Hi Folks! Here in my burg, New York City, we are preparing for a possible strike by school bus drivers. That would leave about 150,000 children without their usual transit to school. If this comes to pass, the city has stated it will issue free Metro Cards (our bus/subway tickets) to all students, and also to the parents of kids in grades K-2. What does that say to me?
Our government trusts kids in grade 3 and up to take public transit WITHOUT their parents. By themselves. On their own. Solo. Third graders are ages 8 and 9. So the Mayor and the Board of Education agree that 8-year-olds are perfectly capable of riding the New York City subway, surrounded by strangers, without anyone supervising them.
This blog here was started the weekend after I wrote a column about allowing my 9-year-old — a 4th grader at the time — to do just that. The uproar was deafening. I had put in him grave ‘danger,” people cried, and either I had no idea how scary, traumatizing, and potentially fatal that trip could have proven, or I simply did not care. (I love how some people assume that any parent who trusts her kid in the world must actually not “care” about him.)
Anyway, it seems to me the mayor, of all people, would not want to have thousands of children traumatized — or worse — by the end of tomorrow’s school day. So maybe the mayor knows something the jittery, Free-Range Kids-condemning public does not: We are living in safe times. New York is a safe city. Nothing is ever perfectly safe, of course, but riding public transit, solo, is safe enough for the mayor to endorse for tens of THOUSANDS of children.
That’s something to remember as we worry about ever letting our kids out on their own. They can do it. It just sometimes requires an extraordinary event to make us, and them, try it. — L.
Goodbye, school bus — hello, subway!
57 Comments
Kudos to the mayor, maybe he reads your blog!
I have been going through this internal dilemma for a few days now. My son is taking a class at a local park district.
To get there by himself he’d have to walk through neighborhoods where there have been a lot of shootings. Given that he is biracial he could easily be mistaken for someone else in our neighborhood – which is how lots of kids get shot, mistaken identity.
It’s so hard to want to give him more freedom, but the reality is that it’s not safe… not kidnappings, not muggings, but idiot gang members who shoot each other.
I would have no problem letting him take the bus to the train and take the train downtown cuz it goes through a different neighborhood but to walk less than a mile? Ugh
It’s so hard to teach the kids freedom when you’re worried about them being shot. 🙁
Fantabulous! Good to see some rational thinking for a change.
Way to go NYC! Where kids can be independent, responsible, AND safe.
We live in a very small community in Central New York. My kindergarten son walks to and from school, usually alone, sometimes with a friend. I’m also a volunteer in his classroom one day a week. Just before Christmas the principal came to me while I was at school to chat. The school has no age requirement for children walking solo, I checked with her at the beginning of the year. She wanted to touch base with me on how the walking was going. She was very honest in that she is of two minds on the whole issue. On the one hand she wants to foster independence and a sense of accomplishment in all her kids at school. On the other is the “what if” monster that lurks in all of us.
I explained that even though he thinks he’s big stuff because he’s “doing by himself” in reality, we know more than half the people along the 2 block route. I can see him out our door, from the inside, until he is 2 houses away from the crossing guard and we have talked with her about him walking. And he has no streets to cross.
I said that the reality is that he thinks he’s doing alone but the whole neighborhood is watching him.
That’s what is missing I think. Everyone is afraid of liability if something should go wrong so they take the “not my problem” stance and feel that exempts them in the event of something bad happening. We need to cultivate relationships with those around us. That’s why it SEEMED safer years ago, even though it wasn’t, and SEEMS more dangerous now, even though it is actually safer now. We don’t know who is living around us and stranger danger that we’ve all been taught for the last 30 years has encompassed our neighbors.
Go outside. Say, “Hi” to your neighbors. Take them a plate of cookies (or a box, it is Girl Scout Cookie season!) and introduce yourself. A familiar face is a friendly face.
Really, you think the Mayor believes 8 and 9 year olds are capable of riding the subway and bus alone? It is all about saving money, that is all.
