Good for you Mom.If the stupid kids dont want to wear a jacket there then they will be very cold on the walk home.They will wear one next time wont they! Come on F.H.Police,dont you have better things to do then pick up 2 kids who probably told their mom,No Mom its warm outside we dont need a jacket!What a waste of taxpayers money.

At least her kids were at the library! Sounds like a good place to hang out.

Another parent who doesn't want to take responsibility for her own children. She should have insisted that they wear coats, and she should have planned on picking them up from the library, since we all know that it's dark by 5:30pm.

While I am not the mother of the two kids in question, (and I believe William is not the father) I agree that the children should have known better than to not wear coats when it sounds like they knew their mother was not going to be available to pick them up. It was NOT 8:50pm but 6:00pm so dark was also not much of an issue. I also feel that our FHPD has better things to do and filing a report is even more over the top. If these kids decided they needed a ride home they needed to give their mother more notice as she was in Southfield. I just think the whole thing was blown out of proportion.

you all need to get a life. and that mom needs to take responsibility for her children or get a nanny. the library is not your gd daycare.

15 year-olds don't need daycare. The girl that babysits my daughter is 15 years old. I was babysitting at 15 years old. I was also "watching myself" at 12 years old.

They were 12 and 15! A nanny? I should hope that at least a degree of responsibility lies with the children at those ages. Good grief, next thing we know they'll start arresting moms and dads at old folks homes if their adult children break the law.

It was 30 degrees and cloudy on the Saturday when this happened. Technically "below freezing", but not exactly dangerous weather.
http://www.weather.com/weather/pastweather/hourly/Farmington+Hills+MI+USMI0920:1:US?startdate=20121124
If my 15 year old took my 12 year old to the library, forgot to take jackets and then raised such a fuss about walking home at 6 PM that the librarian had to call the police, he/she would be grounded for a month. If, instead, my teenaged children were held against their will by the library and placed into custody of the FHPD for not wearing a jacket in 30 degree weather, I would be at the next city council meeting to complain.
On the other hand, if my 15 year old kept my 12 year old at home, playing video games and eating chips, instead of doing something useful (like going to the library) he/she would also be grounded for a month.

Ridiculous that the library and the police would even get involved in this. A 15 year old and a 12 year old are plenty old enough to walk BACK home after walking TO the library. I'm so tired of people treating our young people as completely incapable of handling the most basic tasks. Kudos to the mother, I wouldn't pick them up either. I'm the mother of a 19 all the way down to 3 years old and would expect that all of my guidance from the time they were born, would make sure they are responsible enough to handle WALKING in the cold.

The police *should* file a report. As a matter of fact, the mother should insist on it. It should be filed against the library employee who held two law-abiding, responsible teens against their will! Has the nanny state really gone this far?!

Oh, and the title of the article? ("Tree Decorating Mom Refuses to Pick Up Kids from Library..") That was more than a little bit leading. Next time do a better job of hiding your bias and at least pretend to hold some journalistic neutrality.

Another over-reach of government stemming from a bunch of freaked-out, helicopter adults. The librarians and police were coddling these boys like babies and stomping on the parental rights of the mother. These teenagers were in no danger from walking home in 25 degree weather. I respect this mother for trying to raise real men. It sounds like she's instilling responsibility through consequences, as well as a love for reading, into her children. These boys will likely grow into productive members of society. I doubt they'll be living in mom's basement throughout their 20's like so many of the spoiled, irresponsible, "kids" we see today who have been coddled to the extent that they are unable to mature into adulthood.

If something happened to either one of those kids walking home in the dark, below freezing without jackets, the mother would have been crying negligence and filing a lawsuit against the library and the town!! They are her responsibility and they are under 18.

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We have a saying in my home:
"There is no such thing as bad weather, just poor choices in clothing."
Yes, they probably should have worn coats. But they didn't and were still fine with walking home. How nice that there is a library nearby that these kids can utilize in the community.
WHO IS THE BUSYBODY THAT DECIDED TO ENFORCE A NANNY STATE AND NOT LET THEM WALK HOME? They walked to the library and were fine walking home. How dare someone interfere with such a basic transportation decision!
If you were so worried about the cold weather, offer them something from the lost and found. But calling the police? What a waste of resources.
Good for this mom for standing up for her kids- they're not babies. Soon these kids will be driving their own cars but hopefully, for the sake of this planet, they will still walk the short trips to places like the library.
Also, what's with the title of this article? What the mom (or father) was doing at the time of the phone call is irrelevant. "Dad on toilet refuses to pick up kids".

There are many problems facing our youth in this country. Good kids walking home from the library is NOT one of them.

For those crucifying the librarians for "holding them against their will," et cetera: You know darn well that if something had happened to the two boys on the way home, you would be clamoring for the librarians to be fired, publishing their personal info online, and so on. This was a no-win scenario in a society that has no common sense left.

