Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone

I cringed at first, but enjoyed your article, and your point. I was born and raised in San Francisco, and I used to ride the streetcar and bus all around town at that age. However, I also remember a 6 year old kid named Kevin Collins who never came home back around 1976 or so.

Perhaps an additional point can be made that our kids are vulnerable (parents too!) because we no longer have the ability to defend ourselves from an attack, and because we cannot have a cop everywhere at once. Of course our society is not as gentle as it once was; thank the deliberate suppression of the Judeo-Christian ethic for that one! We don’t like to get involved because a) we might get sued or b), we don’t really care.

Maybe it’s time for us to take another good, hard look at the purpose of the Second Amendment.

Thanks for promoting confidence in parents to exercise freedom!

I applaud you!
And I applaud other parents like you!

I just watched your interview with a Canadian Television Station in Hamilton and just love that you are so real.

How do we teach kids how to be responsible if we don’t give them responsibility!!!

I played outside all day long …. all year long…. with neighbours and with cousins… climbing trees and playing dress up. We loved it. We craved it. Getting all dressed up and having snowball fights and building forts and running, running, running..
We also went swimming in our local lake every single day in the summer. We are strong swimmers now. All of us..

Yes, children need to be protected…. but not to the detriment of their own growth and independence!!!

Way to go to you and to your kids!!!!

Good for you for being such a normal person. I applaud your parenting!
We didn’t have child seats or bicycle helmets when I was growing up, and was out playing at the river by myself when I was even younger than 9.

I also love your domain/website! Free Range Kids! That’s brilliantly brandable!

RIGHT ON!!! How many children were ever harmed by strangers at Halloween, for instance. NONE! Yet children are taught to fear strangers but not their molesting priest, the drunk friend driving, etc.

My Dad was put on a train in McComb, MS at 12 to FL alone to find his way there and back. It was a wonderful experience for him and his family.

You’re a terrific mom! I wish others had the courage to help their children take reasonable risks.

good for you! Letting your child prove himself to both him and you is only positive. It’s not like you left him in a bad neighborhood at 2 am, without a coat in December and no money. For goodness sakes, this was more like an urban navigational exercise. The boyscouts do this in the woods all the time!

I’m thinking the people that are so critical of you want to tie their kids the them artifically. Challenging our kids to think for themselves is our job as parents. Part of that is to help them to build self confidence through achievement.

My motto is ‘learn from others, think for yourself’. This is what you are teaching your son.

The antidote to infotainment about time!

Hi Lenore,
I grew up in the South Bronx in the 50’s and 60’s. While it’s a little different my first proud move to indepence was doing the Saturday family shopping. Hell I was even trusted to pick meat and fresh vegetables. And, my mother didn’t lose sleep over me losing the $20 in grocery money or being abducted.

An even bigger step in adventure was was my friends and I (15 year olds) road our bikes to Palisades New Jersey via the GW Bridge. We had already done Central a Park and South Ferry and figured we were ready for interstate commerce :-).

These days I live in a suburb where parents haul their kids two blocks to grade school. I walked three blocks. These same hyperprotective parents think nothing of giving a 16 year old the car keys and not a week goes by where the news @ 11 features hugging, teary teens, a makeshift memorial and video of a smashed up car.

I want desperately to let my kids try things on their own. My son at age 10-12 used to go to the community boathouse in Boston on his own. This entailed riding a train (full of “scary” white-collar workers on their way to their jobs) and then the subway (full of “scary” workers and parents and nannies on their way to all kinds of jobs and shopping). People said I was crazy, but I didn’t see why. He was almost as big as me, and I did it every day. And he’s a smart kid.

Unfortunately, I got ratted on one day when I let my 7-year-old walk three blocks to the grocery store. The DSS has unchecked power in this state. If they decide you’re being a bad mom, they can take your kids–no judge, no warrant, nothing. I talked my way out of trouble–I was put on warning–but it’s still on my record in the DSS files, six years later, as I recently found out.

So I’m much more careful now. We parents live in a police state. We have no choice but to keep our kids prisoner.

Cathy wrote: “We parents live in a police state. We have no choice but to keep our kids prisoner.”

THAT’S NOT TRUE!!!!!

We have something called “Liberty”, bought and paid for by the blood of the patriots, and enshrined in the Constitution. It’s like anything else: Use it or lose it!

Maybe you have to move to a state that has more freedom. Maybe you have to file a lawsuit. Maybe you have to rally other like-minded parents to demand change. WE are responsible for protecting and exercising our liberties, since the government has decided to ignore its mandate to PROTECT our liberty and instead seeks to INFRINGE on our liberty. They can only succeed if you let them.

Thanks for your article and your faith in your kid.

We often lament about how things are now as opposed to when we were kids. I used to walk a mile or so to the cemetary and play in the canal behind it with my buddies aged 8,9 and I was 10.

It seems like those days are behind us but I am glad to see that when I let me kid cross the street by himself or walk home from school, I’m not being careless.

Here’s to hoping my kids ask for more reasonable freedoms.

Yea, you! In this society we operate so often on rumor, fear, assumption without carefully examining the reasonableness or accuracy of those beliefs. The message to our kids (and to ourselves) is “Be afraid, be very, very afraid!” By failing to define what we should fear and why we are trapped into feeling anxious and afraid of innocuous and pleasurable experiences in addition to those which are truely dangerous.

Should you be afraid of deep water if you cannot swim – clearly. Should you recognize that cars are bigger than you are and will crush you if you step in their paths, sure. Should you fear that everyone you see in the store or sit next to at the basketball game has evil intentions toward you, absolutely not!

I think that parents see no logical and safe way to move from doing everything for their kids to launching them off a precipice. The truth is you can break independence into defineable, conquerable steps. “Here’s where you read the price of the ticket;. THis is how to read this map. Let’s ask the librarian how you look up the book if you only know thë title.”
At the same time you are teaching them the mechanical steps of the task at hand you are teaching them the resources at hand (the librarian, the sales clerk, the neighbor) so if they get stuck, they can get themselves “unstuck”. The lesson they learn from this is invaluable; people are good. People will help children. You, too, should help people.

You are performing a valuable service in taking on this issue (albeit unintentionally). The voice of reason needs to prevail. We adults have a vested interest in the independence and mental health of children. Let’s invest in it now.
Go you!

I was so delighted to hear your interview on Talk of the Nation. The last couple of generations have been so overprotected and coddled that, in my opinion, that is why they have no analytical ability, horse sense, and everything that comes with dealing with the world and facing challenges. Parents, teachers, and almost everyone else who has dealings with young people have become so paranoid that it would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. Kids aren’t even allowed to climb trees these days because they may break a limb. That was an accepted part of growing up when I was young. Most kids would rather endure a broken arm than to be forbidden the feeling of power they get from climbing a tree. Anyway, more power to you and your son. He’s going to approach life with real enthusiasm and the curiosity to explore widely and intelligently.

I heard your story on NPR today and it made me laugh out loud. I teach public high school and I get to see first hand how students these days lack self confidence and are not able to express themselves, think for themselves, or “fight their own battles”.

I think children have been attached to mother’s breasts for too long. I remember the treat it was to walk from my house to the elementary school in the summer time to play on the playground. I was 7 and the school was a good mile away. (at least it seemed like a mile away). My mom set up limits for us to ride our bikes. We were allowed to ride the stretch of road that connected the two major thoroughfares.

When we got to be 13, we were allowed to ride our bikes to Long Lake, swim all day long and ride home. My mom wasn’t even at home or at the lake to watch us. I guess she just felt as though she had taught us to not talk to strangers and if there was any sort of situation we were uncomfortable in, we could always lie to get ourselves out.

I hope that when I become a parent I am not so overbearing that I have children who are overweight because they are fearful of leaving the house.

I may not necessarily agree with putting a 9yo on a subway by him/herself, however I applaud your wanting to show/teach your son to be his own person and have some self confidence.

Good luck!

Is anyone going to mention all of the low-income, urban families who are have no choice but to send their young children to navigate bad neighborhoods every day? I don’t know you, I think what you did for your son is great, but not worth all this hype and controversy. Poor families all over this country and around the world have no choice but to force children into “unsafe” situations. It’s too bad we choose to spend our time on trivial matters such as how one mother raises her son.

At the age of 9 or 10, my friends and I roamed all over the City of Chicago on our own. When outraged parents of today point out that this was in the early 50’s . . . . “when things were different”. Nonsense! We read in the newspapers about kidnapped and murdered children in those days also.
At age 8 I was sent by train from Chicago to Virginia to visit relatives there. At age 11 I was allowed to fly to Kansas to visit relatives there. Every summer from age 10 on, I was sent by train to visit family friends on a Minnesota farm.
What is different today is children shooting guns both on the streets and in the schools. Some parents do keep kids out of schools – though I haven’t heard “school shootings” as the most common reason for “home schooling”.
Much easier to keep the kids stored under the bed than to do something about the problems which result in violence on the streets and in the schools.
What has changed since the early 50’s is that in those days we expressed our “inner city” aggression with fists, clubs, and occasional knives rather than high capacity automatic pistols.

Thank you for pointing out what a neurotic, fear-ridden society we have created. It is time to turn that around, one kid at a time. I’m so glad you’ve started with yours. Congratulations for raising an independent, self-sufficient child who isn’t afraid to ask a stranger for directions or help, if necessary.

I grew up in Brooklyn, NY. I played outside all day long. I walked, rode my bike all over my niegborhood and took buses and subways at a young age. Yes we were free to do so and today are kids are not. We have become a nation of over protective parents. In doing so, we have surrendered. We have thrown in the towel. We are saying to the criminals that they have won and we have lost. Criminals should be in prison, not our kids.

Fenway Park at age nine, Disney World at 11, to and from the candy store since I can remember: all of these things that my parents allowed me the freedom to do helped shape me into the free-thinking, independent woman that I am today.
I am someone who can travel alone, eat a restaurant by myself, live happily in my own apartment – all without ever feeling like I NEED someone there to coddle me.

Giving our children these opportunities are vital if we want them to develop into confident and happy individuals that go through life head first, take on new challenges and choose relationships for their good qualities, not out of neediness.

Thank you Lenore, for shedding some light on this subject.

Heard you on TOTN today, and what a wonderful breath of fresh air you brought to the angst that is parenting.
I’m sure I’ll be flamed for “blaming the victim” but there might be a connection between being a sheltered or “coddled” child and later being a victim. Anyone of any age who’s learned how to get around on subways or busses has good old fashioned “street smarts.”

It might almost be that parents who think they’re protecting their child ironically may be doing the exact opposite, rendering the child clueless, lost, an obvious target, a “Herb” that neighborhood punks all recognize as an easy target.

“Brava” to Lenora Skenazy for having a clear head, common sense and guts – and a sense of humor. May your child inherit all those good qualities – ultimately that’s what will get him home safe!

Hey — I’m interested in people’s opinions, because my kids are 1 and 2.5 and I really want them to have a potential “free range life.”

What makes free range living accessible? From the posts, it seems that
— rural or small town life
— big city/ public transportation life
give children potential for freedom, but suburban life is not as condusive. Do others agree? Do you think it is best to have access to nature, or is the city environment good enough.

(Funny that I am planning and micromanaging their potential for future freedom!)

Bravo! I thought our entire society was being held captive.

I am encouraged by the response to your article and interviews.

I’ve been reminded of the freedom and independence enjoyed by me and encouraged by my parents during my youth during the 70’s. Thoughts of those times have resurfaced now that I have young nieces and nephews being raised in todays paroniod world. I am thrilled by the knowledge that their parents were raised, as I was, in an atmosphere where we learned the value of the [seemingly not so] common sense that it takes to survive in, experience, and enjoy the world in which we live.

While, early in elementary school, it seemed that our mother had no reservations about us riding our bikes the mile or so to the community pool and being gone all afternoon. There surely was a “tinge of worry” that first time…and when we were maybe 11 and 9, when my brother Brian and I wanted to visit a friend who had moved from Cleveland OH. to Greensboro NC. Mom & Dad could have driven us there, it was afterall, on the way to our our vacation place at the beach. Instead they sent us ahead several days, by Greyhound, that bus stopped at every town in between! What an adventure! It was probably the next year or so, when after working odd jobs to buy new 10 speed bikes, my brother, our friend Mark and I were encouraged to ride those bikes some 40 miles, with all the gear we needed, to Pymatuning State Park in Pennsylvania to camp over night. We delt with flat tires, cooking for ourselves, and being flooded out of our campsite by a torrential storm, all on our own, long before anyone had heard of a cell phone or equipped kids with credit cards.

The experiences of my youth, and the attidudes that allowed and encouraged them, have formed my siblings and I into the confident, intelligent, independent, free-thinking adults that I’m proud to call my family. There is no doubt that the next generation will be able to build on that.

Thanks Mom & Dad

This is a common-sense issue: it depends on the kid. I too applaud your stance, but it doesn’t really apply to me, because my 9-year-old son has Asperger’s syndrome and ADHD. So, while he’s perfectly nice and highly intelligent, he is often all but oblivious to his surroundings, and I would have to be rightly terrified that he would walk in front of a speeding car if I left him on his own. It’ll be a few more years yet before my kid is free-range.

I applaud you for not giving in to the fear our society seems to thrive on.
I remember riding my bike, with friends sometimes, at least eight miles to the beach on the south shore on Long Island, NY, from the middle of the island. I was around 12. Today, a 12 year old isn’t allowed to cross the street, let alone walk around the block. Over twenty years ago, my then 15 year old daughter walked a couple of miles to a train station, to take that train halfway across Long Island, and walked a half mile at the other end for a part time job. She loved the independence and freedom, and I trusted her to be mature enough to be aware of her surroundings. She, as is her sister, is a well functioning, independent, self sufficient adult. I accomplished my job as a parent.
We, as a society, have become a nation of fearmongers and scaredycats. It is no way to live. Almost all of us will not be affected by terrorism, abductors or gangs. About 90+% of the police in this country will never pull their guns from their holsters their whole careers. But TV and the news don’t portray that. There are probably no more abductors or pedephiles than there were thirty years ago. We just make headlines about each and every situation. I am not trying to minimize how terrible an abduction would be, but to minimize the fear, which apppears way overblown.
Thanks again for allowing your son to grow up. Independence is what all parents are charged to teach if they are truly being parents.

I often wish that my kids (6 and 8) could have the same experience I did growing up in a small town where we would play blockchase until dusk and where my mom sent me to the corner store to buy her cigarettes (how appalling is that?!), but we live in a residential section of a big city and most kids are “locked up by dusk” and the corner store no longer exists. Do I let my kids out of the house to run the sidewalks and cross the street while I’m cooking dinner? You bet. They need to learn to “stop, look and listen before you cross the street….” Do I let them roam the neighborhood unsupervised? Not yet. Am I attempting to raise independent, thinking kids. Sure I am. Kudos to you, Lenore, for bringing this situation to light. I commend you for trusting your 9 year old and I hope to walk in your footsteps and his….

I too listened to you on Talk of the Nation. You sound like a very wise woman! Congratulations on your commen sense approach to child rearing. Today’s society has made parents, grandparents and all who care for children paranoid. Fear of being arrested, as I heard one caller mention is valid. Fear of abduction is also valid, but the statistics you quoted make that and other fears less of a threat than I think we have allowed ourselves to believe.

I just wanted to say that we live in San Francisco and last summer my daughter, who was ten then, took the underground every day during the six weeks she was at summer daycamp because it got out earlier than I could get out of work and as a single parent there wasn’t anyone else to pick her up. She always had her cell phone with her and checked in with me every afternoon when she arrived at the library where she’d wait until I arrived, reading in the children’s section.

While I was nervous about this at first, it did give her a great deal of confidence and sense of independence to be doing this all on her own.

I have always raised her to be unafraid of strangers, but keep her wits about her and use common sense. I can’t imagine anything worse than living in fear of every single person you see on the street.

I heard your interview on NPR yesterday. Ironic, the call you took from Don from Wichita, KS is a friend of mine.

Anyway, just this year after many calls from my son how he missed the school bus and how it inconvenienced me in the middle of my workday and let alone the price of gas – I figured it cost me $12 round trip to pick him up let alone the loss of work time. I made him buy his own bus pass, get the bus maps and learn to make the transfer downtown and get home on his own. It only took 2 times of riding the city bus for him to not miss the school bus anymore! Lesson learned.

Although many people think I am mean and we did worry terribly the first time he had to do it, I figured it’s better to learn it now in our “mostly safe” city rather than he have to learn it after he’s an adult in a much bigger, “badder” city.

Funny you compared it to a “Bar Mitzvah” on the show. We played this “tough love” card immediately after his Bar Mitzvah, even made his use Bar Mitzvah money to buy the bus pass.

I feel more confident of him and feel like I’m giving him life skills as you should too. Good for you and your son too!

Thanks for the common sense! This overprotectiveness is an example of the poor risk assessment skills that many people have. I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s in the relatively safe suburbs (San Jose, CA), and we had very little parental supervision then. We could ride our bikes or walk almost anywhere we wanted, and even played in construction sites! Apart from a few scrapes and bruises, none of us were seriously hurt. We faced more danger from mean kids at school than on the streets. We survived.

as one x ny’er already said, this goes on hundreds of times a day, everyday in NYC forever….what’s the big deal?

I love you for doing this, and for standing up for it. I’m fed up with this media-driven security state we live in. The weather doesnt kill you, violence doesnt hide around every corner, the worst possible outcome doesnt occur every chance it gets. Wake up and see that the world is in fact a wonderful place, not something to hide and protect yourselves and your children from! Thank you again!

I enjoyed your article and could not help but reflect back to my own childhood and how my parents for a period of time were very protective to the point of me experiencing “claustrophobia” during the ages of 9-14.

For my generation the story that struck everyone with fear of child abduction was the story of Adam Walsh. The grotesque nature of the abduction and the fact that it sparked a nation-wide awareness solidified the fear in my parents mind. Obviously, between the ages of 9-14 I would routinely see friends and schoolmates who had a lot more freedom than I had.

One good thing that did happen came as a result of athletics. I began wrestling and actively lifting weights when I was 13. By the time I was 14 to 15 years old I was already larger and more muscular than the average adult male, plus I had displayed the fact that I could over-power my father who was a pretty tough cookie. Slowly, my parent began to realize that along with some needed “street smarts” I really wasn’t in danger of being kidnapped at least in and around my hometown.

Now at age 32, I think the point you present is important because as we constantly shelter our kids we are denying them of a lot of life lessons that are best learned naturally. What would happen if your child became lost? Would he or she know what to do to navigate their way safely home? Obviously, teaching your kids street smarts starts out like what you are doing. By making a child feel “capable” he or she will less likely be a victim to begin with.

One thing you have to take into account is that kids today are much more advanced and much more resourceful than many parents are likely aware of. I’m not saying that parents should let their kids run amuck, but the fact does remain that we need to prepare kids for life where they will not have mommy or daddy there to bail them out. I remember when I was in my freshman year in college that there were some commuters that didn’t know how to change their tires when they were found flat in the parking lot. Isn’t that sick?

I would like to highly recommend the book: PROTECTING THE GIFT: KEEPING CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS SAFE (AND PARENTS SANE) by Gavin De Becker. De Becker is the author of the celebrated: THE GIFT OF FEAR.

His books are about the importance of learning to trust and listen to our own instincts regarding our own safety in any given situation. In PROTECTING THE GIFT, he offers sound advice about helping our children to do that very thing. He cautions parents from becoming overly concerned about those things that really aren’t a threat to their children’s safety, and instead encourages us to educate ourselves about those things that truly are things to be aware (and sometimes wary) of. We can then teach our children HOW to: listen to their instincts, assert themselves, seek help, and go out into the world with confidence!

I think this is a great thing. I was a free-range child in a rural town of 3,000 from the time I was about 10 (1965). The swimming pool was across town, 2 miles away by bike – a good fried was 4 miles away down a highway and then down a gravel road, again by bike. Since I’m able to right this down I did survive unharmed and intact – and there was never a “fear” moment in all of those years.

I just wanted to send a little note.

When I called the police department they said they couldn’t take your child into protective custody without a home address.

Would you be so kind as to provide it for me?

xoxo
Jessica

Thank you! My step children are 14 and 16 and are babies. When we were on vacation last year we tried to get the kids to stay at the beach to play and roam by themselves. They responded as if we were abandoning them. They appeared on our skirt tails within 2 hours! When I was a kid I would have waited for my parents to come drag me out of the ocean and I would have hoped it was the next day.
My son asks for a ride to the park that is less than 2 blocks away, then when he walks (you didn’t really think he was getting a ride did you?) he calls for directions home!
I think I am going to start dropping them off at random places in town and make them find their way home, without their cell phones! They are related to 1/4 of the the 3000 members of the rural city. The other 3/4 of the population know who they are!
It is my personal goal to liberate these kids. My motto for the upcoming summer is “Disappear! I’ll see you at lunch time.”

Lenore, Three cheers and many thanks for this fantastic column. I hope as my 11-month-old grows up I show the same composure, good sense and trust in my child.

Don’t let the critics bring you down, because in the long run kids raised like yours will be leaders and innovators, while the kids who are taught dependence and fear of the unknown will be lucky to make it out of their parents’ basements.

YOU ARE MY HERO.

I read your subway piece via BoingBoing, and as a result tried to find a recent map which showed how successive generations of kids in one family have a smaller and smaller roaming space… it might have been published in TheIndependent or BBC. If anyone has spotted that, could you please post it here? (And it would be crazy awesome if you could email me the URL… gordonmcdowell@gmail.com) I can’t find it again and your subway article made me want to show it to my spouse.

I am very proud of you for teaching your son to be independent with trust. Me, my brother and sister have the most respect from my mom who always trusted us and taught us how to be responsible and independent. Now we do the same for our kids, too.

reminds me of this wonderful talk:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=C-VacaaN75o

Read this!:
Growing up in a risk averse society
by
Tim Gill
http://www.gulbenkian.org.uk/publications/education/no-fear

So are you going to slap some big warning on the blog that you are not responsible for other people’s kids? Because you know some litigious nutjob is going to come along and point to how you told her letting her kid take that trip to Sleazeville at 2am was perfectly safe…

Good for you. As an educator I often have to make rules and policies that restrict kids from doing things that I don’t think are dangerous, simply because of the liability. It’s refreshing to see parents letting their kids do reasonable things that don’t present much of a risk, even if we feel like they do (like riding public transportation alone).

I’ve seen sketchy people harass 13-15 year old girls on the bus, and one time I followed a guy who looked like he was drunk and trying to follow some girls. I confronted him (in a crowd of people), and he went the other way. I got back on my bus and went to work.

I wonder if our “blame the parents” mentality has made us a nation of bystanders who refuse to take reasonable responsibility for things that happen in public. Yes, if you put your kid on the bus, some stranger might harass them, but we also have an obligation as a society to watch out for things like that and intervene.

“We want you to have a safe childhood – at the expense of childhood”!

As a 40-something, I was reminiscing with a co-worker about all the crazy adventures my friends and I had as children. A 25 year old in the office listened amusedly. We asked him if he had any amusing stories. He returned to his computer and said “We had video games”.

What I see is a trend toward systemic, goal-directed, ‘channeled’ activity. Myspace. Messaging. Videogames. All activity is being mediated. This climate of fear is resulting in the ‘commodification of social interaction’. One can see it as a capitalistic, opportunistic herding of our children toward predetermined and limited activities (that cost money btw). Kids don’t learn to improvise, judge a situation or person ‘in real life’. They don’t learn basic creative skills of dealing with the relatively ambiguous world out there (compared to the thematic world of media) and hence have trouble ‘thinking outside the box’ (they’ve been trained to see ‘the box’ as a comfortable womb protecting them from a world crawling with rapists, molesters, freak accidents, etc)

How many times have I seen documentaries on indigenous cultures where the children are quickly allowed to go out and discover, make mistakes, take risks? This is in the jungle! It is obvious: the skills needed to adapt, learn, and grow are best learned early, when they will have greatest impact on personal development.