My son is 8 (3rd grade)…
My daughter is 11 (6th grade). This fall I shadowed her and a friend on the subway ride to school. Though I had spoken with the other parents from our neighborhood over the summer, and we had agreed the kids could travel together, the other parents are STILL not comfortable. This means my daughter has been taking the subway alone (in stead of as planned in a group). She has proven to me that she is responsible and aware of her surroundings. One day, she reported “switching trains”…at first I was concerned as, in my mind, there was no reason to switch trains. She explained that there was a man taking pictures of people in the train car. When the train stopped at a transfer point she said, “All the other grown ups changed to the express train and I didn’t want to be with the weird picture guy alone, so I got off and waited for the next train.” This experience has the other parents afraid to let the kids take the train, to me, it proved she was perfectly capable of riding herself.
I suppose, if the strike happens, I will probably shadow my son for a day or two and then I will most likely let him ride with his sister. They have been riding the subway their entire lives – almost daily. It is not something I would have my 9 year old nephew do (he visits maybe once a year) but for kids who have grown up here it is safe.
Anna, that’s a whole other kettle of fish! Free-range isn’t about throwing caution to the wind, it’s about looking at and evaluating each situation intelligently and making an informed decision. Letting a biracial kid walk through known gang territory…. not a good idea. Finding other areas of life where he can hone his free-range skills… fabulous. The fact is that there are some areas where it’s just not safe, even for a grown man or woman to walk around. It’s a sad fact but that is the truth.
Anna, your situation is different. You’re making an intelligent, reasoned decision based upon real conditions. I don’t know how to tell you to find a balance. I live less than a mile from a rough part of town too, but have managed to start giving more freedom with tight limits on when and where he goes, and a cheap cell phone in his pocket.
I’m looking forward to next year when both my kids can ride the bus to school!
Sorry but I agree with Janet. I do not think the mayor is making a statement about our kids independence, just about money. Also, as a fellow NYC resident I would not let my 8 year old (if I had one) ride the subway alone. An 11 year old, sure, but most of the 8 year olds I know (and as a karate teacher, I know a LOT) just do not have the maturity or the level of awareness of their surroundings to make me feel comfortable with them being alone on the subway. And no, I am not afraid of abductions. In my opinion, to be on the subway alone, particularly during rush hour, you have to be able to pay attention to what is going on around you…announcements, people acting funny, large crowds pushing. I just do not think an 8 year old is ready to do this.
If the child is familiar with the route and won’t get lost or off the wrong stop then I think it is great. I would personally – would ride with them for several weeks – then shadow several weeks before letting my child take public transportation on their own.
Some of these kids are probably very familiar with the trains and others may have ridden them but would not have a clue on how to work the system. I know in public school you have to go with the lowest common denominator. I feel for the parents that don’t have kids familiar with public transportation and are used to relying on the bus to take the kids to school.
I know Washington DC kids use public transportation a lot. We are about to get a metro station 1/2 mile from my house. I will have to teach my kids before they set foot on it by themselves.
It for reasons like this decision by the mayor that we live in this great city. Go Bloomberg, Free Range Rules!
I would agree not every 8 year old (or every 12 year old) could take the subway solo. Even kids who live in NYC might not be able to do, especially if they have ridden the subway reading or playing electronics while an adult told them when to get up and get off. I will say, that in addition to riding the subway most days of his life, my 8 year old has ridden the subway with his grandparents – who do not live here or visit often- and by age 6 he could (and did) tell them which trains (uptown or downtown) to take, which stop to get off, and even which exits were best to get to where they were going to come meet me.
I would be more afraid that my kids would argue…The big issue for my eight year old would be if there was a big delay and the trains got sardine crowded. Its hard to push your way in and out of a train like that….
Do you think they’ll get him on a TV show and call him “America’s worst mayor”?