My concern is for this mother who now has a report on file and is in greater danger of further public intervention - if anything else happens, regardless of fault or responsibility then they will go back to this and use it against her. Our system kinda sucks.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/nismart/03/ns4.html
oh btw, 59% of all kids abducted in the US are 15 or older.

it's not about walking home in the cold. it's about resposibility. period. it is not the library's responsibility to gauge the appropriate temperature or distance for your children. it is not the library's responsibility to find a route free from deviants, miscreants, potential abductors, etc. for YOUR children.
if something had happened to them, on whom would the burden fall?? i got good money that says the mom would not own up to it any more than when the library and later, police dispatcher called her.
sure, they walked to the library, but does anybody know where from or how far they had to go to get home? the bottom line is the library shouldn't have to make those choices because it puts them in a dangerous position if something does happen.
and when somebody calls you and asks you to pick up your children, not doing so and scoffing at that request, makes you a bad parent.

also, for those that have not yet realized it. the coats had LITTLE OR NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. the same exact thing would've happened regardless of whether the kids each had 17 coats or zero coats.

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Wow! They were 15 and 12, not five and two. Leave them alone!

Either the librarians should be held responsible for kidnapping ("Unlawful detaining" or whatever), or the kids should have been left to get there the same way they arrived. You can't have it both ways.

Must be a very safe town if this qualifies as news. Couldn't find a "kids caught shoplifting while mother drunk in bathtub" story?

Well when I was 15 and didn't take a jacket to school, I RAN HOME from my after school activities, in the snow, in the dark and without the jacket so I wouldn't freeze in doing so. It wasn't my mother's fault I was irresponsible or (probably told her I "was fine.") I probably did the same at 12. I can't figure out how the hell I made it to 44 without that jacket in the snow... kids today are babied way too much.

Given my understanding of the overall situation, the library's employees made a judgement call. The doors were about to close, it quickly became quite cold and they, the library employees, didn't feel right about those kids being exposed to the elements of the weather, or left standing on the steps waiting for their mom, who was none to pleased having her time interrupted. My understanding, she refused to come and pick them up, she was busy and angry that her kids weren't either smart enough to plan for the change in cold temperature or they were just lazy, selfish and inconsiderate of how their mistake was affecting her day. Either way this was a no win situation. Once the FHPD were called, MOM SHOULD HAVE DROPPED WHAT SHE WAS DOING AND PICKED UP HER KIDS. PERIOD!!! END OF STORY!!! SHE COULD HAVE "TAUGHT HER KIDS A LESSON AFTER THEY GOT HOME" The events unfolded as they did because of MOMS REALLY BAD CHOICE AND ATTITUDE. The FHPD answered a call from a concerned citizen for the welfare of two children and responded in the appropriate way. Now, if they were 18 years old and the same events unfolded "MOM" could have said, "My children are adults, if they walked there, they can walk home" and that would have been true. She could have stayed at her mothers home in Southfield and finished her tree decorating without having the appearance of being irresponsible, selfish, uncaring and neglectful parent.

I find it incredible that anyone here is actually clamoring for any library employee to be held responsible for kidnapping, especially because nowhere in this article does it say that the children were being held against their will by the library. The only group identified as holding these children were the police. Also, before rushing to judgement, maybe we all need to step back and wait for additional facts, here. Because if you have ever been to the library at close, there are often children waiting outside (sometimes in cold weather) for their parents to come pick them up. What happened this time that led to the police having to come pick them up? I don't think that the people who brought us this story have yet to uncover that. And for all we know, these kids could have told the library staff any number of things that they may have thought would have led them to a free ride home. I think it is a feat of intellectual laziness to assume that this single, isolated event feeds into some larger narrative of government control, especially when there is no pattern of behavior at the library to suggest so.

Wow. I will never allow my kids to go to the library again. This is scary stuff.

The librarian called the police because a Mom wanted her kids to be responsible? America is dead.

From Webster's Dictionary:
Definition of RESPONSIBILITY
1: the quality or state of being responsible: as a : moral, legal, or mental accountability b : reliability, trustworthiness

How in the world will today's youth ever be responsible citizens when we hold them accountable for nothing?
It is a walk home from the library.
They came to the library that way, but somehow the staff won't let them go home the way they came? And the police were called for what reason?

About a year ago, my 13 year old had forgotten to return the books HE borrowed from the library. I told him, "you borrowed them, you read them, you forgot them, you pay the fine and you return them." The next day, he was to walk from the school to the library (about 3/4 of a mile) to return the books and then call me after his fine was paid and I would pick him up (our home is an additional two miles away from the library). Well, it was raining that day, he called me and asked me to pick him up from the school and drive him to the library. I told him no and continued with what I was doing. Of course he was wet when he entered the library. A short time later, he called again and he told me that the librarian had a message for me....... The librarian asked if he had walked from school, my boy responded "yes" and then the librarian had told my son, "Your mother should be given an award, because she made you be the responsible party for returning the late books, pay your own fine and get yourself here." Well he learned his lesson, he now remembers to return borrowed books on time, saving him money, and he checks the weather and wears the appropriate clothing for the elements.