Let the kids out!

My twin boys are two years old. My husband and I both want them to grow up with the independence and responsibility that we had. We live in a very safe neighborhood with parks, a river, meadows, trees to climb… and there are never any kids out running around on their own! I wonder what our neighbors will think when some day Cal and Willy are running around the ‘hood and climbing trees. I wish more people would listen to what Iskenazy has to say and read the book “Last Child in the Woods” – which is all about this topic and the removal of our kids from nature.

Congratulations on a) being true to yourself – you knew it was the right thing for both of you, and b) writing about it to let others see that its possible not to be bowed by the mores of others.

As a child (in the UK) I rode my bike for miles and miles at the age of nine, without anyone really knowing where I was, I was just trusted to look after myself and come home in time for tea !. I can’t do that with my children now, the roads in my vicinity are just to dangerous, even for me. As an alternative my children plan long walks between local villages and camp in friends fields or gardens over the summer. Good luck with raising awareness of what our childern are capable of, and don’t need wrapping in cotton wool.

I applaud you. It’s too bad the white-knuckled parents brigade will not be swayed by your article or your arguments. A married couple, friends of mine are on the brink of divorce because the wife is so obsessive compulsive about the “babies.” The father would like to take the 5- and 3-year-old boys on his sailing boat on the Chesapeake Bay. Mother will not hear of it, lifejackets, a willingness to wait for calm weather, and father’s sailing experience notwithstanding. The schools she wants the kids to be in have security routine equivalent to a minimum security prison. I wish I were joking.

My mom put me on an airplane to DC by myself when I was barely 6 years old. Granted, it was a direct flight, and my aunt was there to meet me on the other end. But how many parents would even dream of doing such a thing these days?

Me too. I used to live on 162nd Street and Riverside Drive and attend the now-defunct Walden School on W 88th and Central Park West. And while three of us would travel to the school together in the morning, I was often on the train by myself on the way back, starting in 3rd grade.

Now, for some reason, the idea of letting my own 9 year old cross the street by himself terrifies me. I’ve really turned into a weeny, but the good thing is that I know it, and even recognized it before I heard about this blog.

Free Range Kids is so needed! I am constantly shocked at how isolated our children are from the world and each other these days. Kids need to be allowed to explore.

I posted a quick story about my own Free Range Kids on my blog at http://www.sugarsays.com

Loved your story on so many levels. Agree with AB3A on the point of large families. I grew up in a small rural area in New Zealand an hour by bus from the largest city, and was the oldest of four children. We were expected or allowed to do all sorts of things independently that were potentially a risk, from biking to chemistry. As the oldest, I was responsible (explicitly) for the safety of my siblings, accidents happened but kids responded to them sensibly.

But the thing I want to acknowledge both my parents and the environment for at the time was their response to the death of my cousin. He was one year to the day younger than me, and drowned in a creek he had jumped into for a swim, age about 7-8. And in spite of that, there was not a crack down on unsupervised play, we were not smothered with cotton wool. We still went rock climbing along the sea coast for example.

Not everything was so laissez faire however. My parents concerns about their social standing as parents meant that on one occasion when I or one of my siblings was seen urinating by the side of the road by a passer by, we were banned from playing in sight of the road for several years!

As a high school teacher, I am so often frustrated by my babified students. Parents who are horrified by the idea of taking public transit, hand them keys as soon as possible. These students can’t do anything themselves. My high school students can barely do work that an elementary school student should be able to do; anything that requires initiative is too overwhelming for them. I teach them too late to do much good about this, but my own children will be raised to be independent thinkers if it kills me. I struggle against the paranoia society, family, and friends try to brainwash me with, but is a difficult task. Kudos to you, and I wish I taught your son. He’s going to be a great kid to teach to

As an adult who was raised by an anxious, overprotective mother, I applaud you for doing this. I am now, at 30, and with a lot of therapy, learning to be independent for the first time. You are saving your kid from the crushing insecurity that comes from total security, from the inability to make decisions that comes from never having to make one, and from the unnecessary fear that the world is a scary place that comes from being sheltered and constantly protected. He will grow up into the person who has adventures, instead of the person who stays at home wishing he could have adventures. Thank you for teaching your child independence, self-reliance and self-esteem.

re: ‘Stranger Danger’ – my kids have been told they can talk to whomever they like, just don’t go off with anyone we don’t know.

This site is important. What you all write is important! Our children growing up in a real world with real expectations and actual “win/lose” experiences under their belts? That’s called parenting! Telling them “No” when required. Standing up for beliefs and explaining WHY, treating them as people with minds and intelligence…again, PRICELESS!

I raise a daughter who is now a teenager. She knows more about sex than most adults. I’ve answered questions about drugs, alcohol, sex, life…all of it. I’ve been her friend, I’ve been her parent and I’ve been her nemesis. I have also empowered her to make her own decisions and be independent.

Thank you for this site. I would love to write an article!

-Collin

If kids started walking to school in the suburbs its would reduce childhood obesity,and carbon omissions while easing trafic congestion.

Oh boy thank you so much! We live in Hong Kong and regularly allow our 8 and 10 year old daughters to ride the MTR alone, walk home from school alone. The first time was a little stressful but the knowledge that they can do it by themselves and are thrilled about the chance to do it is wonderful.

I find it is harder for me to overcome my media fears then for my kids to do something like ride the subway in a foreign country. Even when we lived in the States it took me a little while to let them go to the local park alone–how sad for me!! But once I did it was great however, I then had to deal with Mom’s who don’t let their kids do that so when they came over to play I had to go to the park (which was right behind the house!) with them. Sigh.

How do kids learn responsibility if we are standing over them all the time? How do they learn to pick themselves back up when they have fallen? They never learn to make a decision if they know we are there to check with. Even if they make a wrong, or not so right choice, it is theirs to make and learn from.

I am all for free-range kids!

Along the same lines is the change in crossing guards in the past few years. When I was walking to school alone (more than half a mile, alone, starting at 6), crossing guards were there at the busy streets to make sure we didn’t wander out into traffic. Now they seem to think it’s their sacred duty to stop traffic whenever a child — no matter how old — approaches an intersection.

Kids are not learning how to cross streets, because they never have to. And someday, when they get to a street without a guard, they’ll have no idea that you actually have to stop and look for traffic.

Drives me mad.

Thank you for sharing your story! I was once ticketed for leaving a 7 yr old in a car in a security patrolled parking lot for literally less than 2 minutes while I was in sight. The price to defend myself was over $2,000!

When this same chld was just short of 12, I was fearful when he wanted to walk three blocks to the store by himself!. Why? Because I might be ticketed for leaving him unsupervised. At the same time, the city sees nothing wrong with requiring him to walk three blocks past the same store to catch the school bus.

It’s amazing how we allow ourselves to stop doing things because something happened once, but don’t continue doing things when things happen all the time.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!

I applsud you!

How timely! I left my kids at home last night (aged 10 and 11, plus their almost-12-year-old friend) to pick up a friend at the airport. My mother lives with us, so there WAS a responsible adult there, but not looming over them as she goes to sleep early. The kids were out playing with the neighborhood kids and their dad until about 9pm, but were in contact with me through cell phone. I got home at 9:45 and guess what? They were still alive, the house was still standing, and I was really relieved. The only problem is that their dad is totally paranoid and so I know that I can’t tell him that I let them do this.
Does anyone have any feedback about having free range kids when your parenting partner is not on the same wavelenghth? I would love to let my kids ride the bus to school (we live in Portland, OR, not exactly a scary place) from deep SE to NE, about a 45-minute ride, but he’s so concerned about what other parents think that he’s put the kibosh on it. He lets them walk about a mile to school from his house but somehow them on the bus (which drops them off a block from their friends house that they walk to school with) is bad, bad, bad. Jeesh.

It’s a safety-obsessed mentality: People believe that if doing something makes you even a tiny, tiny bit safer, you need to always do it, all the time, no matter what, and if doing something is just a tiny bit dangerous, you must never ever do it!

It’s not just in child-raising. Look at all the ridiculous things we do in security when we travel on the airlines, all to mitigate a one in a hundred-million risk.

We’re a nation of people who can, but refuse, to assess risk, raising a generation who won’t be able to.

I just wanted to compliment you on this blog, and your courage in going so magnificently against the conventional wisdom. I have two kids, aged nine and thirteen, and I’m very carefully letting them off the leash. My daughter, at thirteen, is allowed to roam the entire city as long as she is home by dark. My son currently walks home from school and walks a couple blocks to go and visit his friends sometimes.

My son also has played football for the last four years despite surgery to correct a coarctation, and I hope to see him grow up healthy and strong. The world desperately needs voices like yours!

I live on a busy street with no sidewalks on our side and no real front yard. Getting our kids (7 and 4) to the neighbors’ houses to play required an adult. Our kids have been raised confined to the yard, but last year I decided they needed much more exposure to our 5 acre property and easier access to the kids in the next two houses. Yesterday morning I finished a simple path through the woods that connects our house with the next two. Within minutes there were three kids playing the woods and within half an hour there were five kids playing in our yard in the rain and having a ball. Exactly what I had hoped for. The kids returned to their homes via the path with no adult supervision required. I expect them to have about 10 times as much fun this spring and summer than they ever had playing in a fenced in 1/4 acre yard.

I can see my childrens school from my bedroom window and I let my nine year old walk his sister to school, she’s six . Some parents think that is crazy, my neighbor drives her children to school every morning. They need some independence if they are ever going to mature. I will continue to let my son walk her to school because he wants to be treated with some independence and I do believe they need it. I also let my son ride his bike around the block by himself . When I was growing up my mother would call us in for lunch and dinner. The rest of the day we were outside playing and riding bikes all over.

My mom put me on a plane to Europe when I was 9. There were relatives on each end, and an attentive flight crew, but — [shiver] — smoking allowed in the cabin. I lived.

This story showed up on a debate forum I belong to, and when I first read the title, my reaction was to shrug and think “Big deal. Where’s the debate?” I hope more parents can be inspired by your attitude and let go of the kid-safety-panic that has claimed so many

I grew up in Anchorage in the 40’s, before Alaska was a state. There were more whorehouses than churches and men and women could carry guns if they wanted to.

When I was in the first grade, my mother would give me a nickel and a dime and send me off to walk a mile in the darkness to go to a movie and buy a candy bar. Came home in the dark, too, in winter. Passing whorehouses and casinos, I guess.

Nobody thought it was odd. Who would hurt a child?

(To complete the thought, though, I’m sure children were sometimes hurt by evil or sick people, same as now. People weren’t obsessed by it. Is that good or bad? I suppose it depends on who you ask.)

Read my colum, You Gotta Be Skenazy at the Brooklyn Paper (www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/15/31_15_smartmom_outsmarts.html) or on my blog, /www.typepad.com/t/app/weblog/post?__mode=edit_entry&id=48330180&blog_id=108038

I thought this goes along well with your recent articles and new blog.

Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/202

Keep up the good work.

@john keese

Also, thanks for the link. I enjoyed it!

I was so impressed with your article. If we don’t let our kids step out and prove to themselves and us that they can do so much, how will they be able to navigate the world as adults. My children are all 18-30 now, but all along I gave them opportunities to do things that others often critically judged me for. Now I have four responsible, capable young adults whom I don’t worry about everytime they try something new – -backpacking in Europe, moving across the country to go to college, joining the navy….The only thing I did differently was that they did get cell phones for their 13th birthdays; that little bit of a security blanket was more for mom than them, but it gave them even more opportunities.

YES!

Many people seem to accept as a fact, the proposition that the United States is less safe for unaccompanied children now than it was 20, 30 or 50 years ago. Is that proposition based in fact? Or is it mostly the perceptions and attitudes that have changed?

To some extent, unsafe streets ant other public places are a self-fulfilling phenomenon: public places that are full of people and under watchful eyes are safer than those that are mostly empty, but they can become empty and less safe if everyone is afraid to go there, or let their kids go there.

Amen Stacey.

We are keeping our kids indoors watching tv and playing video games, ensuring that many of them will die of coronary disease before age 50, all because we’re trying to prevent our children from falling victim to statistically rare events.

Wo be unto moms who are rational and educated in art of mathematical probability. We’re the “bad moms” the PTA moms talk about.

On the bright side, less of us living to age 50 will certainly put a dent in global warming!

I was intrigued by my daughter’s response. This was her first time ever posting a public comment. (She has had a blog for about a year now viewable only to family and friends to whom we give the address.)

I agree that we shouldn’t just have our children sitting inside all day watching TV & playing video games as is the cliche. However, I also believe that common sense should come in to the freedom that we give them.

This world (and New York City in particular) IS different than it was in 1963. Far different. The people are different, the experiences are different, the landscape is different. Things have happened in our country (and in New York City specifically) that no one would have DREAMED could happen in 1963.

All of that being said; my SIL lives in New York and has said that it is common for children to ride the subway to & from school in NYC. This shocked me, but I think probably plays a part in this mom letting her child on the subway alone. She was unsure as to what age was typical for kids to start off to school on the subway, but she has seen kids at least as young as 10/11.

I remember running to the corner market for a slushie, going to Kmart for a Babysitter’s Club book, and going to a friend’s house in the next neighborhood. I would still allow my child many of these freedoms in the town we currently live in. There are some towns we’ve lived in where I would have restricted their freedom more without me present.

I feel like our job IS to help our children learn to live without us. However, we also need to analyze what is a safe situation and decide whether they would be better to have parental supervision while ascerting their independence.

Amy

Y’know New York is a dangerous place in some areas.

However I think people have a misconception that everyone is out to get you. It’s only good to think that when your driving.

When I was younger I was sent many times by my father to run errands, to cross a busy tourist road to go to a store, or when on vacation to do what I want and meet back at the hotel. I’m not talking 18+, I remember this starting at 6.

My mom could not even keep me in the sights all the time. I ran off on my bike through the neighbor hood to meet kids I had never seen before.

Now I’m actually a little reserved, but I can be outgoing once I loosen up.

To the girl next store kept on a leash and forced into Catholic school, she is now a Goth Satan worshipper who likes to get high on weekends. The harder you pull them in the harder they rebel.

If you can’t let them totally out of sight, try waiting outside a store and trusting them to buy the right milk. You’ll be surprised.

Great site! When I have kids (soon!) I am definitely of the opinon that kids have to a) make thier own mistakes (otherwise what do they learn from!) and b) expose them to as much grime as is possible without positively endangering them (kids eat dirt – get over it)

until I was 10 I lived in the suburbs of Boston. My Dad was blind and a born and bred bostonian. as with many blind bostonians, the T (boston subway to non beantowners) was a total lifeline and most can navigate it as well as most sighted people can.

from the age of 6 or so onwards he and I would go into town on regular ‘adventures’ usually to go to the MoS to see some new exhibit, or just to go n to soak up some atmosphere along the charles. maybe go to cambridge to some flea market or something.
Since we did so much together and he knew the T so well, I’d look out for him and be co-navigator so that by the time I was allowed to do a solo (well I took a friend) when I was 9 or 10 I knew Boston like the back of my hand.

the takeaway – I now have a sense of direction that rivals just about anyone i know (and i often can’t understand why others’ is so poor in comparision)

in reference to your other article about eating snow, my parents definitely believed in not coddling and exposing to as much as possible – yes i had a lot of illness as a child, but as an adult I am rarely ill. in the last 5 years I have only needed 1 sick day from work and that was due to some iffy seafood at a non-seafood restaurant.

I now live in England and the culture isn’t as SAFETY SAFETY obsessed, but it is getting that way (cleaning product advertisement which promise that your dearlings will never be exposed to a single germ!)
Since chicken pox parties are still popular I’d say that most mothers here are still sensible about not under-exposing danger.
and, yes, my kids will walk/cycle to school. (as I had to unless i was very late!) fuel just costs too much now

The issue of the perceived risk and real risk is interesting indeed. Reading all the horror stories about pedophiles and all makes you think the world is full of them, and then you read the statistics proving it is extremely rare. So your gut feeling tells you that letting your kid take the NYC subway alone is just streight out irresponsible, but your brain sais it’s ok since the statistical risk is very low. This mother followed her brain and she was absolutely right. I also liked the answer to the question “how would you have felt if something had happened” and her answering that she doesn’t want her and her boy’s life to be ruled by exaggerated fear.

Wow, lots of responses…you really got a lot of people talking!

When I was little my dad would never let me go alone beyond the culdesac until I was maybe 13. Anywhere I wanted to go by bike, my mom would have to walk or bike with me. To go to the store ACROSS THE STREET I had to have my mom or dad with me. I wasn’t allowed to camp in someone’s backyard for a Girl Scout event. There are many more instances that I was “cooped up”.

But now, I do things all the time that they’re not aware of. I know how to take the train downtown. I know how to hail a cab. I’ve bough airline tickets and flown on my own. I’ve driven to Wyoming and back without my parents knowing. And you know what? I’M FINE. I know which places to avoid and to have a friend with me…….my mother doesn’t even know how to get to my college or to the city without getting lost (less than an hour away), yet she’s lived in this state longer than me and has been to the city much more than I have.

“don’t talk to strangers”: this phrase made sense when you knew everyone in your neighborhood–when you knew the postman, and the cop, and the gentleman at the corner drug store, and all of the neighbors, and the little old lady who walked her dogs every day. No one was suggesting then that children stop talking to normal adults, or not ask them for help. In fact, we used to allow all such people to enforce the rules: our children were supposed to “mind” their elders, and to realize that if the Grocer said “stop it”, he was right.

And when you know everyone, you know the weirdos too, and you know to stay away from them. You know and can sense the difference between the normal and the abnormal situation.

Now, we don’t know anyone. We are afraid of everything, including being impolite–so we don’t teach our kids how to listen to their intuition. We tell our kids not to talk to strangers, but that means not talking to anyone in the neighborhood, or in a position of authority, or being able to judge who to ask for help. And all we’ve done is cripple them from the skills they’d need to assess risk.

I grew up in a small suburban neighborhood. My best friend and neighbor would ride our bikes everywhere. When I was in 5th grade, while riding with my friend, I fell off my bike and broke my arm. We were on a quiet street in a small neighborhood, and this is the time before cell phones. As I was sitting on the curb bawling over my arm, my friend knocked on the door of a nearby house, asked to use the phone, that her friend was hurt, and called my mom. She was not abducted, abused, anything and neither was I. Naturally, I mom came nearly instatly, threw our bikes in the trunk of her minivan and drove to the hospital.

I live in suburban Bay Area, and parents here still drive their kids to play dates. When my son turned 9 he would just bike or skateboard to his friends’ houses. (Biking and skateboarding around the neighborhood – what a concept!)

Three years later, with their kids 12 and about to leave elementary school, some other parents are finally letting their kids do the same bike/skateboard thing. But only if they call upon arrival!

To me that’s overkill. I tell my son to stay out of trouble and have fun. Call if he needs me. Don’t make me come find him by being late. Don’t hang out places alone. If they travel in packs, they’re totally fine.

I can’t comment on NYC subways – I imagine I’d let my son ride w/o me if he rode with a friend. But I’m not a city boy.

i think that it was a good way to let your child feel free and enjoy himself. i bet it made him feel more confident and hopefully you will let him do more stuff like that. i am 12 and i love roaming around, riding my bike through the city and looking for cool shops to spend money and enjoy myself. it is always fun when a child goes to local swim club and meets a couple of friends and has a ball. it is safe and gives thee parents a time to feel more relaxed.

Wow – fantastic. Although isn’t it ironic that you have been congratulated & derided for doing such a normal thing! (Congratulations to your son too!).
I am a new mom of 2 boys, & my mom was the most over-protective person I knew (& know). When I was 12 – I walked home from school as I thought she had forgotten me, & was given the hiding of my life. Well, that taught me, it taught me to be scared of everything & everyone all the time.
It is only now, over _18_ years later, that I am finally beginning to relax.
My boys will grow up independent. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Diesel Sweeties Comic strip (4/16/2008)
References Free Range Kids–Says they are tastier.

But doesn’t that mean they are healthier, too?

I lost my 37 yr old son to a Harley accident 3 yrs ago. During my grief I pondered did I give him too much independence growing up? I even had a tinge of guilt of letting him be a Free Range Kid. But when I heard this story about the boy riding the subway,it confirmed I was not alone even after so many years. I know I was a Great single parent and I am so happy that I let him live life without all the fear. And he had grown to be a Great provider, a great dad and a great person to all that knew him. Although he is gone His children share his spirit-It’s a beautiful thing!!!

I was born in NYC, my parents are Argentine, so I spent my early years in Buenos Aires, Florida, Vicente Lopez to be more exact. At the time when I was in school there from Kindergarten to 2nd grade the streets of Buenos AIres were the safest they have ever been, thanks to a military Junta that took care of any and all “undesirables” in their eyes. I would go to the ice cream shop, the local deli, a kiosk to buy a paper, etc, starting at the age of 6, never a problem. At the age of 8 I came back to live in NYC due to the fact that my it was not a good scene anymore. We purchased a house between Stapleton and Rosebank in Staten Island, the safest borough at the time. Needless to say, all of our bicycles were stolen from our backyard, it was not a good idea to go walking anywhere after dark because something could happen to you. Fast forward to the year 1999 in the same neighborhood that I grew up in BsAs, mind you this is a wealthy neighborhood, the houses are huge, current model year BMWs in the driveway type of place – my aunt Alicia told me that her across the street neighbor was shot in the head for his son’s piece of shit Fiat 128 when he was washing it.. The city there has changed quite a bit. kidnappings are the norm, etc. I live in Staten Island and I have a 6 yr old and a 7 month old, and I do not feel the need to raise the level of adventure in my older kid just yet, maybe if I make a ton of money and move to Manhattan, where my kid can take the subway to Bloomingdale. For now I am bit of realist and have experienced things that I really don’t want my kid to be part of.

Martin Olsen

Dear Lenore,

Thank you for your article. I am going to copy it and send it to my children and friends who are overprotecting their children. I raised 5 children who traveled all over town alone and took planes alone. I am constantly being told that “it’s a different time” but I think that children who aren’t allowed a little freedom now won’t know what to do with it later. They will not have the experience making good decisions or bad decisions!

Thank you again for bringing a little sanity into modern parenting.

I recently rented Sesame Street Old School and watched the first episode with my grandson. We loved it! But there were kids playing follow the leader, unsupervised through (gasp!) empty construction sites, huge drain pipes–exactly the cool kind of places I and my sibs played in as children. I thought, no wonder these dvds come with warning labels saying they are for nostalgic adults only, and not meant for today’s children.
Rent them! Buy them! Play them for your kids!
Thank goodness for the free range kids idea!

I think you are a fantastic bafoon….