😉
Kudos to you and the kids of New York! To me 8 yr olds does “sound young” but I know we live in a “small” town with no public transit. My father grew up “in the big city” and I often use him as reference for things he did with his companions and siblings in the Big Smoke (Toronto) all by themselves, all day long.
Perspective. such a powerful thing.
We live in Kansas, and since about 2 years ago, the school district had to make budget cuts, which included no bus service for kids within 2 1/2 miles from the school. At the same time, through a series of unforeseeable events, my 7 yr old and 11 year old no longer had daycare. that first year we managed to get them a carpool, but it didn’t last long and it was hard finding backups. Last year we just started having them ride their bikes to school, and realized just how responsible they really are! I hear nothing but good reports from other parents (small town) and they are aware of their surroundings. They still act like typical brothers, but I am much more relaxed and I don’t worry nearly as much as I used to about their safety.
Bekki
We all used to do it… why not now? Crime stats are much better now, than in the 70’s… Kids these days practically walk into walls without a constant, verbal barrage of instructions from parents… Let them come up for air and watch where they are going for a change…
Besides, if all the kids are taking the subway at the same time, they certainly won’t be alone…
Kids rise to the occasion. The problem these days seems to be how reluctant we are to give them any sort of occasion to which to rise.
I was just thinking over the Christmas break about my own kids, how entitled they are, even at the same socioeconomic level as I was in the 70s. Instant gratification, and expectations that parents will take care of everything. The inertia we must overcome in order to get them doing the most basic of household, age-appropriate tasks. It’s ghastly.
I’m beginning to think that all human beings need some hardship of some sort in order to develop, to hone those neural pathways that bring out the best in us. Not ENORMOUS hardship. Not being forced to execute one’s own parents, or being raped by soldiers, or dodging gunfire. Maybe like walking to school, even if it’s cold and rainy. Having a parent *temporarily* incapacitated, physically or emotionally, which then “allows” the child to contribute in meaningful ways to the household, in a more urgent atmosphere than usual. Being told to work, over time, to earn the money for something unneccessary but desired, even at age 7 or 8.
Instead, it’s an iPod Touch for Christmas, it’s parents trying in all ways to shield their child from any hardship or disappointment.
Mayor Bloomberg is just being sensible: use the resources you have remaining when the resources you were using are unavailable. He can’t have that many parents in the workforce suddenly chauffering kids to school on the subway, so he’s encouraging them to go it alone… so their parents can get to work! Yeah! Like people used to prioritize, way back 30 years ago.
Perhaps this will qualify as a “hardship” for some kids… great. Their neural pathways will forever be improved, and their character along with them.
@Kara Nutt, I’m still amazed whenever I hear that parents need to get the school’s permission before their child can get to school in the manner the parents have chosen. Why do we give schools that much power?
I grew up in Chicago and remember taking buses alone starting at 12 (my brother was 10 at the time, we just never thought to use the buses before). Our friends started much younger. By high school it’s almost a prerequisite to going to school to know how to use public transportation. I had to take the CTA home from school every day (I was lucky enough to get a ride to school every day). And when they opened an L station near my house my dad took me down town, showed me how to get around and then the next day gave me $10, a couple bus tokens (before everything was electronic) and told me to go explore. And I did.
I don’t really remember if I ever saw young kids riding alone but I never felt the L (at least that route) was all that dangerous. Even the Loop (that’s the part of down town Chicago surrounded by the L tracks) wasn’t all that dangerous. The L was mostly just commuters, people going to school or doing their grocery shopping and people coming from Midway Airport with all their luggage. They were always nice, kind and ready to help. The only time it got rowdy was after school with hundreds of high schoolers on the train.
I’ve noticed most of the people that freak out about kids using public transportation never or rarely use it themselves and have a warped idea of what it is like based on TV or news reports.
It’s not normally scary–just a bunch of people trying to get where they’re going. The kind of people that don’t want to hurt kids and would do something if they saw a kid being harmed. Most adults aren’t monsters.
That being said, if we were in NYC I’d have to go the first couple weeks with my kids because they have no clue how to use public transportation. I doubt it would take much longer than that for them to learn their route and know how to act on a train. I plan to teach my 12, 11 and 10 year olds how to use the bus in our small town so they can get to places quicker than walking or riding their bikes. Have to get them reduced fair passes first (maybe on our first trip?).
It didn’t even occur to me to ask until a thread on here mentioned someone’s school having such a policy and I thought I’d check our school. Once I realized we didn’t have anything in writing and it was up to the parent to decide I started working with my son to get to that point.
Every day I walked a little less of the way with him until I was able to start just “kicking” him out the door on time. After about a week of walking to school on his own I signed him out as a walker, which meant I no longer had to go in and sign him out EVERY DAY… (ugh) and started meeting him first at the door then down the street until the first day he burst through the back door, so proud of himself, “MOM! I walked ALL the way BY MYSELF!”
It was that pride in himself that I made sure to share with the principal when she came to me with her concerns.
He still prefers to have his friend walk with him, but is willing to go alone, too. Maybe as the weather gets better we will start a revolution in our neighborhood.
This is a win win for the mayor. He get’s to show confidence in his transit system, and in the young citizens of his city. Then he get to collect all the extra adult fares, from the parents that do not trust their kids to ride alone.
Well played Mr. Mayor.
@Beth,
I am with you. It is incredible that parents have allowed schools to dictate how they deal with their kids transportation.
I would actually like to know if they can legally make these demands.
Lenore,
Have you contacted the Mayor’s Office about a possible Public Service Spokeskid for this project? I’m sure you can think of someone.
OK, spill it, did you have a moment of “Nyah, nyah” and “I told you so!!!” 😀
What a fantastic shift in the tide! Congrats!!
Nice. It still frustrates me that so many parents drive kids to our local school, even the ones who live as close or closer than I do. My kids walk themselves to school, and it works great. That’s far simpler than riding the subway, of course, but with the way so many parents think their kids must be driven or at least escorted by an adult, I’ll take what I can get.
Hooray! Vindication!
I still think it depends on the the kid and the route. If you have to do a subway-to-bus transfer that involves crossing a street, shadowing may be in your kid’s best interests. But if you have an aware kid who has used public transportation for some time and isn’t switching2-3 subway lines and a bus (like going from Brooklyn to the Bronx), then go for it!
I used to walk to school until 5th grade when I transferred to a school in the center of the city. My classes were in the afternoon for three years, so I would take public transportation (a bus then transferring to a tram or walking just under half a mile) to school myself (after getting up myself and making my own breakfast and/or lunch and finishing homework myself). My Dad would usually meet me at school when classes finished at 6 or 7 pm and we would ride home together. It was rather dark at the time, transport was very crowded, and there were pickpockets everywhere. I started school rather young, so in 5th grade I was 9 years old, just like these kids. Certainly can be done…
I’m just trying to imagine an extra 150,000 kids and extraneous adults on the subways before and after school. Can the system handle it? Otherwise sounds like a fun idea. Though imagine what all those grumpy adults who can’t stand kids are going to say…..
I would trust an NYC kid on the subway way before I would trust an adult like myself, whose entire experience of subways is with the very sanitised Singapore system, and a week in the Paris metro. You go for it, kids :-).
Is there a way in the future to be able to “like” other commenter’s comments? Warren’s totally made me laugh out loud!
I just wonder how those normally opposed to this sort of ting will react. Either they will be against it, in which case I will be annoyed but respect that they are sticking to their beliefs. If they go along with the mayor I will lose all respect for them because they are only suddenly fine with it because someone in power said its okay.
My mother grew up in NY, and it was standard practice: all kids got free metro passes and rode the Subway to school. Whoever this mayor is, he’s got my vote!