I was put on a plane at the age of 5 to visit relatives 2 states away. I rode my bike everywhere. I rollerskated to the library. I walked the mile to school with a neighbor boy from kindergarten on.
I became a rather overprotective mother after several incidents, including the Kevin Collins thing mentioned in the first comment. He was 11, not 6, and it was 1982, not 1976. He rode the same bus as my younger brother, was the same age… my brother got home, Kevin didn’t. That same year my youngest brother was stranger abducted and missing for 10 hours. His best friend was non-custodial-parent abducted while in my mother’s care. BUT… I worked through it, and by 9 and 11, my kids were going to the park with friends, riding their bikes through the neighborhood, walking to the store, and generally being independent kids. No cell phones until about 2 years ago, at 14 and 16. I was going to grad school 85 miles away, their dad was 50 miles away. We needed communication. We also had 1 tv, not several, and no video games. They kept busy. They are independent, functioning young adults. My son, at 16, quit going to high school, spent hours at the library and the park, and is starting college in the fall. He and his group of friends go to the lake (Michigan) unsupervised all summer long, as well as spontaneous trips to Kalmazoo or Mt. Pleasant. No one has drowned. No one has been arrested. My daughter goes all over with her boyfriend and friends, including concerts in Chicago and Indiana. They have street smarts, and can socialize with people of all ages, races and socioeconomic levels.
Absolutely incomparable.

Also, once, in the 6th grade, some old creeper tried to get me into his car. Because my grandmother had talked to me about old creepers (she was molested at 9 while running milk into town for her farming parents… in 1916!!!) I was able to figure out how to evade him, and made it safely to school. There’ve always been and will always be old creepers. Learn about them while you have adults around to guide, or learn about them when you’re on your own… you’re going to learn eventually.

I have been both victim of and witness to violence in the nyc subway.

It is swift, it is shockingly brutal, and it cannot be undone.

It is neither self-empowering nor life-affirming.

When this happens to you, if you are lucky, you
become hauntingly aware of how evil man can be.

You are forever changed.

It is terrifying at best, and irreparable at worst.

I hope you will take a few days and consider
this, before you send your 9 year old son alone
into the subway

Believe me, he has much more to lose than to gain.

Thank goodness for your article. If all the stuff parents worry about now mattered no one would be alive over 20 years of age. My son rides in the back of our station wagon – because it is fun. He doesn’t wear a bike helmet unless he wants to. I live in a very affluent suburb just so that he can ride his bike everywhere. We don’t need to drive at all and can take public transportation to the city. Parents today are all insane from what I can tell and have no memory at all of being young themselves. It is all lemming like behavior with no rational thought behind anything they do. Bad things happen – there is nothing you can do about it. And frankly most bad things happen by relatives or people you know. The thing I find so funny about the “safety” parents is that I don’t think any one of them has stopped attending Catholic church and talk about the odds of endagering your child there. As I said no logic behind anything they do.

I really am split on this but, I have to ask you – why were you more concerned with losing your cell phone than your child?

My daughter is 9 as well and I am always aware that it is my responsibility to prepare her to be independent at some point. To varying degrees I allow her to experience this, but what works for our family might not work for another. For example, I am stunned that my neighbors let their 5 year olds walk from the bus stop home. No adult comes to pick them up and were a pedophile to watch this for a few days these children could easily become targets. There are woods all around us. On the other hand, I had a neighbor admonish me when my daughter was a baby because I was outside w/her monitor while she was sleeping upstairs, and I could hear her! Now my daughter gets a great thrill walking “by herself” around the Whole Foods cheese case. Of course, I can see her the entire time but her face is beaming because she feels so grown-up doing this. I remember a co-worker telling me she hadn’t taught her daughter how to handle a stranger approaching her since she didn’t anticipate that her daughter would ever be without her! She was serious! Allowing kids to experience greater independence requires some fine-tuning and keen awareness of their maturity and personal/social skills — and not the least of which because they could run into an adult who, fearing they are alone and abandoned, calls the police to report a negligent parent.

You know, everyone is so worried about these child molesters lurking in the supermarket and at the park, etc. etc. etc., but most children that are sexually abused are abused by a family member. I was riding public transportation on my own with a baby sibling in tow when I was 9. My sense of direction is great, and I know my hometown well. I’d been riding public transportation my whole life since my family only had 1 car. My father took the car to work, my mother took us wherever we needed to go by bus. When they got divorced, my dad got the house, and my mother got us and the car, so to see my dad we had to take a bus. He hasn’t had a car in about 16 years, now. Did I ever get molested? Yes. Was it on the bus? No, it was my babysitter’s husband and my STEPFATHER. I still ride public transportation and I think it’s great that kids do it all the time. Mine will, with me and then alone. I’m not nearly as scared of public transportation as I am of leaving my kids with a babysitter. Wish me luck TTC this year as a SAHmilitaryM.

I am not going to accuse any of you people of being bad parents, I don’t know you or the circumstances of your lifes. But I do take issue with the statement that was posted here that this isn’t a dangerous world we live in, where is your heads, up your patootie or underground. This is a dangerous world for children every day you read of a child being taken from his own neighborhood. I kept my kids close to me and the youngest is 35 and we lived in a community of maybe 2000, and not one of them is marked or suffering from some ailment because I was a protective mother, and yes I do believe the world is different and more dangerous then when I raised them just like it was different when I was a child. So go ahead and tell me how horrible I must have been to them.

What you did was very courageous and brave. I am sure that you were a little concerned about your kid (I would’ve been as I have to little ones) which shows that you are human and that you love your son but what an excellent lesson for him.

I grew up in a third world country, where supposedly everything is more dangerous than in America for example, but over there, kids which their schools don’t have bus service, they will hop in a city bus and go to and from school every day. I never had a friend that was harmed or kidnapped or anything alike.

In Europe it is the same thing. Kids go to school by themselves either via bus or train.

I believe that doing this with your kid, it will show him that you trust him and his decisions and make him mature and learn to make his own decisions.

One thing that my parents always reminded me when taking public transportation by myself was to always be smart on the places and time of the day to do this type of things. I recommend that you do the same with yours, explain to him all the risks associated with traveling alone, establish places and times to do this and always have him tell you if there was anything that made him feel comfortable.

Best of luck!

What is dangerous is raising children who can not deal with the world. What will happen to these children when they are finally on their own?

They will grovel before any thug who can make them afraid.

Or flock to a Fuehrer who promises to protect them.

That is, if they don’t die of anaphylactic shock because somebody 100 meters upwind opened up a can of peanuts. Or OD at a “pharm party”.

I have to say that I am an overprotective mother and have tried to loosen up a bit lately. I do not want my children to grow up in fear of everything. I am taking baby steps…home school mom just allowing my children , one being a teen, to go to the park across the street unsupervised.. but I am getting there.
The first thing I did was disconnect cable. Not because of what the kids were watching but because of what I was watching. Just like the internet..if something catches my eye, I read it but if it is about another child abduction or another school shooting, I do not read it. I am trying to let go of those fears that the media has generated.
My children understand the need of the “buddy system” but I also teach them to be aware of their surroundings and how to handle situations on their own. My kids now that there are a lot of bad people out there but I counter that with telling them that there are a lot of good people out there too. I think that if more parents prepared their children without scaring them, that they would do just fine on their own. It is my job to prepare them for adulthood and the “real world”. Like I said, I am taking baby steps, but I am taking them.

My free range kid (now 21 and very much alive) was allowed quite a bit of freedom as she was growing up in a very safe suburb of Kansas City. (Parts of KC are extremely rough, though.) I cringed, I sat and rocked myself to calm down sometimes, she crawled out the dormer window and went down a tree to escape her room as a teenager (found out later, of course), but she survived. At 15 I let her go to Coachella with 7 other friends, at 17 she went to Europe with a supervised group from school, and at 18 she went to India all by herself to volunteer at an orphanage. I sent her to India as an adventurous girl and she came back a woman. Of course, I aged ten years that summer! But her courage continued to amaze me as she then went off to NYC for college. People asked me if I worried and I said, “After India, no way! NYC is 100 times safer than where she was.” She now lives in NYC and survives on her own, never asking for money, but knowing there IS a support system should she need it. Her pride and courage keep her going, and I know deep down that if she had stayed in KC and gone to KU down the road she be just another spoiled suburban brat. She’s seen true suffering, experienced the thrill of making it on her own and without being given some freedom as a kid she would have never made it so far. I say she has the heart of a lion, and THAT will serve her best for the rest of her life.

The world IS a more dangerous place than when I was a child, like it or not.
I am really sorry that no one here agrees that as such parents should be more cautious with the most precious and irreplacable things in our lives, our children.
Staying with our children, while teaching them about the realities of an increasingly dangerous world (vesus telling them and then pushing them out into it alone), does NOT make me a poor parent. It is my job to provide that extra safety net, until they are grown and the most capable for themselves.
I also had a 14 yr old brother disappear in 1983 from a rural midwest area, on the SAME EXACT road (different perpertrator) as Ben Owensby did in 2007!
I know it happens!
We were LUCKY both boys made it home alive, unlike so many who are found dead, or are still missing decades later. This is not ‘fear-mongering’ it’s REALITY. The world changes and we need to adjust accordingly, like it or not.
Let your kid ride the subway alone of you want, but be thankful that I am still there (sitting next to my own child) and will call 911 when I see someone trying to kidnap/rape/rob/molest/murder yours.

Good for you! I’m happy to see so many people applauding your efforts here. You obviously taught your son how to make it home and do it safely. I know some over-protected 15 year olds who wouldn’t even be able to get back to their own house from Bloomies. And how is that any safer, say they do get kidnapped one day (God forbid). Safe, responsible independence is a good thing. Thanks for sharing your story.

Deb – the world is NOT a more dangerous place. Thanks to various media outlets (TV news, radio, Internet, etc) we simply here about every single incident, with every single solitary detail, within minutes of occurence. Mass media is guilty of peddling fear – because fear sells. You think anyone’s going to watch news about allllllll of the kids who walk home from school safely every day? Hell no! We want the salacious details of the tragedy du jour, right now, right down to the color of someone’s underwear.

Safety involves education, common sense, and self-confidence. Independence is key to that. I don’t want my daughter growing up to be a woman who depends on a man to define her self-worth or safety because she’s been taught that the world is a scary and fearful place where she is incapable of surviving on her own. I will instill in her the confidence and life-skills to make smart choices, take calculated chances, live a life full of adventure and not equate overprotection to safety. My child will not grow up spoiled, petulant and ill-equipped to be an adult.

We are all lucky to be alive – there are perils everywhere, in every day life. More children die in car crashes than are abducted each year – have you stopped taking your children in the car with you??

I feel sorry for your children, I really do.

Hurray!!
I am so glad to see other parents giving their children the freedom to learn how to take care of themselves. I have noticed such a drastic change in what children are able to do on their own. I am 33 and was a latch key kid. I looked after my brother after school and cooked all the meals from the time I was 11 years old. My mother worked two jobs and didn’t have the time needed to be there for us.
I raise my children pretty much the same way. I tell them how to cope with problems on the streets. I tell them facts about what can happen if they are not smart.
I am now a single mom, who leaves for work well before my children wake up, and don’t get home until after 7Pm at night. They cook their own meals, and get themselves off to school. They are healthy and happy. They also have a lot of confidence. But a lot of my 16 yr old sons friends can’t even fry eggs let alone managing to get them selves off to school.
When my kids go off to college, I want to be sure they know how to cook, do laundry, and fend for themselves. So many children are coddled to the point of not knowing how to make a simple decision on their own. It’s so sad and scary to think that these children are our future and at the age of sixteen can’t fry eggs!

I just read about you letting your son ride the sybway by himself and I say bravo!!! I’m 30 years old, my mom was VERY overprotective because she was a stay at home mom and had nothing better to do but worry, worry, worry. My grade school was a 1/2 mile away, but I was NEVER allowed to walk there or back. My high school was a city bus ride away from my house but I was NEVER allowed to ride it. And I was NOT allowed to drive. I asked her if it was because she didn’t trust me and she said it was because she said she didn’t trust the OTHER drivers. I had a friend who lived ACROSS THE STREET and my mom would watch me walk there from our driveway!!! I resented this throughout my childhood and became so depressed because of it. I would always be late to high school so nobody would see me, a senior, being dropped off by my mommy. Thoughts of suicide and hopelessness were normal and I felt so isolated from everyone else. I even started to become super worried myself and have irrational fears about silly things. I knew this was not normal and when I went off to college, I went on a mission to become super self-sufficient and I haven;t looked back.

Sure there are lots of scary things out there, but a parent can’t be there at every moment of their kids’ lives–and SHOULDN’T be– and they should have confidence that their child has the skills and resources to deal with whatever comes there way.

You go girl! That is how my children and I were brought up in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn. My children grew up in the days of the late 80’s and early 90’s to boot and they are professional members of society.

I’ve roamed the clubs of Belfast and walked along the streets of London at all hours of the day and night – alone. I’m a small town, American, 4′ 9″, 110lb female. And I was able to comfortably travel those sidewalks in the dead of night because I didn’t have a cell phone growing up with my mother calling me every 5 minutes. I had one rule and one rule only – Come home when the street lights come on. I read the news daily. I know what’s lurking around every corner. I live in the state that is number one in rape victims per capita, we’re number one in alcoholism, we’re number one in domestic violence. But I’m not cowering in the corner with a hard hat. I do believe that the world is a more dangerous place but you can’t think for your children their entire lives. All you can do is give them the tools you think they’ll need to survive. I know not to get into cars with strangers. I know to trust my gut more than my head and heart. I know how to think about the consequences of the choices I make. Do your children?

Thank you for speaking out, today’s teenagers seem to have no skills or common sense. Looking back, I don’t know how any of my family ever lived past 5 or 6. If this trend of over protectiveness continues, then there will be no civil liberties in just a few short years, so many have been lost in my lifetime. Common sense negates the need for big brother (or big parenting). When you can make decisions about your welfare you tend to keep an eye on others actions which when practiced in society as a whole creates safety. Someone always knows what happened or at least part of what happened.

My husband & I applaude you! We have 3 children of our own and believe its our job to prepare them to live their lives on their own. We will not be around forever to hold their hands. Parents who hover over every move their children make are creating a gnereation of people who have no clue how to live in the real world. They may be able to count to 1000 and speak spanish by age 3 but they won’t know how to pay their bills or what to do if they get a flat tire. They are doing their children a disservice. They are actually making them targets because of their lack of knowledge and gullibility. Those are the parents who will complain when their children are 35 and moving back home because they couldn’t make it without them.

Over the summer I was in the mini van with my smart mouthed 9 year old. I forget what he was going on and on about that day, but I had had ENOUGH and I told him so. He kept talking about whatever.

I warned him “keep talking and i’m putting you out of this car.” He says “put me out”. So I did. I pulled over to the side of the roadand pressed the button on the automatic door. He called my bluff and hopped out. I called his bluff and drove off. Ok, I actually just went around the block and came back to where i’d dropped him. He was gone.

In my mind I could see myself on the news, him in a gutter and all manner or terribleness happing to both of us. I drove round and round, but could not find my child.

Finally I headed home to call the cops.

I pull up in front of the house and there he is. Just sitting on the porch calm as anything.

I asked him “how did you get here?” I walked he said (we were about a mile from home when I dropped him off). Were you afraid I asked him “at first he said – then I just took the short cut home.” (which explains why I didn’t see him.

It was an eye opening lesson for both of us. At 9 he’s not a baby and I need to loosen up. I also need to figure out better punishments.

I just wanted to applaud you here, Ms. Skenazy. I wrote about you after seeing this in a local paper a couple of weeks ago. Just wanted to give you one more vote in your camp!

Just stumbled across this blog.I say kudos to Ms. Skenozy.Judging from some of the remarks here our society has definitely become more rude and crass.As a kid growing up we played outside from sun up to sundown in the summer and fall.Growing up in the Okla.panhandle in the 60S and 70s we played along the Canadian river.We played sensibly though as our parents had taught us to be alert and use common sense.Some of the things we did though would make the nanny state so-called child safety experts cringe.My
wife of over 2 decades and I raised two children in New
Mexico.We gradually let them have more freedom the older they grew.They are both young adults now but we
had a wonderful time raising them in New Mexico countryside.Swimming,bumming around and yes playing supervised in the arroyos whem ne or my wife was present.Their are too many talking heads trying to tell us how we should raise our children and that they think they no whats best for us and our families.Tune them out and give your kids some freedom .In my case it turned out wonderfully.

I was reading your article today and I have to say great job. I am in my 20’s and I was lucky enough to have a mom who gave me and my brothr independence. In the fourth grade I took a babysitting course at a local hospital. It was not for babysitting other children but for myself and younger brother. My parents had divorced and when my father left for Florida(I grew up in Ma) my mom had no other choice really. I walked home from school when I took after school programs and cared for my bother everday. I remember riding my bike everywhere. I enjoyed my independence and remember telling my mom that I felt grown up.
I feel that some parents now a days are to sheltering. Yes the world can be a sacry place but it’s even scarier when you don’t know what to expect. My mother taught us to always be aware of your surroundings and look for an escape route if need be. She also taught us how to be independent and not to rely on her for everything! So again great job. O yeah both my parents grew up in the city and took the subway at a young age…ALONE!

BRAVO!!!! Our society is being reared on huge doses of fear. We fear the air, the water, the food we eat, the old man next door and any and every ethnic group we do non’t understand. We used to play in the dirt and drink from the hose pipe.People, news flash…”THE WORLD IS NOT OUT TO GET YOU”. Perhaps we were more safe in days gone by BECAUSE of the freedom we were given and the independance that developed as a result of that freedom. We were aware of our surroundings and leary of strangers and we did not get into cars for the sake of a ride…we enjoyed the adventure of being outside…(remember outside?) We have wrapped kids up in plastic bubble wrap and then wonder why they are not able to adapt and cope. Shame on ALL of you who criticised this mom!

What a breath of fresh air this is. I live in Chicago, and I have friends who let their kids ride the bus and el to/from middle school. They do just fine, and I’m sure my kids will do the same someday.

And, BTW, I was just in NYC 2 weeks ago – I hadn’t been there since the late 80s – and I was SHOCKED at what a mellow city it has become. On this trip, I never felt unsafe, there were families with kids and strollers absolutely everywhere, areas that once felt scary to me were cleaned up to such an extent it was, well, weird (and, even a little sad to see some of the character of the city gone in that way)…it’s remarkable. I was sad, in fact, when I was there, thinking about how many people must have pictures of “big, scary city” in mind when they think of NYC when, in fact, I would have no qualms about sending my smart, responsible kid home on public transport when he is ready. But then again, I’m raising my sons in a “big, scary city”, too, and so much of urban life is impossible to imagine for people who don’t live it, I’ve found.

I congratulate you on allowing your son to ride the subway on his own! I teach middle school kids, and the overprotectiveness of the parents astounds me! I grew up as a latch key kid and enjoyed the independence. Bravo for not being a helicopter parent and for showing your son the need for independence at a good age.

I wrote about this on my blog about a year ago, because I was being frazzled by helicopter parents who would only hold play dates if they stayed or I stayed. Even after we’d checked out each other’s homes really well!

Have you read, it’s extended into college! Parents are calling professors if Johnny gets a bad grade. They can’t even go away to school anymore!

We have a boisterous neighborhood with tons of kids and when the weather’s good, I open the front door and tell my three to GET OUT!

I think you did the right thing, but watch CPS! They never shut down the meth house around the corner with the 7-year-old caked with filth, but they’ll concentrate on garbage like this!

I just read about this on washingtonpost.com.

I think of how I try to let my 12 year old daughter gain some independence which is hard because I live in a place were you have to drive everywhere. My mother will complain that she is only 12 she can’t do this or that. I remind her that she left me and my brother to come home alone when I was 9 and he was 6. And every summer we were home alone all day while my parents worked. This was on Long Island. We lived in the Bronx before that and I remember walking to and from school, having to cross the Bruckner Expressway via overpass and walk about 3 blocks to my school. While a neighbor’s 9 year old son was supposed to walk me, I usually made the trip solo at 6 years old because the 9 year old didn’t want to be bothered with me when his friends were around. When I remind my mother of these things, she says things were different then. Were they really?

Kudos to you for allowing your son to spread his wings!

Playing a little russian roulette with your child!? Find something else to take a stand on and in the meantime maybe you can find something safe for you and your child to do together besides the potential mugging or abduction. I am all for teaching your child responsibility and giving them freedom but not at there expense. Of course children at that age start wanting some freedom but please who is the parent here? Is New York as safe now as it was in 1963? Short answer- No. Do you have a daughter and how would you feel about a little girl finding her way home on the subway?

Loved the post from T23, I hear you!

Kudos for you! Our first visit to NYC was when my kids were 5 and 8. I was so impressed by the number of kids on the subway alone. You are not the only one letting a 9-year-old ride alone. Public transportation is PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. Kids are part of the public. And if you think a hundred New Yorkers wouldn’t come to the aid of a screaming child, then what planet are you from?

And everyone in NYC knows the targets — adults, more so than kids — are the ones who look like they don’t know what they are doing. (Hint, no matter what city or country we go to, we map out transportation routes before we walk out the door.) The ones who run the risk of being harmed/robbed are the ones who stand at the map scratching their heads.

Have any of the bellyachers heard of the kids in Uganda that have to leave their homes at night, walk miles and miles to sleep together in cities on sidewalks because if they stay home, they run the risk of militants kidnapping them and giving them guns to go kill people? Go to invisiblechildren.com and then you might have something real to complain about.

And what about these religions (AKA cults) that marry their teenage daughters off to pump out babies?

Don’t get me started… If we continue to bubble wrap our kids, then, how will our society instinctively know how to protect ourselves one of these days? Or know how to do anything without being told what to do?

Let’s get real, here!

I love your site and applaud your backbone.

I have a 10 year old that we’re just allowing to stay alone without us around for extended periods of time. Not sure about the subway with her (she doesn’t like it and would probably prefer a bus). I think your son could have a summer job teaching other kids the benefits of navigating the city alone – or better yet, what about HIS own blog? I know my 10 year old would love that…

Wonderful! I am a NYC born and bred woman who grew up in lower Manhattan (Broadway-Nassau stop on the A train) and rode the train to I.S. 70 (14th St. stop). It was 1975, I was a fairly independent, tomboy-ish 10 year old and I felt as if my world had opened up!

My parents instructed me correctly on how to use the subway, to ensure my personal safety and protect me from those who would harm me.

They never did.

I wasn’t kidnapped nor abused. The worst that I suffered was the average pushing/shoving/riding without a seat.

In turn, I had a son that I raised in the city and he too rode the train alone. Again, at 10 years old, however, this time it was from Times Square, so that I’d have him swear up and down to call me the minute he was safely inside the sanctuary of his Greenwich Village school. Sometimes he did and sometimes he didn’t (forgetful boy!).

He lived. He also thrived because of the independence (and the responsibility that goes along with it) that I gave him and has grown into a loving, independent adult.

Shame on these parents that are slinging “abuse” allegations at you.

They should go back into the insular, pre-historic cave from whence they came.

To: mdhatter, on April 12th

A quick FYI… I would never never vote, I’m from Los Angeles and we don’t like to read all that much.

http://www.nationallampoon.com/thezaz/index.php/2008/04/10/a-little-parenting-lesson/

… patiently awaiting a home address so I can call 911….

I think that you’re doing an awesome job here! Parents are too overprotective and from a kids perspective, it’s suffocting. I mean, when you think about it, when you let a child have more independence and freedom, it helps them become more rounded people in adulthood. You can tell the kids who parents coddled and babied them because they can’t function properly in today’s society. Can’t cook, clean, or even live on their own because they’re used to mommy and daddy doing everything for them.

I read your article and absolutely loved it. I am now 17 years old and at age 15 my parents trusted me to take a trip alone across the Atlantic from JFK to Alexandria, Egypt….with my two younger brothers in tow. Needless to say, we got there and back unscathed and I can honestly say it was one of the most fortifying experiences of my life. I currently take the train to and from the city from the suburbs and find nothing threatening in the experience at all. Trust me, parents, allowing children to think on their own and allotting them certain responsibilities won’t kill them. It will make them independent. And independent kids will have an easier time when it comes to college and what comes after.