My 8 year old is eager to take the city bus to his grandma’s house so we made a plan that during the spring break, I would ride with him the first time. The next trip, he wants to go with his 6 year old sister (he feels comforted by her company) and the third trip will be a solo one. My son is a little nervous about new situations and trying new things so I’m happy that he’s initiated this adventure and has made a plan to achieve this goal.
PS. Lenore, my son read your list of 12 things to do before you’re 12 and he really wanted to get a pocketknife. We got him one for Christmas and he is pleased as punch! Thanks for the idea!
Woohoo! The mayor feels kids are capable of taking transport – but just make sure they have no sodas larger than 16 oz., LOL.
Ive been reading your posts for a few weeks – love to see another one in my mailbox – but didn’t realize you were That Mom! I’ve wondered if you buckled under the pressure and am thrilled with your sticktoitiveness.
We live 10 miles from school with no transpo one way for our 1/2 day kindergarteners. The town is small with no real crime rate. But we are required to hand-to-hand deliver/pick up our kids. With no parking, that requires a longish walk with toddlers in tow. We aren’t allowed to use the (empty) bus lanes lest a child be run over. No, we just have to make sure our 1- to 4-year-olds don’t slip on the ice or slip out of our grasp and bolt into the street during the walk. Doable? Absolutely. Necessary? No way. I’ve done this for 4 kids so far, and always with younger siblings, and I get irritated every time.
PS I’m so proud of you!
Nothing is perfectly save, but I also fail to see what is so safe about parents who drive there kids everywhere? Is that really so safe to drive your kids 2 blocks in an ugly gas guzzling SUV, that is causing kids to have all kinds of respiratory problems, driving it aggesivelly only to crash into another SUV and then to realize when an SUV hits another SUV it is much worse than a car hitting another car. It is these types of people who seem to be the biggest cynics of the safety of the public transit system.
Bask in the glory that is yours, Lenore!
My youngest, just turned 8, would think it would be great to ride the subway every day, even though he has only been on the Metro in DC once. And I am sure he would do just fine. For my sake, I would want to ride with him a few times, just I knew the spots where mix ups might happen.
By the way, what are the typical school hours in NYC? Do they actually coincide with the working rush hours? Most places I have lived the schools started after the morning rush, and finished before the afternoon.
I recently read a book by Willie Morris in which he briefly mentions that he allowed his son David to ride the New York subway alone from the age of 7. This was back in the 1970s. I guess Willie figured that he went wherever he wanted as a child in Yazoo City so his son ought to be able to go wherever he wanted in New York.
@Katie, not to derail the conversation, and I agree that it’s no safer to drive kids than have them use other methods, but not all parents drive SUVs. Some of us drive regular ordinary cars, and it would be nice if that stereotype were put to rest.
By allowing kids to use transportation independently, you will get a good snapshot of their self-esteem and capability. Some will jump at the chance but maybe lack the reliable judgement skills…maybe they need some work.
I expect quite a few children who will be too scared to do it though,or parents will flat out deny them the chance. But they should at least give them a chance to try.
Mayor Bloomberg is handing these kids self-esteem on a platter. Making them responsible for getting to school will let them know that they can handle responsibility vs. being picked up or driven door to door. I know the morning commute wakes my kids right up (they bike) and they are ready to learn. Responsible students are what we are trying to develop, right?
And I can see it now- sales of candy bars and forbidden foods sold by vendors will explode! NYC economy shines. Or it could go the other way….parents hire “escorts” to drive their kids to school.
I’m rooting for the candy bars.
Hineata, the MTA counts more than five MILLION customers daily. A hundred thousand or so is barely a drop in the bucket. Worse comes to worst, they add a few buses after school lets out in the afternoon.
Lollipoplover, here the kids sell the candy on the trains, ostensibly to support their schools. It’s a ridiculously marked up price, and I always tell them the same thing – any money I donate to the schools goes to my local school and I give them the cash directly.
CrazyCatLady, the elementary schools run for six and a half hours (not counting extended day, which I’ll get to), and start anywhere between 8 and 9 am. Extended day, which is academic support for struggling children, is an extra 100 minutes weekly spread out over two, three, four, or five days depending on the school. It can be either in the morning or the afternoon, and children in mandatory extended day have buses if necessary.
School bus service ends after the sixth grade EXCEPT for some middle schools on Staten Island where our transport sucks, and possibly for some special education students in higher grades. So high schoolers generally take public transport already and aren’t affected by this school bus strike.
To clarify, that’s over five million riders on the trains. There are an additional two million riders on the buses every day.
Our small (Pop. 25,000) city used city buses for student transportation until the 1980s, at which point I’m sure the “stranger danger” phenomenon took hold and the City instituted school bus transportation for kids, and City bus transportation for everyone else (at which point the system took a quality nose-dive). I think it’s ridiculous. If we had a single bus system, it would be more comprehensive, with more, better routes, more frequent times between buses…. and I think a lot more adults would use the bus system!!! Kudos to the NYC mayor. Segregating children away from the rest of the world on school buses is artificial. I think it’s much healthier for adults and children to be around one another!
To those who say that this doesn’t represent any kind of Free Range thinking because it’s all about saying money….
well, I’m sure money is the underlying motivation. But there’s a limit to what money will motivate — the New York City government, of all institutions, is not really all that stingy about spending money to protect people from spurious dangers. (Real ones, might be another story.) The fact that they consider this safe enough to do IS worth something.
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Well, the mayor does protect people from sodas larger than 16oz…. We know how dangerous they can be…
Nothing is stopping you from buying a zillion ounces of soda, Stacey. You just can’t buy them in one cup, which given that a reasonable serving is about six ounces is not such a big deal. If you really think you need an oceans worth of soda, either buy two cups or buy a bottle and carry it in.
But who is anyone to tell someone else what they can and can’t do, and what is reasonable? Besides, what if you are sharing the soda?
Very ugly paternalism/big brothery…No one limits how many cheeseburgers you can have… or anything else.. why is soda so special? or is that next?
Aimee – I couldn’t agree with you more about the “Segregating” comment. I meet so many children who do not know to interact with other children of different age or adults who are not teachers.
When my daughter was about 7 she used to watch me hold open doors for parents with strollers. One day she said to me why do you do that? I said because when I had a stroller people held doors open for me and I really appreciated it. At age 11 she does it herself now without prompting.
There are no limits on how many sodas you can buy.
And soda probably is “special” because when you have a cup of soda you’ll drink the same percentage no matter how much is in it. You think you’ll drink until you are full, but your idea of full varies depending on how much you have. Creepy, right? If you have a trick cup that refills as you drink it, and you’re normal, you’ll just keep drinking and drinking.
Besides, I’d really rather have Bloomberg telling me I can’t buy 10x as much soda as I could ever drink (I don’t have that many siblings, and anyway, ew) than the theaters telling me I cannot buy a reasonable size of soda, six or eight ounces, for a reasonable price. Even if you’re sharing, who the heck really needs 64 ounces of soda for a two hour movie? 64 ounces of anything!?
At any rate, it’s not so much that I agree with the policy as that the arguments against them were so stridently hyperbolic and over the top that I support it just to spite the soda industry, which I found to be really obnoxious.
For that matter, Stacey, there are limits on other things you can buy. For example, if you drink to the point of drunkenness, the bartender will cut you off.
Ironic isn’t it. The funny thing is that you did a lot of prep work making sure your son was confident & able to navigate on his own & it doesen’t sound like the Mayor think it’s necessary to prepare kids who may have never been on public transportation. Also I don’t think they city or the schools want to pay for passes for all of the parents.
Really? What was with the bunch of posts about the soda? Really, I have been known to stray off topic for a bit, but the soda size law, come on.
Speaking of riding the subway-
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