FWIW, I asked my own kids ages 8 and 10 what they think about this issue. They both said they though 9 was too young to ride the NYC subway alone. What age did they think was okay? Thirteen or older.

They have grown up riding public transport in Portland, OR fairly often and now the Metrolink and L.A. busses and subways, so they have a pretty good idea how public transit works and how it is navigated.

I was delighted to find this site and am confident it will serve me well for parenting advice and support. As a single mother of two young boys (3 and 5), I am in constant question of how much independence should be allowed. We live in a quaint little village just north of Tampa that reminds me of life straight off the Truman Show, but as the media drills us with fear, I often still find myself thinking I am a bad mother if my eyes are not on my kids every second. There is a field around the corner from my townhouse where village kids of all ages play while parents chat on their front stoops. Last week, I completely panicked when my three year old was suddenly nowhere to be found. Within minutes, I had every available parent combing the streets calling his name. As it turned out, he had simply walked home (literally less than one block) to use the bathroom. I felt like such a horrible mother for losing sight of him and reprimanded him for the decision. In retrospect, I realize I’m not a bad mother at all. I now see his action as a reflection of the his confidence – confidence I helped to instill. My sweet baby – at three years old – is confident enough to navigate the way home to take care of his own needs. Granted, I prefer he let me know in the future, but the point is that I’m proud of my son’s development and have a new perspective on how to build on that confidence. I think i will let my five year old ride the bus next year to kindergarten and, when he is a few years older, he will also be allowed to ride his bike through the village to his elementary school.

I applaud Ms. Skenazy for igniting a movement to give parents the push we need to teach our children independence and have bookmarked this site as my now favorite parenting resource!

Amy M.

I am a mother of a 16 year old and a 2 year old. I do not consider myself over-protective, and I believe that children should be given “freedom and independence” to the degree appropriate with their age.

Being safe and keeping our children safe is a matter of making wise choices. Was it wise to drop your 9- year old son off at Bloomingdales with a few quarters, a map, and say good luck, son, I hope you make it home okay?

Ultimately, we as parents are each individually responsible for the health and wefare of our children, and we will each take our own path and make our own decisions to ensure that end – some parents are just wiser and make better choices than others.

It’s about time….! I’m so sick of parenting feeling like a prison. My son is ten and I have always been shun because when I need to do something like go get groceries and he doesn’t want to come, I’m labelled neglectful..

I refuse to live in a society that is training us all to live in fear, when I was a kid we were never in the house, always out, now kids are afraid to leave there own homes, video games, television.
Rubbish I commend all parents who have the foresight to see that raising our kids the way society wants us to is killing the independence of our future generations. And shame on the people who wrote such hateful things towards this editor.

Kids need there freedom to find out who they are within there own skins. The same way we did when we were children. The world is just a dangerous as it was when I was a kid, so why the change?
I support all the Men and Women who have freed themselves and there children from the prison society tried to contain us in… Trust starts within…

I am all about free-range kids. My son is 4.5, and I am under the firm belief that I am NOT raising a kid to become a kid, but rather a kid to become an adult. In my community, it seems every day another friend or aquaintenance has made plans to home-school. I think it is, indeed, a personal choice, but when your kid wakes up with you, eats breakfast with you, takes his spelling test with you, plays with you, and then is fed dinner by you, exactly how much are they really getting out of life? What sort of stimulation?

I feel confident my child could find his way home, as well, at 4.5 (albeit by a cab, maybe? and not the subway, as we don’t have one where we live); he could also call someone. He knows to go to a fireman or a policeman or a store clerk should he gets lost. He can recite 911, my phone number, name, and even address.

Keep at this free-range parenting, people. SOMEONE will need to supervise and manage those kids who were not ever allowed to think for themselves as adolesents! I think our kids might be well-equiped!

Hello,
While my identity may be anonymous, I would still like to hopefully comment and contribute somewhat.

On the internet, anyone may look up the National Child Abuser Registry, or whatever its called, and they can see who is a child abuser in their cities/neighborhoods. There’s red dots ALL over, and most of them are near SCHOOLS!

Am I worried? While I see the kids walking by these houses daily after school, I don’t see them being abducted or anything. Kids today are WAY too coddled and protected. When they’re finally in college then what? Even many college students still depend way too much on their parents. Its sickening and saddening to create such a ‘baby’ culture among adults, teens, and kids.

I saw a cartoon once, it used to come on TV, called ‘Recess’, and I watched it with my younger sister (a teen, around 12 at the time). In that episode there was this kid who was so germaphobic he convinced every kid in the school to scrub scrub scrub the playground and walls and doors and everything. Then the admins saw this and ordered a cleaning crew from the school board to disinfect the entire school, including the playground equipment, and have everyone always wearing ‘bubble’ suits to protect themselves from germs. I believe that episode was a satire on overprotecting our kids, and it speaks truth.

In order to build resistance to disease, we must be exposed to the danger of it. In order to combat crime, we can’t have our kids living in fear of it.

Girls are not going to be raped or abducted the moment they step out the door. If that was going to happen, it would happen right on your front lawn, or as soon as they got outta school, or even they’d take you both at gunpoint, tie you down, and make you watch as they raped your daughter in front of you. There are always sickos and assholes out there. Anything can happen, but you can’t be afraid of it, you just teach your kid how to handle themselves and hope for the best.

A cell phone isn’t a bad thing, as long as it isn’t overused. I find prepaid phones work best for this purpose, as its always ‘do I wanna waste minutes on this?’.

Good job on being a better mother then most people. I applaud you and your efforts. It would definately cut back on the lame whiners online and offline.

When our son was born, my husband’s protector reflexes kicked in and he deemed nothing safe enough. As Christians who believe in a sovereign God, we were able to say, “God loves our child more than we ever could and He is ultimately in control.” We will use our best judgement as to what’s safe and to pass that on to our son because that’s why kids have parents. I’m sure Ms. Skenazy loves her son and did not make this decision lightly. My only concern is that she said one reason her son doesn’t have a cell phone is that she’s afraid he’ll loose it. If a child isn’t responsible enough to manage a cell phone, are they able to mange the subway? (I’m not being rhetorical- I’m not used to the city so I really don’t know the answer.)

I read your article and I applaud you. This day and age, these so-called parents are hovering over the children like hawks and then they wonder why the child is not self-sufficient and can’t even think for themselves, because they need mommy and/or daddy to do everything for them. I grew up in a time when we didn’t have cell phones, not too many house phones and my parents had to work, there really was no such thing as after-school, so you had to find ways to entertain yourself. And yes, this included me and my brother riding the train to grandma’s house. I loved every minute of it. My brother and I would explore Central Park, Coney Island, etc. Now that I am a mother of 12 year old fraternal twins, I let my kids travel to their respective schools alone. I did purchase them cell phones, only because they are available today, and it’s more for them to keep me abreast of their activities, not so much for me to be hovering. New York is the greatest place in the world and their is danger lurking everywhere. But I think if you are honest with your child and raise them to be aware of their surroundings and self-sufficient, that’s the best parenting you can do. You go girl!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for standing up to the “fear-mongers.” I coordinate a volunteer program for “young adults” (ages 18-30) and see first-hand the crippling effect this trend is having on our youth. It’s a challenge for me to get 21-year-olds to feel comfortable riding the bus by themselves, not to mention the host of other opportunities these young adults are missing waiting for someone to hold their hand.

Y’all better not come crying to the media when your child disappears!!

this is the best thing ever! i remember growing up with divorced parents and having to FLY alone to new york and taking public transportation alone, but the main thing i remembered is not ever feeling like someone was going to jump out and take me! my parents took the time to show me the routes, gave me extra money and also pointed out safe places to duck into if i felt uncomfortable. i never went out alone at night and i always knew what streets to never go down. and this is when cell phones were are luxury. its amazing that as soon as certain individuals become parents they lose their mind and some of their common sense. when did being parent mean we have to be in our kids faces all the time? i am so over the holier than you motherhood syndrome; motherhood is forever yes, but your kids do move out and if you have spent their entire life catering to them and holding their hand, how are they supposed to be functioning adults? what ever happened to creating individual, bright, creative, INDEPENDENT children? i give my kids rope and allow them to think for themselves, parents aren’t going to be there to help all the time!

While I’m not a parent, I was a child development major, work in various capacities with children (and thus their parent), am currently studying college counseling and student services, and am presently employed in student affairs at a major CA state university – with that said, sorry ladies, you ARE crippling your children. A lot of this varies depending on the cities and states in which we live, but as someone who was raised pretty bi-coastally, (and flew from CA to the east coast on the plane by myself at age SIX), I had (and still have) a level of independence which may as well be a foreign language to the 18 year old “millenial generation” students roaming the college campus today. These students (your children) are not particularly good at conflict resolution, decision making, self sufficiency, or initiative for that matter – all skills learned by being freedom, expectations to rise to, and the benefit of the doubt that the MIGHT be able to make it without you waiting outside of the movie theatre in your hum-v.

All this to say, the children that you coddle now (by ushering them from one practice to the other – of teams YOU signed them up for btw – scheduling their playdates (where did THIS come from??? I would’ve DIED had my mom try to 1. select and 2. schedule my friend times…omg), and not letting them experience the at times painful (but very necessary) shock of failure from time to time, that doesnt magically go away once they turn 18 and move to college. The only difference between your 18 year old high school senior and the 18 year old you drop off at college is a 3 month summer and trust me, they do NOT turn into adults during those summer overnights. They enter college those same children who left your house, only now they’re expecting others to take your place.

Again, I am not a mother, but was once a child and was once a college freshman, and am now one of those student services personnel trying to explain to your 18 year olds that a little adventure is ok,…and so what if they take the wrong bus….whip out your cell phone and call for directions – initial success is not gauranteed, regardless of what your mom told you.

There is more media covering scary stories these days, and there is more technology for criminals. I think that is not the world going bad, it is just evolution.

Also, it seems these days that children are their parents’ little trophies. The parents want to coddle and protect their trophies so that they can perform for them and make them look like great parents and dynastic heads. That is not helpful for children to become independent, openminded, confident people. Everyone complains that adolescence is delayed these day – this is why! The parents THINK they are being helpful by helping their kids play into the system, by never letting them make mistakes, get behind, waste time — god forbid have a broken arm and not be able to get that baseball scholarship, or look bad or feel awkward. Then the child might have to experience hardship and LIFE and actually need to TALK with their parent about something REAL, instead of just how to get ahead and look good.

My parents weren’t always great at having those conversations with me to the extent I wanted, but THANK GOD they let me try things, fail, get lost, make mistakes, do something different than the way everyone else was doing it if I did not want to always play it safe. I have given my parents a rough time about not listening to me enough when I messed up, but at least I was given the opportunity to mess up and learn how to pick myself up and decide what I really wanted to learn from any challenging experience.

Jamie Lee Curtis has been talking about this lately – how society is geared now so that everything is easier, especially for parents and supposedly for kids. Well, that does not help kids in the long run – to have a view of life as better when played with utmost safety, conformity, and narrow experience.

To Matt –
Isn’t it pretty to think so?

Sorry – my husband has been a certified sex offender treatment provider in our state for more than a decade. We know *way* more than anyone here would like to even consider.

And it isn’t just little girls who are at risk.

The statistics are staggering.

Which is okay as long it is just your number and not your child.

OK, the following comment i wrote for some newssite, then it said i have to ba a member to post comments?!?!? It would be a shame to just discard it, it took me quite some time to write… so here it is(some stuff is irrelivent, but it is about the same thing you guys are talking about, just based on an article i read on it).

Ok i am a kid, and i dont have a cell phone, and i live in (more or less) the counrty (well its a colledge town 😀 ) , I walk to school everyday, My mom is fine with it, In fact, walking to school helps me. I was crossing roads by myself by like 8(at most), and I have never encountered anyone who i Think would hurt me, and if they would, it is very obvious. If your child has a decent judge of character, and understands safety, its fine.
Also, the only time my mom was genuinly worried was when i didnt come home till 9:30 one night (first time ever), and even then, i told her i was with friends, worst comes to worst, i chose the wrong group of friends, some day she meets them, gets pissed, and tells me to stop hanging out with them, and i would .
Also Also(lol), If i was in danger, most of the time i either have a pocket knife on me, and i am not afraid to show its clip in my pocket, i look in decent shape, and i am in good shape. BECAUSE i am not so afraid and shltered that i am allowed in the park whenever i want to go(leave a note), and i can go with my friends to hang out, which no matter what, it involves walking, and we rock climb usually too, i AM able to socailize, learn that sometimes people make mistakes, and also get in shape, so there is a even LESS chance of me getting in trouble.
Going back to a thought earlier, when i dont have a knife, i am with my friends, and there is quite alot of us, and like half of us are older kids, who certainly wont be taken off by some stranger, since we are big, there is alot of us, and well, we appear(somewhat) able to handle ourselves if something came to blows.
Any critisism of what i said is open and asked for, i love a good argument/comversation. Also i did not proof-read this(short on time) so dont go on and on about spelling(i am not capitalizing every I, so give up on it, and i dont use ‘) , and so on, and grammer, and whatever(yes im aware i had like 6 sentences, and they were all run-ons), but please comment.

This is a cool forum thing by the way, and i intend to tell my socail-studies teacher about this thing, see her views etc. Every class we share news, and i think she wouldbe interested in this issue (she is a young mom herself).

OK i read alot of this stuff, here (wow there are alot of posts), and i must say, some of this is pathetic, some of this is intelligent, and some of this, well… im male, and not a parent, so i kindof cant comment because, though ive seen parenting reflexes, i have never experienced them (though i do get horribly wierd cravings that can be described as “…. are u shure you r not pregnent?” 😀 ). There is so much stuff i can share hear, i wish i could just say it (type whatever) it all. So ill just do it bit by bit, day by day. First off, a while up on the comments, there is a girl, her namwe was something along the lines of IndependenTeenager, i can say right now, there are 3 (last i knew) convicted rapists in my town, and some parents of friends i knwo wont let them (yes they are girls (and one guy)) hang out on a saterday night wothg sopme friends. Now yes, some kids may experiment in acts that maybe they shoudn’t try until their older (like kissing, or further…) But they have to learn somehow, and if you are to afraid or neglectful to understand that, or tell them about certain “changes” they may experience in life, or that this thast the other is ok, but blah blah blah is not true, and please,… well you get the point. And many parents (for good reason), are afraid that something bad may happen….. if it does,, you learn from the mistake, move on, if it is life threatening, or premenatly/mentaly damaging, then that is when u say NO, you cant, for X Y and Z, but come on, dont just say that i dont trust your friends because they are teenage boys, its not like there are other girls in the group or anything(ok cruel, but true, if something were to happen, whats the chances that we would do it when there are plenty of people to object, and tell), yes thats sarcasm, atleast 1/4 maybe over 1/3 of my friends are girls, and guess what, none of my friends have molested them, and in fact, we have talked about stuff that prevents that type of thing. Now i am very tired, cause i havn’t been getting alot of sleep, so im just kindof going to trail off, and start something else entirely…….
One of my friends cant go on a huge field trip that my school does every year for kids in our grade ( yes a grade schooler (K-12) is writing all of this stuff), and guess what…. its not because his parents cant pay, he is willing to pay for the money out of pocket. OK here it is, first reason: your bro and sis didnt go, so you cant, helllllllooo, he is willing to pay for it, let him have some independece….. Second reason: (ok so i dont remember perfectly 🙂 ) his dad is afraid that something could happen ( like sneak away, get abducted, etc.) in the three days we are there. Guess what? We are in a group of like 10 at all times, with atleast 1 chaperone, and a strict scedual. I think someone would notice if u went missing, and if you got into trouble from your own stupidity, they will learn, if not, you will be found very fast, sent home, and well, dealt with later. ALso, our school hired GUARDS for the hotel, AND there will be teachers staying up late TOO, AND we take up like 2-3 FLOORS, i doubt anybody would try and do anything, with or not with the trip.
Okay, now im falling asleep while typing, so g-night, and i hope what i contributed helps. Once again no proof-reading (sorry, hope you can sort through all those errors im shure i made…)

I have seen many times kids on the subway alone, and yes it did surprised me, but it was also a good feeling, when i was a child in a Mexican city, i had many adventures like that one, some were bad some were good, but it made me who I am, and would change it for a restricted childhood anytime.

I wish my mom was like you. Hell, I’m 19 years old, getting married in October, and still have a curfew of midnight by mommy dearest’s rule. She’s constantly calling my cell when I’m not at home, and demands to know where I am and who I’m with.

No matter how much confidence you may have…it’s always a risk.

Would your fourth grader be able to fend off a child molester or anyone….

Why dont you do a search on your neighborhood and subway stops to see how many sex offenders share your subway route.

You might be surprised with what you find…

I most cherish the memories of playing in the neighborhood into the sunset- hide and seek, kick the can- of walking to school, boots in the snow- and new umbrella and raincoat in the spring- from the time I was in kindergarten. Now I am living in the smallest of small towns in PA- I wouldn’t dare let my daughter (age 9) walk the few blocks to her school. I am not afraid of anything happening to her- but I expect the reaction would be one of abuse or neglect- endangering the welfare of my child. In contrast we now spend our weekends in Brooklyn. I am delighted and was at first amazed to see kids, of all ages, sizes, and cultures, everywhere- walking to and from school, riding their bikes, walking to the store. It is SO refreshing. As we conteplate our move there this summer I am excited at the thought that I could let my child walk to the corner store. This is not insanity it is normalcy.

I keep reading posts justifying this by saying….”when I was a kid”…..YES when we were children we did all those things, BUT this is NOT the same era as it was THEN. I wish it were. I did ALOT of things as a child that I would NEVER let my children do. We NOW live in the present and in THIS time chicldren are stolen from their FRONT YARDS, from their HOMES, even from their BEDROOMS. I live in close proximity to where a girl of 16 was dropped off at WORK and NEVER came home. They found her remains a few years later and her parents got to receive her BONE BY BONE! Search missing and exploited children’s web sites for a while before you even THINK of doing something like this. We are NOT living in the PAST, we are living in the HERE and NOW!

When I first read it I had mixed feelings. I tried to place myself in the same situation. I thought about this article for a good 48 hours going through a number of different emotions. “How could she do that?” “What a great feeling of independence that little boy must have now!” “What if someone would have taken him?” and on and on. Would I let Ellie ride the subway by herself? Well of course not. Ellie lives in San Diego, not New York. Ellie’s has never been on a New York subway, but this little boy rides one everyday of his life with his mom. To him it’s a daily norm.

So last night it all came together for me. GOOD FOR YOU LENORE!!! Good for you for trusting him enough to do the right thing. Good for you for teaching him Independence. Good for you for allowing him to become his own person and not trying to mold him into what you/society thinks he should be. Thank you for raising your child they way you feel is best and thank you for sharing with us, your story!

I can’t be to terribly sure that I would let my daughters ride the subway this young but I also say that as someone not that familiar with one. I do think that you are onto a fantastic topic here though. As a parent who has seen her child survive a tragedy you would thik that I would be fiercly against letting him go afain but I am not. It actually did the opposite. My son was in a terrible car accident that resulted in the death of tow of his friends. Survivor injuries were extensive. He was a passneger and did not even have a drivers license yet. At first I thought how could I let him get in a car with another teen driver and I really thought that had I been more protective that he would not have ben hurt. I quickly realized how ridiculous and futile this effort was. First of all, there was not even a known cause for the accident. – no speeding – no intoxication – no out past curfew – in fact they were all following me, someone made a driving error. Someone simply made a mistake. What happened could have happened to me or anyone else. Them, or any of their friends. Bottom line – none of us know how long we will be here, and none of us have complete control over when we will leave. Within the limits that we all are comfortable setting for our children we HAVE to let them live a full life here. And, sometimes that makes us uncomfortable because it forces us to confront our lack of control over what will happen.

Thanks for being bold enough to address this head on.
Jane
http://graceuljanes.wordpress.com

I think the individual child’s maturity level and experience with the situation at hand needs to be considered. We’re just across the river from Boston. Looking forward several years, I can see allowing my son a short solo subway ride during the day, although more likely it would be with a group. By the time he’s 9, he will have ridden the T with family countless times. Many kids ride the T to school, as I assume many kids in Metro NYC also use public transit as a way to get to and from their schools every day.

OTOH, I’m not fully in favor of saying “Hey! Have fun. See you in time for dinner.” without having some idea of where he is and who he is with, until he’s much, much older and has proven himself responsible and level-headed.

Again, leaving a million dollars in cash on a subway would not be something most people would do and yet many posts have agreed it would be ok to leave their child. I will NEVER be able to fathom that mind set. I respect other’s opinions it just isn’t something I would or could ever do. In reply to Dale, 1 in a million still does not make me comfortable placing my children in a high risk situation. I am afraid some nut case might think they are “1 in a million” as well. They have their independence and freedoms, they are just within reason. THIS situation and the age of the child are NOT reasonable to me. I actually find it irresponsible and neglectful. Like thousands of other people I don’t leave my purse or keys lying around in strange places where they could be stolen, I certainly would NEVER leave my child in that situation.

Re: 9 yr. old riding subway

I think that you have lost your mind…I live in a huge city and would never ever think of having my 10-year old ride the subway himself. In fact, during the past month a gentleman was beaten and murdered on a subway platform in upscale center city. It’s not a matter of being overprotective–it’s a matter of protecting the life of an innocent child. Granted, I believe independence should be fostered, but certainly within reason for the child’s age group……I would definitely consider you a horrible parent. Crime is much worse than it ever was and I would never ever subject my child to something that I could have prevented.

i have an idea. call the police precinct that covers the area you are speaking of. ask the seargent on duty if he (or she) thinks it is a good idea to let your 9 year old ride the subway alone. then report back to us what he said to you.

just let the profesionals decide, as they are the ones would would be handling the case if there was a problem.

the police deal with the subway safety situation daily, let them guide you, they are the experts

seems like a common sense approach.

do you have any objection to doing that?.

Some children might freeze–and many others would not. That’s why knowing your child’s maturity, comfort and experience level matters at least as much as their age, after a certain point.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume a child who lives in a major city, who has a good amount of experience riding the subway, etc. and who is begging to take a short ride by himself, probably has some level of street smarts.

I would also assume that the author has probably been preparing her son for this kind of milestone for some time–i.e. when you take the subway, look for a car with other people in it, be aware of your surroundings and so on. If you run into trouble, there is a panic button or lever–use it to get help if you need to. And so on.

I wouldn’t assume a shy 9 year-old, from a small town,who has only ridden a subway once in their life, and has had very limited independence, would be “just fine” riding the subway. Statistically? They probably would be just fine, but they would probably be scared rather than thrilled by the experience. (Which is fine. I just think it is absurd to extrapolate fears about random isolated subway crimes and decide that means a subway ride is an enormous risk. As small freedoms go, a ride on public transportation actually strikes me as safer than say, walking to the library, the park or corner store alone.

Natasha
First, myname is dylan…. not dale. Also, we are talking about all unique casses, every case is different. Some kids may very well be afraid, and unable to handle these situations in which something may occur. YOU as a parent should know your kid well enough to know how they would hande thess experiences. I can tell you right now, when i was 9, i would have reacted violently, but maybe not so loudly, peple would still have notied, and I am shure that my mom and dad would have understood how i would react, and be able to predict it, in a risky or dangerous situation. I can also tell you, that at the age of twelve, i would have made tons of noise, and been willing, even to specificly target the groin, head, neck, and stomach. Everythiong is case by case, and i get that, but some cases, are actually really safe.

george, your view of the nyc police is a blantantly incorrect, unwarranted, sterotypical, cynical and childish description of the many fine brave people who risk their lives daily so that, ironically, you are free to decide whether you want to gamble your child’s safety alone on the subway. they deserve better. without their presence, this discussion would not even be taking place. instead of making sweeping generalizations like this, i encourage you to make the effort to pick up the phone, call your precinct, and have a conversation about this issue. i hope you will learn something that will improve your perspective.

I just wonder that as a parent, we take for granted this knowledge that we have and forget to pass it on.

When I about nine or ten, my mother worked in downtown Denver and took the bus to get there. When we did our “Take Your Children to Work” routine, she didn’t change her routine because I was there. We took the bus where I learned about how to pay the fare and how to request our stop. We both had our little bagged lunch. She showed me how the elevator banks worked. All of these little things that in turn made up the experience of working downtown.

When I was older, living on my own and money was tight, I took the bus to work. It didn’t bother me — I had learned how to years before because of my mom. My husband, a smart man, a clever man, has no inkling on how to read a light rail or bus schedule. The only time he’s been on them is when I’m there to take the lead. It boils down to it being an experience that he never had.

I think people, not in your place, over react. You let him come home from Bloomingdales! Oh no! It scares me because I’m not familiar with New York. But would I let my child take the light rail from our part of town to the only 70mm screen theater in the state? Sure! Why? I know the area, I’ve done that myself. I know what to expect. If anything, I suppose, if you can’t be a complete Free Range Parent, don’t be afraid to at least take your children to the mundane places you go and how you get there. Parents that dump their children off somewhere so they can “go shopping” or “have lunch” bug me. There are learning opportunities abound; let your children partake in them. You’ll be doing them a favor in the long run.

Let’s get to the bottom-line here. This is really nothing new, it’s just a modern day, street level application of darwinism. If the kid is too stupid or slow to defend himself down there, he gets weeded out by the bigger, stronger, faster. Isn’t that the way it has worked for eons? In the big picture, you’re doing our species a favor. I like you, you’re a pragmatist. He either makes it on his own or gets wacked, and then you dont have to waste your time raising a pathetic weakling (and you were smart to keep your celly, clever lass). I can definitely tell from reading these comments that most of you are with me on this. Keep it up folks, go for it with all your kids!

I love it!

I am with you, my husband is the other kind of parent… it is very frustrating and I see it and hear it my youngest child; I also see where our older children (now adults) learned to sneak because of the limits and OVER protectiveness of their father and the learning curve of their mother.

Food for thought, indeed. Just because “we did it this way when we were young” doesn’t mean we should do it now with our kids. (The person who wrote about bike helmets and seat belts is simply idiotic. Just because you didn’t know anyone who was hurt, do you honestly think no kids were?) I think jumping from no freedom to setting a 9-year-old free in Blooningdale’s is the height of irresponsibility. Freedom and responsibility should be handed over gradually, and be commensurate with the individual child’s capacity to handle it, not by some pre-set universal criteria. My older daughter, now 17, began with short bus rides between my and her mother’s house around 12. Now she is a fully mobile, savvy NY teen. She has flown by herself, can handle the subway and taxis, makes a hundred little daily decisions. I can see how a 9-year-old could become disoriented, fearful, and traumatized by being set free in a huge department store. The parent might have thought of something smaller and easier-to-manage. I suppose no-harm-no-foul is in operation here. But, if you turned a thousand randomly chosen 9-year-olds free in Manhattan, or Peoria, or tiny farm towns around the country, sure most would return home safe and sound, but a few would not, and not a few of them would have the wits scared out of them. I don’t think fear teaches much, except that one ought to be fearful in what would be, at a different time of life, ordinary experiences. To boot, why does a 9-year-old have to know his way around Manhattan? Is this going to be a regular occurence? Is the parent planning on losing the kid by accident, on purpose, on a weekly basis? Independence is a wonderful thing, but, to everything there is a season.

I live in Moscow, Russia. My 9yo son goes to school all by himself. It takes him 2 subway stations and 10-min walk. And it is a normal practice for our waldorf school.

I was first shocked to see the headline of your son on the NY Subway alone at his age. However I immediately recalled my own and 5 sisters growing up being all over he.. and creation every day, and obviously here I am – a mother of a 10 year old girl just fine
I do agree with the thought of giving our kids what we had and yes they have every right in the world to experience that and have the indepence that will and does help later in life.
I am not sure though if my stomach (fear, anxiety,worry) take that though
Leaving a mall without her in tow, “yeah I’ll see ya at home”, WOW that’s brave on both the parents and kid side !
My hats to all the brave parents and kids out there !

this artical is very stupid

BRAVO! I was lucky enough to grow up with a mother who understood the importance of childhood independence and exploration (while still being home in case I needed a little reassurance). I tromped the neighborhood at 7. I went to every neighbor’s house and asked to play with their dogs. (Usually only when the other kids weren’t home…) I went and had cookies at neighbor’s houses without a food-tester. I ate mud and played in the snow till by extremities were numb (and I still have all of them!!!) I built forts with old lumber filled with nails and my jaw still works just fine. My mother was nearly always available if needed and in the rare case that she wasn’t my grandmother was. We grew up poor so that she could be home with us, but I wouldn’t trade my childhood for a billion dollars (even with gas prices the way they are!) I now have a 9 month old baby and often wonder if I will have the courage to allow him the same types of freedoms. Your actions in this terribly news-at-eleven-toys-covered-in-lead-paint-and-arsenic-everyone-is-a-pedophile-oh-my-god world is a reassurance to me. Children have lost so much in the past couple of generations. (Just watch to kill a Mockingbird if you want to see how drastic the change is from childhood-freedom has become.) And for every potential pedophile out there, there are 10 Boo-Radley’s watching your children. Neighbors who know each other at all will usually keep an eye, even if they have to peer over 12 foot privacy fences. For human nature is still to protect children, no matter what the News might say.

Like many posting here I was a free range child. Walked to school alone at 6, delivered papers at 8, walked to church at 8. Road my bike countless miles around town as a teen. Took the public bus to the city from my suburban home at 13.

I am training two free range kids (7 and 10) in the city. Sorry, I do use the cell phone as a crutch. Why not? It is not the 70’s after all. But my older son will walk from school ( 1/2 mile). His longest walk has been two miles from the baseball field. My younger son will walk to the park around the corner. I do none of this casually. Every step has been carefully metered. Making sure they know how to look and hear traffic before they cross the street. Instructing them of the safest places to cross etc.

I am sure Lenore did this also. It seems that some of the critics of this manuever seem to think Lenore let her son roam NYC with no experience of such things. It is not as if I left MY 10 year old do this. He has only been to NYC a few times (I live in PA). He would not know the lay of the land.

I would like to quickly stray a little and ask if anyone has noticed that most people do not even let there kids play on there own? I coach baseball, which is obviously supervised, but when one of the coaches suggested letting the kids play pickup games during the summer, some of the coaches did not even think they could do it on there own.

Maybe that is why we should.

I can’t speak to the subways in NY, I’ve never been there, but if I could convince the helicopter-parents in my ultra-safe suburb to PLEASE stop driving their 11-year-olds six blocks to school EVERY morning, I’m sure it would do a lot for the air quality and traffic woes around here, and be just fine for the kids to boot (exercise? did someone mention exercise?)

I miss seeing kids out playing like we did when I was a kid. I could let my three-year-old play outside like I did, but for one huge difference — when I was three, I was playing with a half dozen other kids in the neighborhood. There’s safety in numbers. Add to that the fact that there were three moms in addition to my own periodically peeking out the window to make sure we weren’t whacking each other with sharp sticks or what have you. Now I have to be everything to my kid, and it’s like prison for both of us.

WOW this is how I want to raise my kids when I have them. I was an overprotected child and it definately stunted my emotional growth. When you teach your children this kind of independence you are preparing them for sucess! Brava to you!!!!

Agree with all except not leaving the cell phone. The fact that the remote potential of losing a $100 cell phone was more important than your child’s safety makes me question your judgment, capability, and sincerity regarding the rest of the article.

Bravo, lady. I was riding the train from NYC to CT and back by myself by age 9, between my parents. Parents are way too overprotective these days.

People are afraid to set up boundaries with their kids – no you cannot sleep with me. No you cannot interrupt me. No that is not a toy. You can cry if you want but it won’t make it any better.

I have two young children and I know how hard it is to set boundaries and also to let go. But we owe it to our kids.

I lived with my father as a child and hence did not have a mom to wait on me. I came home to an empty house, which was a bummer, but I learned how to manage money at a young age, how to care for myself, do all my laundry by the 2nd grade, cook, etc. Hence, as an adult, I knew how to do all these things and thrived on the independence.

Give your kids responsibility and you both will reap rewards. That kid on the train learned how to take care of himself. He’ll be much better off for it. Kids in NYC ride alone like this all the time. (I’m from there).

Let go, let go, let go.

Bless you! Our kids need to be prepared to manage life–not scared of life. You are giving a voice to the importance of raising resilient kids. We need a sea change about this issue.

Right on!
Jackie

Hi, I agree with your message. I’m someone who was raised (quite recently, I’m only 19) reasonably free range. From starting primary school in Beijing I was taking buses on my own to and from school (which was an hour’s drive and another 20 min walk away). My parents gave me a stack of 2 yuan notes every 6 months, both as bus money and as spending money for snacks and trinkets and whatever else (which taught me how to manage money too!). I remember vividly that once I forgot to bring money and I missed the free bus home. We didn’t have cellphones at that time, and at any rate both of my parents were working and didn’t have cars (private cars and cellphones were very rare in China just 10 years ago). So did I panic? No! I went to the shop that I usually bought snacks from, and borrowed 2 yuan for the bus. The lady there was kind enough to lend it to me provided that I left my name, phone number, and school. I went and returned her money the next day. Did my parents freak out when they found out? No, they praised me for thinking fast on the spot and solving the problem responsibly.

Since then I’ve always gone and returned from school on my own, whether walking or taking buses, and I have to say that I am quite proud of my cooking skills too, because my mother has always taught me how to cook (via requesting my help in preparing dinner). I’m not afraid of sharp objects (nothing in my house beats a scalpel in the dissection lab, trust me) or having to take public transport anywhere, or having to cross a busy road or of vague scaremongering about “germs”. Yes, rare, unexpected accidents do happen, but you can’t ever prepare fully for unexpected events, that’s why they’re unexpected. Frankly I’m grateful that I had the chance to learn independence. I really hope that when I do have kids (eventually) that I’d be able to raise them the same way.

~T

Thank you for the column and for the blog. I’ve linked it on my own because you touch nerves that have to do with most of what I think about these days. We can’t build a better world if we’re too afraid of it to let our kids grow up the way we did. Why would they even want to live in the little cotton-wool universe parents seem to be constructing these days?

I watched “The Today Show” clip after writing my message and I agree with the doctor….teach your kid some independence at home FIRST. You are the one that said he doesn’t get himself up, or even pick his clothes up….yet you send him on the subway alone to gain independence. Shows more about YOU than him….that would be too “non-newsworthy”, wouldn’t it?

Appears MOM is the one that wants attention. What next? Will you leave him adrift at sea and see if he can row his way home? You want your face on tv, lady?? You just might get it.

Heard you on irish radio today. A breath of fresh air. No better way to teach kids but through experience.In a related matter lots of schools here have banned ‘running’ in yard !(Because of ‘compensation’ culture). As a teacher my belief is that kids have to experience falling, etc. and hurting themselves in order to learn how to protect themselves. You have prepared your son about all the pitfalls and let him get on with it. What a great and natural way to learn. Those who point their finger at you are the people responsible for creating the culture of fear which will haunt generations to come. Shame on them. Let more parents be like you and not smother their kids and maybe future generations will have the confidence of past generations. Then the world will truly be a better place.

I think the thing you need to worry about is having your child turned over to the police or CPS and not being abducted or a victim of some random act of violence.

As long as no “do-gooders” interfere, you’re son will most likely be fine. If someone calls the police, you’ll be arrested.

Do you leave your 9 year old home alone unattended? Do you know what your state law is for leaving a child alone?

Food for thought.

I, too, applaud your initiative in bringing this debate to the fore.

I look at it this way – not only are we being terrorised by an imaginary foreign threat we are also succumbing to the neglible threat of stranger abduction from public places. It is a very, very rare occurrenace – not zero but very rare – and no more prevalent than when we parents were enoying freedom and self-responsibility before our teens.

Are we going to let ourselves be terrorised and deny our children the right to learn about the real world in the best way possible – and what’s more learn how to deal with the threatening but sad, and often quite harmless, people who they will meet through out their lives?

Amen!

At three, I left my family in MO to spend the summers with my grandmother in MI. I roamed the area on my own every day. At 5, I began to row the boat over to the store (about 1/4 mile away) to pick up the daily paper. I walked the lane )1/2 mile) to pick up the mail every day. All on my own.

At a young age, my mother sent me to the store on my own. I walked to school every day until I was old enough to drive my beater-car handed down from my brother.

Now, my husband and I are looking into buying a house that backs up to a wooded park and a river. We want nothing more than for our children to be able to run out the back door and play in the woods. To explore nature, build forts, learn about water safety, to experience the natural world in their own back yard.

They will have chores to help the family.

I am determined to raise children who are capable adults.

Sorry – should have said – UK here

Good for you!

I have just been watching you on the BBC in the UK and I think what you did was great.

Over protecting our kids is becoming a big problem. Far less crimes happen against them now as compared to when we were kids but the news just reports them more.

Your child will be very confident and well adjusted.

Hi Lenore
I just heard your interview with Ray Darcy on Today FM here in Ireland & I was so impressed. I’m a 26 year old mother of a 3 year old boy & I let him run around our cul-de-sac, the local playground, the beach without actually holding his hand unlike other parents I know. He’s a child who won’t hold my hand anyway so let him run free!
It was so refreshing as an Irish person to hear you talk so “normally” – usually we’re bombarded with such over protective parenting rubbish from the States that it would put the fear of God into us all. You should get your own show!!

I am the mother of a five-year old and I heard about your son on the UK news this morning and I am shocked to realise that people are shocked that a NINE-year old rode the bus and subway on his own. I assumed it to be natural.

When did adults forget we are raising children to be independent?

Hi Leonore,
Another reader from Europe. I’m Italian and I live in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
I just read the story on the BBC and I just want to offer my support too.
I believe you are absolutely NORMAL!
What is the right age to let kids go around alone?! 21? Sorry to say but the USA are a bit of a nonsense for me sometimes!
Thank you for doing this, Leonore!

One of my faculty colleagues at my university published a book on this topic, within which he made the point that we “bubble wrap” our children. They can never get a cut or scratch or have a “boo boo”. I am also working with some colleagues on a project that uses a epidemiological view which touches on this topic. The “hygiene hypothesis” states that the more we protect our children from germs, the more likely they will develop allergies and potentially harmful health issues later. The point? If we try to protect too much, we can do harm in the longer run. My students have been protected from failure (the millennial generation). Now they are here at university and cannot understand why they fail or do poorly. Every kids gets a ribbon for participating and no one ever wins or keeps score.

Yes, protect children from harm. Live in fear? Think that every person and every situation is going to cause harm. Think that a child abduction is always just around the corner? Maybe these are more dangerous times? All I know is that when I was nine, I went out for a walk and a trip on the subway in Toronto. By myself. All afternoon. Exploring the city. Just me. That was fun, and even more so when I did it in London!

What is the fuss about? She, as the parent, felt he could do it and was not going to be in danger. maybe that also meant a little faith in people that they would help her boy if there was an emergency or danger.

This backlash is sad. It also shows that with all information available, we all give our opinions on everything all the time.
Me too. Except this is one of the only times I spoke up because the backlash here on on tv and on the web is just crazy!

thanks Mom…for letting me explore the subway and the city!

I congratulate you on bringing up such a responsible and competent son.

If I listened to all the scare-mongers and their negative comments, I’d never travel on the subway myself, let alone allow my boys to do so. But you appear to have judged the safety of the situation, the route, and the abilities of your son. And you had the faith in your fellow citizens to help out, were help needed. If I were one of your fellow citizens, I’d be mad as hell that a few twerps couldn’t recognise our innate decency and instead marked us all down as perverts and child-abductors.

Hello Lenore! I didn’t know that I grew up “Free Range”. Me and my siblings spent our long hot summers outside all day. We would have breakfast then walk along a ditch out in the country. The irrigation ditch was long and ended at a freeway. We would swim, eat grapes, apricots, and berries that grew wild. Our mom wouldn’t see us till we were starving and came home in the evening. What wonderful and fond memories I have growing up…free. I let my kids walk to school, store, or to the park that’s down the street. I do worry about my kids today. This world can be dangerous. But are they supposed to be locked up and fear our world? Better to let them out and enjoy the good things. Talk about the bad things. We do talk about what to do when approached by a stranger. What to say about drugs. Just keep talking!

Thank God for you having the nerve to do this. I would say you are a great mom and I am right. People give into so much fear that they let fear control them instead of “booting it out the door.” Someone told me repeatedly as I was growing up that they knew it did good to worry because the things they worried about NEVER HAPPENED. Sheesh! I am for you Lenora Skenazy and I am even more for your husband to allow you to do such a thing. It says as much about him as it does you. I wonder what the pioneers did with little Johnny or Melissa? You can’t go out into the world. It might hurt you. Where would any of us be today if that had been the case.
Those who oppose you in this are overprotective. Instead of teaching their kids of not being afraid of fear they induce fear into their lives to keep them from an adventurous life and finding out what they can do for themselves. Why? Most likely because they themselves are afraid of the “boogie man” and instead of learning how to fight back to conquer every foe they allow the enemy to walk all over them. A bully remains a bully until someone stands up to him and shows him he is not going to bully anyone, anymore. Good for you, Lenore. My vote is for you and your gutsy-ness. :>)

Well done…twice! Once for presenting your son with the opportunity to start taking responsibility for his own actions and twice for having the guts to stand by your decision and defend yourself against the gloom merchants who I suspect are making the protests they are doing because you’ve just shown them to be stiflingly over protective of their kids.

I really wish that such a blog was written back when I was 9!

I’m 19 now and my mother won’t let me walk from the bus, a 5 minute walk to my house at 7pm at night. I live in the quiet suburbs as well…as well as this I am constantly got her watching me and invading my privacy so she knows everything that goes on in my life. It really bothers me!

KUDOS to you though…I really hope your son grows up to be a very confident man with enough independence to really drive his own life!

I’ve only just come across this article, and i find it hard to credit the parents who want to cry shame. i haven’t read all the responses here so i’ll probably be repeating others’ thoughts, but good for her and her son!

THis is a troubled world bu tthe only way anyone is going to learn to deal with it is by being given the tools as a child – and self confidence and independence are two of those tools. Shame on those wh would wrap their kids up in cotton wool, because those children will live in an unnamed fear for the rest of their lives.

Congrats on your parenting skills!

kudos to you. growing up, my experiences of getting lost and finding my way home have now taught me to keep my head in difficult situations. thank god i got lost a few times, it was well worth it.
i’ve always found it extremely depressing how we always assume the guy on the subway next to us is a mass murderer. the overwhelming majority of people are also parents with children they worry about, and would only want to help a lost child.
although it doesn’t sound like your kid was lost. good on you for raising such an independent child

Well done!

As a kid I used to do this every weekend in London using an A-Z and a Red Rover ticket that allowed unlimited use of tube & bus I took a bag with food and drink and dissapeared for the whole day. It was fantastic fun, highly educational and character building.

Today is a different world but is it truly that much more dangerous? Possibly not. When I was doing this communications were by post/telephone/newspaper/radio/television = SLOW/limited. Today we have the globe at our fingertips instantly and bad news travels fast so it FELLS like the world is less safe. I am not sure that it is.

I understand your logic and agree with what you did. I bet your son is a better person for it. Are you sharing all of the controversy with him as well so he learns further about the world and the people that populate it?

The world has become paranoid due to the increased communications but is it justified – probably not.

I wish you and your family a continued happiness regardless of the paranoid opinions out there. Just keep a low profile from now on 😉

Well done for being so brave with your child. Here in London I think we have over taken New York for voilent attacks, muggings and murder of our young.

Here’s a letter I recently wrote to Sir Alex Aynsley- Green who has recently presented a report to the UN on children’s rights.

Dear Sir Alex Aynsley – Green

I am writing to you in desperation, with regards to the lot of my son and 331 other children in Hackney who have no secondary school to go to.

My son is due to start secondary education in September. Unfortunately he, along with 330 other children in the borough of Hackney has not been offered a school to go to. Our failing education authority has not provided enough schools for our children (even though we pay one of the highest council taxes in the country).

To resolve this problem, the learning trust is busily phoning undersubscribed schools in other boroughs which may have places. Unfortunately, the only schools in those neighbouring boroughs with places, are the schools that no one (in those boroughs) wants to go to.

This policy of chucking our kids into schools far away from their homes forces the children to become commuters. At the tender age of 11 they are expected to leave home up to 2 hours before other kids that have the luxury of a school in their own borough, and return up to 2 hours later when they come home.

On their way across London, they will encounter kids from other schools, gangs. drunkards returning from all night binges – It must be against their human rights to force them to do this.

A good example of this is a boy that we know, whose mother is a teacher in our sons (local) primary school. He was sent out of the borough last year and so far he has been mugged for his phone, beaten up and attacked 6 times this year alone.

On some ocassions he has been returned in utter distress to his mother accompanied by the police, to the primary school. All the kids there, including my son and daughter have witnessed or heard of this and they are absolutely petrified that the same fate awaits them.

This along with the sense of failure they are given when they see their friends getting local schools and themselves having nothing except perhaps a vague offer of a school in some dodgy neighbourhood up to 5 miles away.

Our council washes its hands of responsibility for whatever happens to these children on their way to schools, but they are forcing these children (by their lack of provision for schools) to risk their lives every day.

The problem is that the people responsible for this infringement of childrens rights, are completely unaccountable, the only thing they do ensure, is that their own children, who sometimes live far from our own borough, get the places that should go to local children.

We are driven to gut wrenching insanity worrying about what on earth we can do, just to have a school place in our borough so that our children can walk to school in safety themselves.

Another child who came from Poland is being sent back to Poland as over there, they have local schools for everyone!

I was raised in a childrens home and have had none of the chances that your organisation seeks to give children. I have suffered extreme violence (as a child) from my father, witnessed my mother slitting her wrists at the age of 5, buggery in care, my home recently being destroyed by unaccountable corrupt officers in Hackney council, smear campaigns for exposing those officers corruption.

Through it all I have had no justice but despite this I have tried my best to stay as sane and law abiding as possible.

This latest infringement against my son is for me, the last straw, I have watched him go from a gentle mannered, kind, thoughtful, hardworking boy to being very depressed disillusioned and angry – I recognise this as it happened to me in the 60s (although not for the same reasons). The worry , the stress, It takes away your childhood and your soul.

There is nothing I can do to console him.

Our council/learning trust seems to rely on the fact that nobody can afford to take it to court. I was wondering if your organisation could force them to do something.

Please help these unfortunate children have some hope for the future

regards

Steven Lane

There is further info at

http://www.learningtrust.org.uk/index.php?nuc=content&id=25

PS All of the above could have been avoided 3 years ago, but the learning trust turned down a chance to build an academy on the site of Sir Thomas Abney Primary school, their official reason was that the site was too small but if you look into the details you will find that they turned it down because they did not feel they were being consulted properly by Bernice McCabes team over the naming of the academy and other internal personal indifference’s which they put before our childrens futures. They spent a great deal of money on the planning of it, did not consult the parents (who naturally all wanted it) and then shelved it. The outcome of their personally orientated decision is what we are seeing now. 331 children without a future. Can you imagine what it would be like if you were told at 10/11 years old that you don’t have a school? “Every Child Matters” is a joke to us or more, it’s an insult as we see that quite clearly our children do not matter.

I would like the opportunity to send my child out on his own to school except he has no school to go to. My partner and I pay 40% income tax and one of the highest council taxes in the country but it seems we are not even entitled to fundamental basic human rights

Hi,

Great to see that there is still some common sense out there. I was growing up in Gothenburg and me and my brothers used to ride our bicycles 20 miles to visit our grandmother when we was 9-10 years of age. We also used the tram and went all over Gothenburg just for fun.
As many has pointed out, it is a dangerous world but we cannot keep kids in bubbles until they’re all grown up and then expect them to act and feel secure as individuals.
Way to go mom and keep up the good work.

I agree with you! Don ´t listen to all the criticism. The children who gets to discover the society and learn about it, first hand, will handle life in a better way. Go for it!
😉

I just noticed my typo. I meant ‘Overprotective parents need to get that death grip OFF their children’s lives.’

I was shocked and a little puzzled about all the fuss! and the worse mom label. They did not know my mom who left me in a car down dark alleys at night while she went off to have her extra martial activities, that was scary for a kid of 5yrs, I baby sat over night at the age of ten (alone) Living in Melbourne Aust ,I caught trains and buses, I was confronted by weird people, weird propersitions. I learnt to be street wise, I learnt to read people I grow to a strong woman. Now a mother of two girls (now 23& 14)living in a small town I was and am overprotective, which creates a false sense of security in them, they are too trusting, so…..what is a good parent….a good parent can see each child is an individual and changes the rules and limitations to suit that childs needs… You have proven yourself to be a great mom, you equited your son with his needs (map, money and trust) for a positive outcome ( he grew in confidence and became street wise). I congratulated you on your parenting! I think you have the right balance!

Wow! At 9?

I’m 23, I live in NJ just outside of NYC, and my Mom STILL won’t let me use the train or bus alone to go into NYC. Matter of fact I’m not even allowed to drive LOL. I’ve never been to NYC before, even though it’s technically only 15-20 minutes away. That’s not an exaggeration, either — I’m 23, and I still haven’t gone, or have done much of anything alone of that nature. I’m not sure I would even know how, honestly. If I’m not accompanied by a friend I’m generally not allowed to leave the house.

Hi,
Here in Belgium, we somethimes laugh with the ‘scared’ American people (sorry folks, but that’s the image that a lot of people here have from you). Also on the news, they were making fun out of it that they gave Leonore the tittle of worse mum. It’s incredible! In Europe, it wouldn’t be a newsitem that children take the metro on their own. Also overhere, a lot of parents overprotect their children, but I think not that much as in America. How can you live normally if you have a life of scare? How can you ever ‘survive’ as a grownup if you were always overprotected as a child? If you don’t prepaire your kids for the real life, then you are a bird for the cat, we say… Learn them the good things, learn them to think for themselve and support them, step by step, to become independente.
(Sorry for my bad English!)

I live in Tokyo and regularly see kids of 6 or 7 riding the subway in groups or by themselves. They often go from school to Juku (cram school) by themselves. There is no question of them being in danger in Japanese society, no consideration of their safety. As a New Zealander, its nice to see the perception of the world as a safe place for children mirrored in a big Asian city.

You did good.

Every morning before school, I rode the bus in Brooklyn at 9 years old (after walking a mile to the bus stop by myself) and – gasp – nothing bad ever happ-ened. Not even on the walk home.

Again, you did good.

Oh, and I also wanted to add that I have taught her to scream, kick, bite, scratch, and do whatever else it takes, to get away from an abductor. She also knows to run to the nearest house or busiest place possible, if somebody tries to grab her.

Additionally, she’s in Tae Kwon Do.

Isn’t it better that we teach our kids to defend themselves against potential predators, rather than isolate them and then have them be totally helpless if they have a chance encounter when we cannot be around?

Again, kudos to you.

Just saw this article in last month’s Funny Times and it really resonated with me. Some of my neighbors and I talked about this tonight, and we’re not sure how to handle it.

I wonder how much of our overprotection as parents is really protecting OURSELVES — however subconsciously — rather than just protecting our kids. Protecting ourselves against the potential guilt, shame and grief that would come from anything happening to our children, to the point where we see virtually NO risk as acceptable.

I wrote about the topic a little more on my own blog at http://atreefalling.blogspot.com/2008/07/can-our-kids-really-be-too-safe.html if anybody’s interested, but I didn’t want to put my whole post into a comment here.

I think I might be a minority here on this post. In our NYC neighborhood all the moms let their kids ride without helmets and let their 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 year olds go to school and the playground alone. Not me. I look at my son, seeing he is still a 10 year old child without the strength of an adult who could harm him. It’s just a risk I’m not willing to take.
My brother, Marshall, died alone on a sidewalk in NYC when he was 18. Perhaps that is why I would rather protect my son until he can protect himself.
Even when we are there in the park I hear the stories. The day a boy showed up with a long kitchen knife. The day the kid who loves watching wrestling on tv repeatedly threw my 7 year old to the ground. We recently learned there are 4 convicted child molesters living in the immediate area of the neighborhood and this is Chelsea, one of NY’s most exclusive areas!
I train as a karate-ka and while I more or less know the ins and outs of self-defense more than anything what training has taught me is you cannot overpower your apponent when you are smaller than them. You can disable them. Poke their eyes, ‘nuts’, etc. I look at my 10 year old son and say, no. It’s not worth it.
He has all kinds of freedom as a home-schooled boy.
One more thing, I remember when my son was 1 1/2 years, I was reading how important it is to let your child explore on their own. I had read the book and so I was letting him explore alone one night in a garden. Suddenly my gut told me, “Get him!!” I ran to him about 30 yards away and there he was headed for a steep flight of stairs in the shadows, a stair I’d never seen before.
More important than websites or experts I thin is listening to our own gut. Afterall, we’re the parents.

Thank you for posting this!
I just had a conversation with my husband and mother last night about the state of out this new generation.

I grew up in Berkeley/Oakland CA and we had a great time as children: riding out bikes, going to the store, walking home from school…I am raising my 4 precious children in the same manner. Be free! Be a child! We have recently moved to an ATL
semi-suburb, and this is the most frightening place I’ve Ever lived. it is very rare to see children outside playing (except for my children ) My children have been scolded a few times from “neighbors” for riding their bikes “in the street”. Mind you, there are no sidewalks in this sub-division, and we are at the bottom of a cul-du-sac. Were are the to ride? The street is very quiet and cars only travel before and after work hours. This is a very safe place for children to bike!
We have to give them freedom to learn! Common sense isn’t common these days.

I was a latchkey kid, and though I was very passive and shy I made it to 41 in one piece. I was raised in a predominantly Hispanic suburb about 15 miles from downtown LA in the 70s. I mention this because of our fear of gangs today. I remember walking home alone from the bus stop at age five, key around my neck, through three immense city blocks of neighborhoods where I was the only white face. I’d loiter about, soaking in the sounds and sights. One house was painted turquoise, had a low rider out front, an ancient school bus, and a horse in the yard. The residents let me play with the horse and never once did the teen males there try to molest me. Once home, I’d make a snack and spend the rest of the afternoon on my tree swing in the back, lost in my imagination. So often, it’s easier to live in bitterness and terror of the barely-probable: “What were my parents THINKING?!” Those days were the most joyous of my life, and I fear that our kids today are deprived of building such memories of their own. The regimen of the ‘soccer brat’ must stifle and paralyze the soul. Blessed be the mom or dad who gives a loved child her/his adventure (subway, whatever) with faith and confidence.

Great going!

I grew up a “freerange” kid. Afterschool activities were called chores, and we played outside after supper until bedtime.

I did all those things so polically incorrect now days; played war, played cowboys and indians, read books way out of my age category, spent my summers in the company of grizzled old men at the feed lot learning a lot about swearing, smoking and livestock.

I didn’t grow up wanting to shoot anybody, tried to negotiate rather than fight, knew my home town like the back of hand, instinctively knew when someone didn’t feel right, and more importantly HAD FUN and established friendships that are still going strong after more than fifty years.

My parents were my parents, not my social secretaries or taxi cab service. My siblings watched by didn’t interfere. The things I learned as a child were invaluable when I became an adult, and none of those things had anything to do with “organized” playtime. We learned to play fair, we learned to share, we learned to watch out for each other.

Let children just be children. They are going to be old a very long time!!

Kit Prate

I suppose that I could classify myself as a former free range child. I roamed around the woods and through the fields, over to the neighbors’ houses, and even to the little store several miles from my home. And all this throughout the day and well into the evening! The only restraint my parents placed on me was that I had to tell them when I was leaving and a general idea of where I wanted to go. Not once during all this time was I ever harassed or bothered. Truthfully, I felt more unsafe walking around my college campus alone. Which, incidentally, had at least one co-ed murdered and another abducted while I was there.

It’s funny… “back in my day…” I’d take the school bus from elementary school, walk about a mile to my house (yeah an ACTUAL mile! It was a private school though, the public school bus stops are about every 1/4 mile, I’m talking mid 80s here, not the 60s). I throw my bag into the house, grab my bike and head for the woods. Three, four, five hours later I show up at home just as it’s getting dark.
That was normal. My parents both worked, and if I stayed in the house, I’d sit there alone for 2-3 hours anyway. As long as I was home by dark my parents were ok. Now if it was after dark and they hadn’t heard, they’d start making phone calls.

At age 32 I took my first trip to New York (this past June). I don’t watch the news (I actually avoid it), but I’ve heard enough in passing, and watched enough TV that I had the appropriate fear of being murdered walking the streets in NYC.

I was supposed to arrive about 4pm, due to various delays I get there about 11pm instead. I was certain my body would be found on some bench dead the next day. I had rough directions on how to get from JFK to Queens where my friend was staying. I’ll admit, I was really freaked out. I ended up missing the first train and finally worked up the nerve to ask someone. They were extremely pleasant and walked me over to where I needed to be.

I was there for almost two weeks. I walked around NYC and Queens at all hours of the night. While there were some “interesting” people on several of the train rides, I have to admit, the whole thing was NOTHING like I expected. The people of NY are portrayed as unfeeling busybodies only concerned with themselves, but I found that most people were pleasant to talk to (many times moreso than from where I’m from), and were happy to have a distraction from a dull train ride…

I completely agree with letting the kid give it a try. However, I will be giving my kid a cell phone, even if it’s a cheap one. I think that the advantage of instant communication is one of the things that have made those who would abduct more cautious, and less likely to do anything. Snap of a cell phone, their face is on the news, quick 911, and cops are after then w/in seconds of the “event”

Amen to you. I moved to South Korea when I was 11 years old due to my dad’s job; I didn’t know a lick of Korean yet was still able to ride the bus to and from school. When I lived here in California I still played outside and was actually pretty active, my parents trusted my street smarts yet weren’t scared to let me roam around the creek or down the street to the huge park. I see my much younger cousins overweight and inactive, they sit in front of computers and tv’s not knowing what it’s like playing outside with their own rules. When I was in 8th grade I was roaming the streets of Seoul with friends all night long. I learned to respect alcohol and what it made some people do and how it made some people act. You may criticize my parents but I still made it to a highly regarded public school and am MUCH more sociable than many others at my company and even my cousins. Great posting! I’m proud of your son.

Parents are very paranoid today. But, our leaders want us to be frightened so that we’ll be good sheep, consume well, and not make trouble.
Those qualities will serve them well when China takes us over; that’s just the sort of citizen they want.

My mother took the streetcar home at six in New York City — would have been about 1936. Her father saw her, and she waved. (she was supposed to have been being watched, both parents worked).

As it turns out she had been going to museums and wondering around, visiting the neighbors after school, etc.

They shipped her to her grandparents’ farm until they had a better income and a safer home for her.

New York City has never been safe for children to wonder around in.

Kathy

Thank you so so much for writing this article. I grew up in a very safe suburban city (San Jose, CA), where although we never heard news about local child abductions or murders or rape, my mother was convinced that should I so much as stand on the porch alone, I’d be swiped.

Of course, my mother took it to the extreme. She was an anxious woman to begin with, and hearing stories about child abductions and murderers on the news every night only made her worse. Often, the shows would be about abductions that happened 5, 10, 20 years ago, and always ended with “tips to keep your child safe.”
So as the result of living in such a fear-driven culture, I wasn’t allowed to walk to or from school until I was 13. Two blocks total. And my mother stood on the lawn and watched me take that walk. In elementary school, my best friend lived across the street from me (literally). at 12 years old, my mother needed to watch me make the dangerous journey across a rarely-used side street, lest the 20 feet between our houses contain rapists. I recall an instance in high school where I was “allowed” to go to the mall with my friends alone. My mother “just happened to need to go to the mall too.” She also “just happened” to go to all the same stores as us, a few moments after we entered. This was at age 15.
Even now, after I’ve spent 2 years at a college thousands of miles away from my mom, she tries to shelter me when I visit for the summer. I mentioned once that I went jogging most mornings on a bike trail behind her house, and she demanded I never go back there, because if I were kidnapped or murdered there would be no witnesses and it would be more difficult to find the body. “Don’t you see how many of these murders happen in parks and trails where no one can see?” Another time, I was informed I am not allowed to walk outside after dark. Discussion of going on a cruise for a family vacation turned ridiculous upon being informed that “of course, I wouldnt’ be allowed out of her site. Cruises sail on international waters, and are a magnet for rapists and murderers because they know they won’t get caught. Do you know how much more common murder is on cruise ships?!”

I can’t really blame it on my mother. She’s been fed garbage constantly, about how dangerous the streets are and you need to protect your children in absurd ways. Don’t let them leave the house without a whistle around their neck so they can call for help! Avoid busy streets where your child could be lost in the chaos, avoid empty streets because a kidnapping is more likely when there are no potential witnesses, avoid parks because they’re too large and trees provide cover for assailants, avoid malls because they are known for gang violence. Don’t let your children out of site in your own home, because they will inevitably stab themselves with a kitchen knife or light the house on fire or drown in two inches of water.

But even as a child, I could see how illogical this was, or how I was becoming socially inept as a result. My mother weighed around 200 pounds at the time, and quite frankly in terrible shape. Let’s say someone had grabbed me two blocks away from the house while I walked to school, then what? Would she power-walk to my aid before the assailant could stuff me into a white van? By 12, I was taller than my mother (I was a tall kid, hit puberty early, though I’m an average height now) and probably more able to protect her than vice versa. I’m sure that this is part of the reason I never connected with most of my peers (making up excuses for why I could never make it to the movies with them was difficult), and I have trouble talking to people I don’t know–something I was never allowed to do growing up, so never got experience doing.

The lesson I learned from all this? It definitely wasn’t “now that I’m afraid to cross the street without holding my mommy’s hand I am definitely safe from anything.” It was, “I am screwed unless I become a fantastic liar.” Which I did. I recall taking the train to San Francisco under the guise of “going to the mall with Tina, Lauren, and her mom.” It was amazing how many doors were opened by always saying “_____’s mom will be there.” If my mom asked to talk to said mom, I would say “she doesn’t speak English” and that was that. I didn’t let my parents know when I applied for my first job (because “the work place isn’t safe, you could end up in the hospital if you cut or burn yourself, and what if you’re there at closing when it’s most dangerous?”) and kept it secret until I had already been working there around a week so there would be a lower chance of my mother forcing me to quit. I also had to apply to college secretly, because needless to say, the idea of living in a different city or state than my mother, where I would–God forbid–have to take care of myself was completely out of the question.

Great post!

I’ve blogged about it on Richmondtransits, relating it to food: just as we tend to overprotect kids, we also over sanitise everything -and I believe it’s leading to more allergies.

So, give them unpasteurised cheese and leave them explore.

The question I’m left with are: are there more kids “incidents” (traffic accidents, abductions and all the other things I don’t want to leave my brain thinking of) or do we just talk about more?

If the latter, would it be because the medias are increasingly voyeuristic or because we have less kids per family than a century ago, thus make each more precious?

Wow!!! your an idiot!

Its NEW YORK STUPID!!!!

What if he DID get abducted!?
It would be all your fault.

Oh wait, i’ll let my little boy ride around a city of millions of people just so I can brag to everyone about how i’m a new age mother and let him be free to roam and ‘find himself’.

THEN I’ll SIT BACK AND LISTEN, AS MY CHILD STARTS HANGING AROUND IN GANGS IN THE STREETS POSSIBLY GETTING SOME GIRL PREGNANT, TO YOU TELLING ME I DON’T KNOW WHERE MY SON IS, HOW I’M A LAZY MOTHER AND HOW I’VE LET HIM DO WHATEVER HE WANTS.

“It’s the parents, blame the parents! They don’t even know where thier kids are and what they are doing!”

Give me a break! Times have changed, parenting has changed and that’s just the way it is.

Thank you for standing up to this mania. It kills me to feel like I have to keep my kids inside, or that I am a “bad parent” because I let them play outside our home, climb trees or what not. It feels as though I do not have the same rights my parents had . It’s as if nowadays, we can’t “parent” our own children. As if I don’t have the “authority” to let my kids play outside without me sitting there the whole time, to let them walk or ride down to the store for ice cream, or explore? When did we get to this point? I love my children, and would never want o see them hurt in any way, but how are they supposed to become functioning, responsible adults if they never experience anything? What if they did ever get lost, do parents/society/the governments really want kids to not be able to help themselves? It scares me to think about sending them off in this world unprepared and inexperienced.

Sadly, I am more afraid of having Children Services come in a take my kids away for letting them be kids, and letting them learn how to take care of themselves than having someone kidnap them. I do feel feel we are living in a police state, and people are so wacky these days, anyone could “turn you in”. I think kids are more likely to be harmed in foster care than in their neighbor hoods, and children’s services seems to do whatever they want, with no rhyme, reason or recourse, and that does paralyze me with fear. I hate it. Even worse, you get a nice record on file if they are ever called (because they have to respond) so even if you have a great home, great kids, and they dismiss it, you still have a permanent record/file that NEVER goes away.

Every child is different, and some mature faster/slower, so I believe in setting boundaries appropriate for each particular child. But it scares me that some stranger with a badge, degree or title can decide how much responsibility MY children can handle when they don’t even know them. My 3 year old uses a steak knife to cut his own meat. He has been doing this since he was 2 years old, not because I want him to stab himself, not because I don’t care or love him, but because he CAN use it safely. He was interested early on in doing that for himself, so we showed him how to cut his food, and he could do it and do it safely. It’s freaking amazing what kids can do when they have the skills they need. I am glad we taught him, because we had the “what are people going to think” conversation about it. My cousin harrassed me for letting my kid “play with knives” (he had a plastic butter knife by the way) and I simply told her he can handle it, the kid even walks with it pointing down if he is carrying it. He knows it can hurt him, and that he needs to be safe with it. This same cousin was also cutting up and spoon feeding her 4 year old. Now tell me, which one is really crazier here? This may be an extreme example, and trust me, my two older kids weren’t ready for that at his age, he just happens to be very mechanical and good with tools.

I want to take back my rights as a parent, and take back our childrens right to be kids. These early years are the best times for them to make little mistakes. Because they can learn from them, and in turn prevent bigger mistakes down the road. They will be facing far greater challenges and dangers as teens and young adults, and I want them to have some sort of knowledge about life before they get there. At a time when peer pressure is so great, do you really want your kids learning decision making skills?

Letting your kids ride their bikes out of sight, or walk to school doesn’t make you a bad parent. If you live in a “safe” area, and you still can’t let your kids do these things, there is something wrong. The longer we all give in to this type of pressure and sanctioning, the worse it will get. Before long, parents won’t be able to make a single decision about their children. Sadly, by the time we all realize this, it may be too late. We live in a free country, but I’m not feeling so free. The military trains our children and sends them overseas to fight for us & survive, we need to train our kids so they can survive here. They are our future, and what kind of future is in store for us and our descendants, when the country is run by kids who never played outside, who never did anything on their own until adulthood?

I’m a great parent, and I have happy, helpful, friendly kids who are learning how to take care of themselves. It wasn’t that long ago, that people thought it weird for a kid to be inside all the time.

I’m just watching Dr Phil and you’re on the show. I totally agree with you about letting your kids have more freedom to grow. When I was a kid growing up in Toronto (in the 70’s), we went everywhere on the transit system. My cousins were visiting from Boston one time and their Mom (my Aunt) freaked that we were roaming around by ourselves. My Mom told her to calm down that the city was safe and we would watch out for each other. Also I agree, the people on the transit would watch out for your kids. Most people are good!!!! They will do what is right!!!! Good for you. Keep up the good work!!!

In response to Jennifer (above) about the 27 people helping the lady with her wallet – it’s a completely different situation when there’s no risk to our own person. But Psychology has shown that if there’s a possibility of retaliation from the assailant, a stranger will probably NOT help someone being attacked.

I live seven houses from our elementary school. Today, I was on the way to the park with my 4 year-old and 2.5 year old. I forgot something, so had them plop in front of the school playground while I ran 7 houses down to get it. When I got back, a substitute teacher threatened to call the police on me. The principal then called and said it was borderline negligence and they were within their rights to call Social Services. Now, I know my kids. The little one never leaves his brother’s side. They go around the block together 30 times a day without me. I clearly made a bad decision, but when I ask my kids to wait, I expect they do…and they do. They were right where I left them a few minutes before. Now I feel like I can’t let them go around the school grounds without me running behind. Frankly, I can’t run that much. I want them to be outside more, not less. I don’t know what to do.

I saw a note in World Magazine about your son’s adventure and the overall response from “responsible parents”. After reading your article I am taken back about ten years.

I’m 16, living in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska. I’ve just finished reading a book about the life of Johnny Appleseed and I am rarring to go on an adventure!

I remember begging my mother to let me just walk to the horizon. She would not let me leave our one acre plot.

Now I’ve got a 9 month boy of my own. I think I’m buying him a backpack tomorrow and a copy of a certain book about Johnny Appleseed.

oh, a mom wrote this my bad i didn’t put two and two together. listen to this mother shes smart

I don’t think that letting a child learn there strengths and weaknesses and to learn to be self reliant makes anyone a bad mom. I had an easier time when letting my son find himself and grow when he was 9 or 10. I found that when he became a teenager it was harder – especially when it faced with things like drugs, drinking, driving and sexual diseases. I think by making him a stronger person when he was under makes it easier for me to let him go and be the wonderful young man he is at 19.

omg..are you people serious? i think the person who wrote this and everyone who agreed on here should have their damn heads examined and should be turned in to child services..this is not 1930 anymore and there are more sick asses in this world than ever..im sorry but i love my kids to death and i would never even consider taking the chance of leaving them somewhere to find their way home not even 2 minutes from the house and not even worry about them making it home safe!! i dont care how responsible you think your 9 year old is! they are clueless to the real outside world still,they havnt been alive for even a decade yet! my 9 year old daughter doesnt even want to play outside by herself because of things she sees on the news and paper,we live in a sick world right now..you obvisouly dont care enough for your kids to chance their lives may be harmed..any normal mother would not take that risk..just in case,what if? that doesnt bother you at all?you shouldnt be allowed to be a parent! your child may act responsible but they have never been in a crazy situation and when it comes down to a psycho approaching and attacking or somehthing they are 90% in chance of panacking and not knowing what to do and being abducted or killed and then your gonna get that call we all worry about that something fatal has happened and then you are going to hate yourself and say omg why did i ever do that..i thought that he was old enough etc and its too late!!! OUR CHILDRENS LIVES ARE TOO PRECIOUS TO TAKE A CHANCE ON IN THIS BIG WORLD THEY ARE CLUELESS ABOUT!!! GET HELP FOR YOUR CHILDRENS SAKES!! WOW IM SHOCKED AT THIS BULLSHIT…WHACK JOB!!

When I was 7 I was living in Memphis and my grandparents were living in Chicago. My older sister (10) took the train from Memphis to visit them. My sister didn’t come with me all the way. She got off in Champaign, IL to visit a friend.
I rode alone for about 3+ hours from Champaign to Chicago.
I realize that I was the oldest 7 year old in history, but it was wonderful to be able to assume personal responsibility and be given same. I was so pleased to be treated as someone with good sense, that I behaved as someone with good sense.
My Grandpa (a retired railroad man) knew exactly what seat and car I was in and as we pulled into Union Station, he was right there outside my window.
This was many years ago. And, I am sure today my folks would be incarcerated for allowing us to venture across the street on our own. But for the time, it was wonderful. I was fine and am grateful for parents that understood the risks and rewards of letting us have freedoms that we were capable of handling.

Hey Alicia, whatever floats her boat right? At least her Child is safe. With your attitude exploding over a blog, it makes me wonder how your attitude is towards your children at home. Damn hypocrite.

IT’S A FUCKING BLOG! Let her express herself.

Looking back on some of these comments, what I’m thinking is “…and I thought *my* parents were paranoid for wanting me back home before dark until I was 15.” Of course, I forced them to loosen up that rule when I kept intentionally signing up for extracurricular activities that kept me out until 9 p.m. or so. I still had an odd mix of freedom of transportation and social paranoia as my upbringing, though.

Even now I find myself reluctant to go take chances because I’ve gotten so used to the “what if something happens to you? what if something happens to us?” litany I used to get every time I did something unusual. It’s understandable in war-traumatized refugees with few resources, but it’s not very flattering or realistic in a 23-year-old with a degree and five years of “real world” work experience who has lived in a peaceful country and city all their life.

Hi, from Scotland and I’m faced with children at school not being allowed at school to play with snow because of health and Safety! So, when I read your article I was amazed you didn’t worry or doubt about your childs ability to return safely. As mentioned, the problem is more with us parents being condemned by other parents as being irresponsible, but as you rightly said if our child is happy with it and can do it safely we have to at some point in their lives trust their instincts. Although if we leave it unitl they are 21 they have no instincts left. However, we have the problem that some children here are left to their own devises so much they do become the children in the playground to be feared, because they are so full of themselves, so anti grown ups, anti everything, anti rules..very independent but very anti social. it’s all about balance and as an individual that’s something children need to be able to agree with mum and dad. Independence can be a good thing if encouraged in the right way.

oh my god. I love you.

Just last year i was arguing with my mom about walking to school alone. She had a problem with me crossing a street- a SINGLE street. It wasn’t even a BUSY street.

Now, we’ve moved into the expat world, and there are some crazy people out here. Some of my friends say that they’re too scared to take a taxi home without adult supervision, and they have to stay on the phone with their moms the whole time, telling them every last detail of the route, and be able to scream on cue if the driver takes a wrong turn.

And please don’t tell me you, dear reader, never considered running away from home when you were little. When I told my friends about my hour in the real world, there was some nervous laughter and then, “… But that’s so DANGEROUS.”

They won’t even talk about subways and buses, not even when parents are involved.

Pathetic. I need new friends.

I don’t disagree with Lenore, except 1 thing,
you would not give him the cell phone because you did not want to risk losing it! I let my kids, now teenagers, go on there own for bike rides and up to the mall by themselves or together – but I always gave them a cell phone – just in case.
and most often it was me calling them to find out where they were for my own sake. It eased my anxiety knowing I could call them. I also gave them time limits – you can ride your bike to the mall but you must be home by x time. My kids are good and responsible. And I would certainly risk losing my cell phone if I am willing to let my kids go by themselves!

You go girl!

Just saw you on the news here in New Zealand, and now read the article and blog – guess what! We have the same attitudes here in little old NZ too and I was mocked by teachers and friends alike for allowing my son to walk two blocks to school from the age of 7, or to (now) go across the road to the park with a friend on the weekend. But what the naysayers don’t realise is the importance of teaching our kids to be resilient and self reliant. Here it’s illegal to leave your children alone unless they are 14 years old, which is also a challenging rule. Imagine the response I would get if I made my son come for a walk around the block with me jsut because it’s illegal for me to leave him home doing his homework. Instead I’ve had to teach him to ‘lie’ about my being in the garden or bathroom if the phone call is for me while I’m out for this 20 minutes fresh air. Which is the worse sin?

It’s so refreshing to know that there are parents out there who also trust their youngsters to do thier chores, learn how to cook and look after themselves and what to do (and how to stay reasonably calm) when the smoke alarm goes off or a stranger knocks at the door for directions.

My older son has also been fiercly independant from a young age and now left home, looking after himself and the best thing for me is the knowledge that he’s ok out there in the big wide world.

We as parents have a responsibility to care for and nourish our kids, but also to love them and grow them up. Growing them up means not waiting until they are 21 to give them a key to the house and introduce them to the front door for the first time. It’s not scare mongering to let them know it’s a scary place out there, if you also give them the tools to deal with the sources of most regular challenges they may have to face.

I can’t wait to read your book Lenore, and applaud you loudly for having the balls to make sure your son has them too! 🙂

Maria Carlton
New Zealand

Congrats on letting your kid have the freedom that we enjoyed as children he will truely develop into a asult who knows about risk taking. Todays world puts far too many restraiction on kids. I was just talking to some ladies on a froum and they were telling me what happens at school these days. I cannot honestly believe that kids are told no in fact its apprantly a law that they must be picked up from school they are not allowed to walk home by themselves hmm i don’t remember that law being past. I walked to kindy on my own and home from school by myself as well OK we didn’t have busy streets to cross and only lived down the road but thats not the point.
Now admittedily i don’t have any children yet however i plan on giving my children the freedom that we had as children afterall it didn’t do us any harm.

Two summers ago my then 11 year old was signed up for a local summer camp. We live in a nice suburb north of Chicago. So I bought him a new bike (and helmet), got him a prepaid cell phone (he didn’t have one already) and showed him how to get to camp. Then he rode his bike to and from camp each day. My sister, who also lives in the same nice suburb, was aghast. She would drive her three kids to and from school each day, would not let them walk down to the local high school which was at the end of her street, etc. By the end of the summer she was telling her kids to ride their bikes to the local library and other places around town. Fear or no fear, it can be contagious. Thank you for speaking from a place of common sense and being an inspiration to other parents to stop the madness of fear-mongering!!

As a child, I rode my bicycle to the general store-a good hour and a half round-trip, on roads both paved and unpaved. The two requirements were that we bring water bottles and wear helmets. No-one ever feared that we would be abducted or hit by cars. This was less than 15 years ago-I find it hard to believe that the world has changed that much. As my oldest son (not yet 2) becomes more independent, I’m already struggling to keep a balance between protecting and smothering-when are you shielding your child from too much??

I just saw you on the view this morning, and at first I was weary but then I was like … wow, how powerful that is to be comfortable in your parenting. However, I think the reason we worry is because we don’t want our child to be the one who doesn’t come home – the exception to the rule. Thank you for opening my eyes and helping me to start the journey to a more relaxed parenting and trusting my instincts.

sandra: Think of taking a plane trip. your chance of being killed in a crash is so tiny that it shouldn’t rationally affect your decisions. Your chance of losing some of your luggage is much greater, to the point that while you shouldn’t obsess over it, you need to consider it while making your plans.

Lenore knows, both intuitively and factually, that kids losing possessions is a common everyday occurrence whereas kids, especially ones who aren’t teenage girls, being attacked in crowds on the subway in daytime is so rare that it’s newsworthy. She also knows that human beings have self-preservation instincts whereas consumer electronics items don’t (come to think of it, a commercial for a cell phone with self-defense capabilities would make a good sketch on “Robot Chicken”).

Remember that most of the horror stories you’ve heard are either multiple accounts of the same small number of incidents, completely fictional accounts, or speculation about stories that either end up having happy endings (kid merely wandered off, or was in his house and parents missed him) or being fake cover stories for domestic violence (e.g. the Susan Smith case, or the “kidnapping” in Ohio reported by foster parents who locked their developmentally-disabled 3-year-old in the closet for a weekend while they went on a family trip and came back to find him dead of dehydration and heat exhaustion).

You all are doing the right thing. A coworker was telling me about her son. He was at a wilderness camp. The camp dropped this 17 yo off at the airport with others to go home – he called in a panic. Even though they have traveled extensively – he had no idea how to check in and lacked the common sense to ask someone at the airport.

One of the other kids told him what to do after this paniced phone call home got cut off. The parents spent the next 8 hours trying to track him down on the airline.

Again this is a 17 yo that is going away to university 8 -10 hours from home next year.

I am yet another person that is relatively young (23) and is amazed by this newfound culture of paranoia in contemporary child-rearing. With the exception of kindergarten, I walked to school by myself on a daily basis up until I got my drivers license (not that I couldn’t walk after that, but I was seduced by our “american car culture”; ironically it probably took me as much time to drive to school, park the car and walk to the building as it did for me to walk…hah). I cant remember a point in time when I wasn’t free to walk around the neighborhood at will, going to friends houses, parks, etc… By the age of seven or eight, I was routinely riding my bike pretty decent distances (2-3 miles) with my friends, going to get ice cream, “hanging out” (OMG OMG OMG! kids being kids! the horror!) downtown, going exploring in the woods, and, well, just doing kid stuff. All this well before cell phones. We lived in the historic core of a pretty good sized suburb, and amongst the families in my neighborhood, this was pretty much common practice; however, in the sprawling developments just outside of the old center, this type of parenting was anaethma. By high school, I was flying between the US and Spain with only my best friend as traveling companion, same age as myself. My parents were never worried about two teenagers flying between multiple countries with connecting flights, customs, etc… and they, in all honesty, weren’t really all that worried about what would happen when we arrived, taking pub trans in a country where I didn’t speak the language to a friend’s grandmothers’ apartment where we were staying. They raised me to be independent, and trusted my judgement and ability to act on my feet.

Today, I live in an urban neighborhood adjacent to a major university, where i’d contest that most of the children are “freerange”, so to speak. Yes, we have a great amount of “earthmother”, “granola-hippie” types, which probably feeds into the why, but the underlying reason seems to have something to do with the culture of the neighborhood; its an older area, where few if any of the houses have air conditioning, and consequently, everyone is on their porches, all the time. The “eyes on the street” mentality, as espoused in Jane Jacobs’ “The Death and Life of American Cities” is a major enabler in terms of free-range parenting; when people are watching the public realm at all times, it is a safer place for people of all ages. I’d feel much safer giving my (hypothetical/future) kids all kinds of freedom in an urban environment than in a Ryan Homes exurban cul-de-sac any day. When the garage meets the street instead of the porch, and the homes are turned inward and away from the public realm, the level of citizen involvement in street life is diminished, and contrary to the traditional suburban mentality, it IS safer when more people are around, hands down.

alright, that kinda turned in to a rant on the suburbs and american development patterns and architecture rather than free range parenting at the end there……..

but then again, the two are more connected than most are willing to admit.

Hi, There are a lot of really good things being said and people are really starting to think and broaden their minds. I hope we as a people realize what is going on in our country before it is too late. We are being duped this whole fear is implanted in our heads by media on purpose. We are so afraid that we are not living outside of this box they have put us in. This is how they want it to be. Zombies doing our everyday, not questioning our leaders, owners, stakeholders. Just being. I demand food free from pestisides and water free from pollution by the mutlimillion dollar conglomerates, this is what is killing our children, with disease and cancer. Yes stop worrying about the subway and worry about the food and other things we are ingesting into our bodies.It’s a fact that certain company’s such as (okay i took this out for fear of backlash) are trying to patent all the different types of seeds in the world so they might own all the worlds seeds, not to mention they are trying to make all seeds impotent, as in they wont produce foods that have seeds to produce more food, which is going to cause people all over the world to starve. Although that is really what these people want. to happen. Control Control Control, DO NOT VOTE IN ANY MORE LAWS THAT GIVE OUR GOVERNMENT MORE CONTROL OVER US!!!!!!!! This is very important.

I agree with the tenet that children need more independence. I agree that it teaches them responsibility. I also agree that children who are more independent will be far less likely to be overly-trusting of a stranger and go with them without a thought.

I do have a question about the statistics of crime rates. You state that crime rates rose in the 70’s and 80’s, peaking in 1993. And that they’ve fallen drastically since then. First, I’m assuming these are crimes on children rates? If so – have you compared them to the rates of younger latch-key-kids? The 70’s and 80’s saw a steep rise in two-working-parent homes, and single parent homes. Thus, a rise in latch-key-kids. We had a rise in kids who, after school, had no where to be except home or outside. Could these rises in unsupervised kids account for the rises in crime rates?

Since 1993, there have been increases in post-school supervision programs (after school care, day cares that host after school pickup and supervision, etc). This rise in supervision could account for the drop in crime rates.

To state just that crime rates fell is disingenuous. It is important to see the correlations between crime and supervision.

That said – I don’t think taking the subway at 9 is such a horrendous thing. Depending on the child (ie – my son has always had issues with anxiety, so it would be a stretch for him) I think teaching them the proper way to get somewhere on there own is age-appropriate as long as it is maturity-appropriate. People are far too overbearing of their kids, and kids have disappeared – not kidnapped, but into the house, in front of the tv.

Giving responsibility breeds the shouldering of responsibility. My 8 year old is in charge of keeping the kids’ bathroom clean. And in turn, he will step up and dust or vacuum or Swiffer the floor – just offering, without my asking. He knows a sense of accomplishment. 🙂

There is a difference between going overboard being overprotective of your child, and putting your child in potential danger by leaving them in a city that’s well known to be dangerous, to children and adults.

I’m happy that your son has found his independence, and that is a pretty impressive feat for him to get home on his own like that, most 9 year olds his age that aren’t used to the city especially would have more trouble.

But fact of the matter is New York City and the Subway are still dangerous places. Sure it may not be ‘as dangerous’ as it was in the 1960’s, but that’s because nobody talked about it back in the 60’s and 70’s.

Cases of child abuse, child abduction, etc. didn’t start coming into public interest until much later.

It’s good to learn independence, and I was able to do so walking home from school or to the local store with friends. But I was still with friends in a semi-suburban area, not in a large city.

There are ways to go about letting your kid have some freedom without doing something that could potentially get you in some serious shit.

Okay, I’m gonna put it like this. I’m 31 years old. My childhood friend is 30.

Let me tell you about our childhoods. I was left to my own devices. My parents may have given me TOO MUCH freedom. I was responsible for remembering to do my homework and taking care of my school responsibilities. As a result, I wasn’t the best student in elementary and middle school because I had NO IDEA how to prepare for school, remember to do homework, ect. By high school, I realized I wanted to go to college and got serious. I went to college and I unceremoniously flunked out because I had an all or nothing mentality, not to mention parents who had a tumultuous marriage, no adult guidance, I was so broke I could barely afford the $125/month rent I was paying, and my parents got their house repossessed.

My childhood involved a Christmas where I lied about getting more presents than I really got, because I didn’t want to get made fun of for being poor. I used to get up with my parents at 2 AM to help them with their morning paper route.

My friend went to a private school, and she had stellar grades. She was gifted and talented, and she got everything she asked for for Christmas. She was a star dancer and a star pupil, and she ALWAYS got straight A’s. However, she wasn’t allowed to wander around the block by herself. Some things, she could only do if I was going to be there (I guess despite all my problems as a kid, I was pretty level headed when push came to shove). She had aunts babysit her WELL into her teenaged years. We couldn’t roam the neighborhood. She didn’t learn how to ride a bike, and even if she had, not like it would have done her any good. She was scared of swimming and scared of everything. Ultimately, looking back, she was a timid, worried child because her environment told her that she couldn’t, that she was in mortal peril all the time, that she SHOULD worry about things that, if they happened, would be national news.

Okay, it’s today. One of us has a stable marriage with a man she adores, good credit, a decent if not loved job, and is about 4 courses shy of finishing her bachelor’s degree. Granted, it wasn’t the way she thought it would happen, but it happened, and it also happened at a discounted rate because the job that isn’t all sunshine and lollipops also offers free tuition. She’s held that same job for 4 years now, and has been employed steadily since 2000. Knowing that could all change, she’s also got about a 10% debt to income ratio and an emergency savings account.

One of us had a child at the age of 21, which isn’t terrible, but we had that child because “birth control made me feel funny.” She got involved with the guy after a string of one night stands and relationships that usually ended with her cheating on the guy. The guy in question is literally stupid enough to ask why the Kennedys didn’t get out and swim and MEAN IT. A string of boyfriends later, she’s married to a guy who is verbally abusive and controlling. She got a two year degree from one of those for profit schools, got out into the workforce, and promptly decided that a) she didn’t like her degree and b) she wanted to be a stay at home mom. She is in fact, a stay at home mom, but only after amassing a shocking student loan debt for a two year degree that is probably comparable to the one offered at the local community college.

Their credit is bad enough that it’s difficult to even get a bank account. Furthermore, while she is a stay at home mom, she made this decision after buying herself a “graduation present” in the form of a laptop computer whose interest is an appalling 30%. That computer is obsolete and NOT paid off.

Guess who is who? If you’re a free range parent, I think you know that I am the bad kid with the bad grades and the good job, marriage and subsequent life. NOT perfect, but good. My friend was the shining wonder child who now can’t seem to grow up.

Turns out that in the private school she went to, you could turn in homework a month or more late and not have any penalty. In my horrible, awful, crime-ridden, decrepit public school if you didn’t turn something in on time, you could expect a late penalty, if you could turn it in at all. And if you failed the class? Tough cookies. And by the way, she had NO IDEA who Jane Austin was. NONE. Not that I’m a lover, but I frankly think that if you’re brillant at English Literature, you should have at least HEARD of her. But she was valedictorian of a five person class, and president of the National Honors Society at her school.

I was a latch-key kid who sometimes ate ice cream all day and played mario brothers. No, not great. But I learned how to handle myself. She was not allowed to play video games… but she had zero judgment when she grew up. She ended up pregnant; she’s damned lucky she didn’t end up with an STD. She still has zero judgment… the electric bill can be past due, but they’ll take a family vacation to a waterpark resort 15 minutes from home that costs upwards of $500 all told.

I know this is a long rant… but I’m going to post a theory. Helicopter parenting ain’t new. I think that parents who helicopter parent now are often raised by helicopter parents. My best friend came from a very privileged background, and she’s well adjusted. Why? Her momma didn’t buy her everything she wanted and made her responsible for her own actions.

When Lenore says that helicopter parenting has serious consequences, she ain’t whistlin’ dixie. No, I don’t have an Ivy League diploma with a high powered job and a ginormous house, but we don’t all need to live like that anyway. But I do a’ight for myself, and I made mistakes and I figured it out. I continue to figure it out. I mess up; I learn, I move on. I am admittedly underparented, and there were parts of my childhood that were painful, but I’m thankful that I was given free range as a kid because it’s helped me a lot.

I am a mother of 5 ranging in age from 28 to 7 yo twin girls. I truly believe we coddle our kids too much. They need to go outside and play, ride bikes and play make believe with friends. Yes safety is important, but they need to learn to think and to act on what they think is right. If they make a mistake they will learn from that small mistake as a child and they will learn that its okay to make a mistake. To many kids are coddled to the extent that they don’t even know how to exist on their own as teenagers. I work with a youth organization, and when 12 year olds come in with the mom still putting the coat on the child and doing it up for him, I think can the child ‘do it’ for himself, or can the mother ‘not do it’ for him.

Wow in your selfish yuppie fantasy worlds you really confuse children with adults. Would you pull your heads out of your @$$es and listen to what your actually saying.

Not sure why more people don

You absolutely disgust me. You risked your child for a goddamn SOCIAL EXPERIMENT.

hey while you’re at it why don’t you give the kid some cigarettes, a few joints and a six pack? OMG you and all those that agree with you on here are insane! You are just lucky you still have your son. But you keep that up and you will not for long. It is our job as parents to raise our kids not throw ’em out in world to find their way home. IF my kid couldn’t keep up with a phone i sure wouldn’t let ’em ride the subway. I was overprotective but slowly as my kids got older they received more and more freedom, WHEN they showed me they were mature enough to hangle it. And I hate to tell you but the world is a LOT LESS SAFE now than in 1930 or 1950 or 1970

I think you are nuts and so are the fools who condone letting a child run loose on the streets on his own at the tender age of 9 ala HOME ALONE! Give a predator an opportunity and he might take it. Speaking from someone who was almost kidnapped because my parents let me do everything on my own since 8. The reasons it’s RARE as you say is only because parents have tighter reigns on their kids these days! GET WITH THE PROGRAM!

And partypiper, you were a screw up into your thirties, are just STARTING to get your life together, and you think you have room to talk and tell other people how to live their lives? Are you kidding me? The reason it took you over a decade to get back into school is obviously a result of your parents not giving a damn either way. And you still sound like a screwball- I hope you avoid having children altogether! Your friend’s issues go a lot more deeper than having strict parents; any reasonable thinking person would know better!

I also do think that independence is important, but you put way too much trust into the world. To be safe, it takes a lot of luck as well. All you need is one bad guy to come across your free-wheeling son to make a good situation turn into a bad one. Recently, a little boy (11-12) was molested in a public bathroom nearby me with his parents outside somewhere skiiing… you know what, they never caught the guy. Also, make sure to tell your son to stay in public places! I really hope you get some counselling as well though, because you may be trying to make up for your own shortfalls in a very negative way. Anyone who would view the value of their cell phone more importantly than their son DOES NEED SOME HELP! And I am not trying to be patronizing, but someone has to tell you before your son winds up in a very precarious situation.
BTW, what does your husband think of this or is he not around?? Two heads are better than one; compromise turns a situation that either seems too extreme or too weak into a very healthy balance. I would seek advice before you make any more important parental moves because your judgment is lacking. There is nothing wrong with that! People do it every day in marriages and it’s best for the child!

“Statistics show that over 85% of the children that are abused, raped, and killed are by their own parents, grandparents, family members, and trusted friends. So really…just how scary is the world “out there”? ”

So in essense, you are telling me that you would put the life of your child in a stranger’s hands rather than friends or family? You trust strangers more than your own family? Well, if you allow your child to mascerade around strangers as often as your own family, what do you think the result of that will be? The reason it’s 85% is because that is whom the majority of a child’s time is spent around! USE SOME SENSE!

“?…..No, we teach our children to trust the world”

That is the reason children are kidnapped and die every day; they are too trusting! I don’t agree with that at all, but you are right about being overwhelmed with fear and how it could damage a child’s growth. I feel there is a medium that has to be met. Throwing a kid on a subway alone for the first time and expecting him to find his way home is a little misguided. I am assuming they took the subway often though and this child probably knew the schedule and route. I don’t think people would be angry if this child went with a friend or a group of kids at least; that’s what school kids do that you are speaking of: they usually travel in groups so there is much less danger and/or confusion.

Lenore Skenazy, I just wanted to say THANK YOU! I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thinks that people are way too overprotective and politically correct today.

Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, I remember playing outside all the time. Dodgeball, tag, riding my bike around the neighborhood, etc/ Never once did I have a problem. Today I have a stable job, I drive by myself, and I go out by myself all the time if there’s a place I’d like to go to (i.e. a movie, an event downtown, etc. I’ve gone to downtown Atlanta and walked around there many times and I never had any problems.

Also, I laugh at the people who say New York City is dangerous. New York City is one of the most safest cities in America, and it’s public transit system is very safe in general. Take it from someone who went to New York City all by himself back in May.

Lenore, thank you for standing up for yourself and not backing down because the paranoid and clueless media wants you to back down. It’s really sad that people today have become so paranoid, because they believe what the media is telling them. I feel even more sorry for the kids today who barely get to play outside at all. It’s funny how people wonder why our kids are so fat today.

Hey, overprotective parents, turn off the news, and go outside and get a nice dose of reality. If you’re so scared about the outside world, then you might as well lock yourselves in your room and never meet a new person again. You know “just to be safe”.

It really is amazing how paranoid and politically correct America has become.

Everything these days can be risky for our kids, even for adults.
You can always have the driver keep an eye on ur kids if you have to let them ride alone.
Shaun T Insanity
Thanks.

Congratulations on your growing fame. There are no new ideas here, just your successful manipulation of the ever expanding media that you blame for everyone’s heightened awareness of sex offenders, etc. If there weren’t hundreds of news channels looking for the slightest of stories, your experiments with your son would have garnered no attention. The fact is that there is no data to suggest that the circumstances that drive people to acts of violence have waned over the decades. As you point out, there’s just more media to report on every incident. Kids have been getting abducted, molested, and killed since the beginning of societies, so the world is just as dangerous or safe now as whenever. The fact that parents have more time to spend educating their kids has more to do with the rise of the middle class and nothing to do with a decline in violence. Ask your friends at STATS.org how many children who are abducted and killed were alone when adbucted, the stat is very high. Should we instill our kids with fear only? No. But fear is an instinct that should not be totally irradicated either. You act as if the only choices are total fear or total freedom. There is no middle ground? I’d say your son IS lucky, very lucky that his mom wants to teach confidence through a high profile experiment. And “We even run a tape of how we’d look on Larry King,” I don’t even know what that means. As the majority of comments here support your actions, I will be very interested to see if my response get posted.

Jim

Wow, you’ve got a lot of response! Some of my friends and I lament that our kids don’t have the freedom we did. Some think we are crazy! But I grew up in a small town and ran all over the place all day then checked in at suppertime. One of my friends grew up in one of the large cities in our country and she did what your son is learning to do, getting around town on public transportation just like everyone else does. Unfortunately, we’ve sort of hobbled our child because we live in a city now, but we’re two or three miles from any place she’d be interested in going (library and shopping center) and there are no sidewalks around for about a mile. It sucks. We drive everywhere. She and I talked yesterday about her going to a magnet school downtown for high school. She could take the bus after about a 12 to 15 minute walk to the stop then a twenty minute ride that would drop her at the door. By high school, I might be ready for it! 😉

And a funny story about independence: A few years ago, I took my daughter and her friend to our local children’s museum. Before that visit, I’d escorted my kid through the galleries but this time since she had a friend along I thought I’d let them walk around on their own. There was a seasonal big slide that they were going to ride several times and I was going to sit at one end of this large space where I could check on them periodically. So there I sat, knitting and checking and thinking about my daughter’s independence and the new freedom it would afford me. And I knitted and thought and watched the girls and then I noticed, well, isn’t that odd how the friend is holding on to my daughter? What’s up with that? Sensing something, I headed to the ramp to the next level so I could check in verbally as they came up to the top of the slide. I met them in time for my daughter to pass out in my arms! Do you want to talk about feeling like a real skunk?! She was fine, of course. It was a combination of heat and crowd and my trying to talk them into lunch and their refusing because they wanted to play but apparently my girl was famished. It put my thoughts of independence for both of us out of mind for a while, though, I can tell you! But it’s on my mind more and more and on hers, too. She has not been a naturally independent child but as she gets older, she wants to stretch her wings. Yes, I have to drive her to the library, but once there, we go our own ways. And she’s doing more and more things around the house, learning life skills. Is nine too young? I was walking to school on my own at six. It was a small town, yeah, but I’m sure there were creeps there. I think your son is lucky to have you. Good luck.

Yes, anyone’s child can be abducted. But why voluntarily put your child into a situation that could have devastating consequences? Leaving a 9 year old to navaigate the subway alone is plain stupidity. In my state you cannot even leave your child home alone until the age of at least 12. I am sure you wouldn’t be writing this article if the outcome was different for you.

Hi – very great website you have created. I enjoyed reading this posting. I did want to write a comment to tell you that the design of this site is very aesthetically delightful. I used to be a graphic designer, now I am a copy editor for a merchandising firm. I have always enjoyed functioning with computing machines and am trying to learn computer code in my free time (which there is never enough of lol).

I think the summary parental wisdom here is that it is risky to be extremely overprotective (hence, the children will not become socially and emotionally competent) or underprotective (hence, exposing them to dangerous situations that they do not have the competence to negotiate safely). I feel confident, having read what Lenore was assessing in her decision to let her son ride the subway, that she made a rational and well-informed decision, weighing the calculated risks and benefits to her son for this experience with independent travel.
I agree with former postings that introduce the “messy middle” ground scenarios which make us mull over the real or perceived risks in everyday living, e.g. going to others’ homes for play, allowing bike riding outside a tight perimeter of our homes, etc. Epidemiological research helps us know that the greatest danger for children is pedestrian injuries perpetrated by cars. However, parental anxiety is peaked by media stories about abductions, violence and kidnappings. Our brains are emotionally triggered by high drama and then we have a tough time deciphering the “real” from “perceived” dangers out there. Our brains have this survival mechanism which serves us well in some ways (our instincts for danger are sometimes spot on!) but gives us false alarms many other times because of media stories or our anxious predilections.
Lenore, a call out for documented research on parents’ “accurate” vs “perceived” threat assessments could be an interesting twitter tweet, yes? (please discourage opinions, we might just be repeating the myth making; doing more harm than good!!) –Plain Jane

Dear Robo–
I don’t know what you mean by ego. I’m just trying to raise the issue that the “extreme” parent movement tends to go kattywampus on both ends, making a dialectical pretzel that can get this blogoscroll going back and forth about the “too much” freedom and the “too little” endlessly.
Sometimes I wish we had a bunch of very specific situations about it and we could all just vote…

I was just browsing for relevant blog posts intended for the project research and I happened to stumble upon yours. Many thanks for the valuable material!

I applaud you for having the forum here to try and generate some meaningful discussion about topics that affect us all. Freedom of speech is a great thing. 🙂

Hi Lenore
I am busy watching the Dr Phil show here in New Zealand, which discussed your childs adventure. As a pre school teacher I see how important it is for parents to prepare their children for the bigger world. Parents mean so well by protecting their children but fail to realise how they are in fact crippling their childs progress and independence.
It is immediately apparent when new children enroll which parents have enbaled their children rather than crippling them.
As a parent myself of three children between the ages of 21 and 12 I pride my self in the fact that they are independant responsible members of the community. My oldest daughter saved and booked for a trip to the UK at the age of 16. Yes she travelled alone.
I and my husband feel that we are first class parents and delight in the praise my children receive from others. They are polite, independant and confident young people.
Bev

Oh – also one other thing that happened to me some months ago…I was in the ladies room of a large store. When I was washing my hands and touching up my makeup a girl of about 9 or 10 came in. She started to go into the last stall – which I had first gone into – but didn’t – because I realized there was not a speck of toilet paper in there. I said, “Oh – there is no toilet paper in that one.” The girl didn’t say a word, slammed the stall door shut – used the facilities – then almost left at a full run – out the door – back to mommy! No toilet paper and didn’t wash her hands either – GROSS! What type of moron is she going to be when she grows up??????

Since when is telling someone of any age there is no toilet paper a scary thing????????????????

Hello M(r)s Skenazy.
a canadian documentary was just on here in Norway. The topic was how (predominantly suburban) kids were raised as crystal ducks. The anger, engagement and general level of hostility in a lot of the comments here are frightening: “hope your kid id taken and killed”???

I thought that sending your kids on the subway (provided that you are a NY citizen) was a necessity. Apparantly I was wrong.

I was born in 1985 in Norway. the first time I took the subway in NY was when I was 10. My parents did not think about it, because they did not know about it. When I came back to the hotel and told them where I had been and how I got home they looked at me and exclaimed: “How was it”?

I`m not even going to bother people with statistics, but HOW CAN YOU BE SO CRUEL TO YOUR CHILDREN as to not let them explore the surrounding world?

Do (some) americans think that childrearing is an activity that starts at conception and ends at the age of 21? and in this period one should go through hell and high water to shelter the child from people (that are unknown), places (which are unfamiliar) and experiences that might be harmful to them?

to care for a child implies that one prepare that child for the world.

To all the cunts out there who pride themselves in having the most protected child of them all: Your kid will turn out somewhat different than what you (presumably) thought!

#1: He will see someone like me (a psychologist) until Hell freezes over (and we can`t help them because the brain is not functioning as it should because hyperparents have sheltered their kids to such an extent that they are inhibited from developing into “natural” people, the development of the brain has not been completed, and we can not fix what is not there)

#2: they will either depend on you forever and/or despise you forever

#3: Because you (mostly are an overprotecting dingbat/hysterical anal discharge remnant), your husband will leave you and “kidnap” your kid because you ARE INDIRECTLY INFLICTING HARM TO THEIR CHILD AS WELL

… I can not be bothered with this anymore…if you want to fuck your kids up, do it!!!!!

they will suffer.

kudos to Skenazy, though!you performed a normal act to a child!

I have to agree with you of course. They’re so busy protecting their kids from harm, they’re harming their kids.

Instead of playing football or softball where they might get a bruise or twist a ankle, they have them inside drinking soda and playing video games where they become obese and arthritic.

Instead of making up their own minds, they buy them whatever they want as long as they’ll let us wrap them in bubble wrap.

Then they wonder why the kids get angry and frustrated when they’re teenagers, and the parents think they’re acting out when the teens want to make their own decisions. (not that it’s always the greatest or right decision, but they should be allowed to make mistakes.)

Of course the poor kids can’t escape it. In Scotland they have a school where kids can’t make Father’s Day cards because it might upset kids with a single mother family. I’ve seen equally stupid laws in the U.S.

Hello, I am a mother of a 2 yr old, and I would like to say that I would NOT let my kid when he is 9 ride the friggin’ subway by himself, I dont care if he begged me, you are crazy to let your child do that on his own, it would of been cool if you would have followed him without him knowing just so he could have the satisfaction of you letting him think he did it on his own. I do think that CPS should be knocking at your door and if they arent they need to be caring about a mother who lets her baby walk among the streets let alone on the subway. This is why mothers like me stay awake at night wondering what could happen if my son walks to the school bus stop in the morning what would happen if he didnt come home that day…..mothers like you should have your kid taken away, yes your son didnt get hurt but what if he did, you said you would of been devestated, YOU HAVE NO IDEA what its like to a lose a child, it feels like your whole life has no meaning at all……you are stupid and should be locked away somewhere…..I feel sorry for your son that has a non caring mother like you……your going to be the type of mother who lets her kid smoke and drink before the legal age and then when your son drives drunk because you had no problem with it and he kills someone on the highway your goin to feel real stupid you crazy b***h!!!!

Hello
I saw the program where you were with your young boy who had rode a subway.
I have to say you are quite brave, to let go of your son.
It seems that he survived the trip,
In Finland where I live, kids ride or walk their schools trips and most of them do it daily bases.
and they are happy doing it.

I may not necessarily agree with putting a 9yo on a subway by him/herself, however I applaud your wanting to show/teach your son to be his own person and have some self confidence.

Good luck!

I have no children of my own, but can relate to the psychosis of debilitating ourselves and our children(or pets) by not allowing simple freedoms. I was getting all over the city by bike and skateboard by 7. The one problem is that a child may go to that part of town where he/she was told not to. I did, but luckily I am okay now. I live near the city or lake in Escondido where the two girls were recently discovered, Dubois and I can’t recall the other girl’s name right now… It seems that given more space and time to themselves, people do some crazy things. I feel the cities are far safer for kids to be on their own. Injuries are a perfect example. If a child is hurt in a city, 10 people will be there in a second. There are far more good hearted people in the world than bad. In the woods, or “the sticks”, nobody, or maybe just that psycho, might be there.
Back to the point of more good natured people than bad; I think in cities, especially “ghettos, barrios, hoods or wherever you may find yourself, you find a much tighter knit group of people. For many reasons, namely because thay are all in relatively the same position. The people with the least to worry about always worry the most! I guess that’s how you get that way, but by teaching our children these traits, they will be afraid to venture out on their own. They will be afraid to step in and intervene when they feel something might be wrong with a child by himself because many people teach their children to just keep to themselves and not bother with anyone else. As a minority in my early youth from my first memories till 9 years old, then moving in with my father in a nicer part of San Diego where there were no blacks and whites far outnumbered all others, I have seen and felt and experienced both sides. From being told to stick to myself as a youngster because of the race issue, not to mention drugs and crime, yet having all black best friends, to moving to a neighborhood where white kids used the “N” word frequently to cut one another down, not knowing it’s origin or real meaning, except that it used to be a term of the utmost disrespect from one race to another. But is now used by all races to communicate with each other….
I guess I have strayed from the initial topic of this rant, but it is one of my social ponderings. I do feel that the main reasons for over protecting our children is fear, obviously, and like it or not, there is stil a widespread fear of the races mixing. One world, one love….one race. Then how could we distinguish one another? Or blame one another. As a middle aged white man(that is what I am now…30 years old!) who has been involved with hip hop nearly half my life, a mom who plays blues music and a girlfriend of two years who is half black and half armenian, and beautiful, I still feel not only others fear of “One Race” but sometimes even my own. For the sake of preserving certain facial and body features and traits indigenous to certain peoples, traditions and the like, it makes the most sense to breed within our races, but we are no different than a cat or a dog, who is not the least bit picky when he or she mates, not based on color or breed at least… Except that we sometimes finally find the one we want to be with forever. Now that is a whole other social observation for another time….
Wes Hyde
WesHaven

There was an article in th Palm Beach Post recently which mentioned your blog and book along with several other books . Asking if we were rasing a generation of nincompoops. My brother and I walked to school and home stating in Kindergarden, along what was called the Black Tar path. It was through the woods about 3/4 of a mile. I walked “down town” once a week for music lessons alone. We left on a Saturday morning and came home for dinner. Boy did we have Fun! I hope my daughter and her husband who just had their first child “get it” They definity will ge your book as a gift!

Long time reader / first time poster. Really enjoy reading the blog, keep up the excellent work. Will definitely start posting more in the future.

Agree totally. Grew up next to a bad area, was blissfully unaware but did develop a sense for things to avoid without having fear instilled into me by my parents.

Learned recently that they were always a little worried and paranoid about us, but thought it would be better if we grew up without thinking every passing stranger a potential attacker / rapist, and never let it show.

They were not bad or negligent parents, far from it. I thank them for giving me a great childhood.

I will *not* be overprotective of my kids either.

It’s terrible if it happens to your child. But statistically, it is unlikely in the extreme to happen to you.

Just because there is a one in ten million chance, is no excuse for robbing a child of a carefree childhood.

I heard about this blog last year, but it wasn’t until I saw the “lost adventures of childhood” doco that I thought to look your site up.
I have a 3yr and 6mth old. I am determined to allow my kids to be “free-range”.
I remember having a trampoline without a safety net. Walking to school when I was 6, about 2kms away. Playing in the street, riding all over town and coming home at 5 for dinner.
I want my kids to be able to do that too. I don’t want them to be locked in the house all the time, dependent on me for every little thing!

I honestly don’t think you did anything wrong and I hope to allow my son to ride the train to the city on his own too.

Just wanted to comment – I saw someone writing about how everyone talking about being free-range when they were kids were kids in the 40’s-60’s.

I was a bit of a free range kid in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I grew up in a smaller town (pop:25,000) and we lived in a rural part of it that didn’t have sidewalks. I spent many a summer day walking the equivalent of about four or five blocks through neighbor’s front yards, either under a railroad overpass on the road where there was no shoulder (and the curve leading to the overpass effectively blocked me from the view of oncoming cars) or OVER the underpass, crossing the railroad and all manner of shattered glass, across a bridge that spanned a river, across two roads and finally up a hill to my elementary school to play on the playground.

I regularly did this alone, or with my two younger cousins in tow, who I babysat Monday-Friday from the ages of 12 to 16. Sometimes we’d skip the school and go down to play in the river!

Someone could have been seriously hurt or abducted or molested on any one of these outings. Weirdos could have been hanging around the playground, and there were certainly a fair share of older men fishing at the river.

But I managed to keep myself and my two cousins alive. I knew enough to not go more than ankle deep in the river and to not let my cousins go either. I knew to not pick up glass, and if we took our shoes off, to watch for glass or sharp shells. I knew that if an old guy fishing looked creepy or I had a bad feeling about him, we’d amend our plans and do something else.

When we crossed the bridge, I knew to not horse around and to put my cousins in front of me so I could watch them. I knew to triple check for traffic before we decided to sprint under the overpass.

My parents were completely fine with this. My aunt and uncle were as well.

My paternal grandmother and a whole bunch of aunts, uncles and cousins lived in a tiny town about a half an hour away from ours, and my dad would regularly throw my bike in the back of his pickup truck when we visited and I would ride ALL OVER that place. It helped that pretty much everyone there could identify me as being part of my dad’s family (the resemblance among us is scary), but still, I was alone, riding my bike and could have been hit by a car, abducted or molested at any time.

I did have a pretty good accident one time. I was riding back from the Dairy Queen to my aunt’s house with an ice cream cone I thought I could eat while riding. I couldn’t, I crashed, and I had to pull the bike’s rear wheel screw out of my knee. I gushed blood for the block walk back to my aunt’s house where I told my mom I thought I needed to go to the hospital. I got six stitches out of that one and a scar that’s still with me. If my mom had been with me, nothing would have been different. We still would have had to walk my bike back to my aunt’s house and then gotten in the car to go to the hospital.

No cell phones, by the way.

So, just a message from someone who did this stuff as recently as 14 years ago.

There are some attention-grabbing closing dates in this article however I don’t know if I see all of them heart to heart. Theres some validity however I will take maintain opinion till I look into it further. Good article , thanks and we want more!

I swear people go looking for things to comment on like this. It’s people like the author of this dreadfully short-sighted note who view the world in black and white, forego context and make the world a less interesting and more hostile place. Ugh!

@ sonja: Well said.

Fear begets fear. The ironic thing is, I bet most of these fearful parents would go against their own beliefs if it inconvenienced them. ie. j-walking with your kids because you have somethings your carrying and need to cross, literally, across the street, but don’t want to walk to the lights half a block in either direction. Yes, I’ve seen that…many times. They should do a study that included that as well.

When I was in elementary school, my sister and I were selected to participate in a “gifted” program. A requirement of that program was that we had to get to and from the school, about 40 minutes away by subway, by ourselves. The school was located in a not so hot part of town. We did it and loved it.

I think you should send your kid to a nature camp in Colorado where he can gain independence in the mountains. He will learn survival skills but be supervised by an adult. Nine is too young to be on subways alone. Twelve seems more like it. Don’t push your luck, mama- you may really regret it.

As with most issues, both sides of this issue are right, yet it seems no one can see the logic of the other perspective. It seems this whole debate is filled with a lot of ideology and very little common sense.

Did I run around with friends unsupervised and even ride the bus to Port Authority in NYC in the 1980s because we were poor and both of my parents had to work? Yes, I did, and survived. But the fact that I survived is no reason to advocate that parents let their kids do it now for kicks…just like because I rode in the back of my parents’ station wagon with no carseat or seat belt doesn’t mean that I think kids should be doing that today. But were my parents bad parents for doing those things? No, they were good parents because there was no other choice — they chose to put food on the table, house me, and clothe me, which meant leaving me alone a lot on weekdays.

On the other hand, of course car accidents kill more kids than random abductions. But for the vast majority of people in the US, you just can’t avoid getting in your car with your child. So, that risk is unavoidable. Letting your young child ride the subway home because you’re not ready to leave Bloomie’s? Avoidable. However, if you’re a single mother whose child has to ride the subway home from school alone because you have to work to put food on the table, the subway ride would be unavoidable.

We have to put ideology aside and be a bit more practical about this issue.

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Is anyone going to mention all of the low-income, urban families who are have no choice but to send their young children to navigate bad neighborhoods every day? I don’t know you, I think what you did for your son is great, but not worth all this hype and controversy. Poor families all over this country and around the world have no choice but to force children into “unsafe” situations. It’s too bad we choose to spend our time on trivial matters such as how one mother raises her son.

I too was surprised this became an article worthy of becoming national news. Maybe because this mom sounds middle class?

This is nothing new if you’re poor. the big difference is if your poor, you have no choice, no options. If your middle class you do.

Who monitors kids who are excused from school (by the school) to ride the Subway to Planned Parenthood to get contraceptives or an abortion? The parents are bypassed there. I remember the school excused me when I was 14. I rode transit to Downtown San Francisco Planned Parenthood for the Pill. My parents never knew because the laws have made it none of their business.

There was a lady who mentioned Child Protective Services and the way parents are under continuous surveillance by the State agencies who are monitoring parenting techniques and styles. These agencies will swoop down on any parent of children who are still of an age where the child is a good canidate for Foster Care (being dragged into the system).

hi there!

I saw an documentary of brains, freeplay and kidds development!

In this documentary there was even an short story of ouy “subway adventure”, what can i say!

Keep on good work, keep opening parents eyes!
Now i have to join you maillist to keep myself posted! 😉

cheers

jan father of 4 in north Sweden

Hey, I heard about your son from the program prepared in my country, Poland. I am 17 years old, my name is Matt. My childhood was not colorful, even tragic. But I remember that feeling when I first at age 7, I walked alone from school, less than 3 km. It was a great experience for me, because I always siblings or parents herded me. I was unfortunately deprived of carefree play with peers, my parents did not allow me to properly develop and careless about it. Now I see how much I missed the fun survive childhood. Unfortunately, I see also that the problem of improper upbringing of children is enormous, and then everyone complains about the kids and yet we give them the knowledge that we are educating them to such persons, which later turn out to be in the future.

Greetings from Polish.

Thank you very much guys,think twice before flying with them,

You are totally wrong!!!!!! and your crazy like a fox like Casey Anthony.
I Was a caller this day on the JOE Crummy show and I have my own blog talk radio show as well. We the people have REAL CONCERNS don’t make us feel like we are ODD. Give us a Break, and keep your opinions to YOURSELF!!!!!

At age 9 (10 days before I turned 10) I took the subway alone the first time. I had grown up very free range all my life. I usually went with other children or my brother, but that day I forgot my brother had an appt, and by the time I realized all my friends had went home. I knew the way and felt I was capable, so I just went on my own.

I was never taught how to take the subway alone, I was never told to sit close to the driver or other mothers with children. I was not prepared for what happened that day to me. I could have been more prepared. It could have been avoided.

I was molested by a stranger on the subway. In one of the safest cities in Canada. I was able to make my way home by myself to tell my mom. Of course she phoned the police as any good mother would do.

Most would say she did the right thing by calling the police. For me though it was not. I wish I did not have to go through 3 weeks of being drilled about what happened. Or being followed by undercover agents in hopes that I would “spot” the stranger amongst thousands of people.

I know the subways have since been made much more safe, cameras, emergency touch strips. designated waiting areas etc.

It happened in the last subway car because that’s where we always sat as a group, we knew there were less people so we could have free range of the subway car, and practice our balance standing on the subway floor without holding on to anything (still to this day I have needed to do that in other ways at times and it has helped immensely).

I learned that adults will do anything to make children safer. and I learned that even the police can not always help. I learned there are bad people and good people in the world. And I learned that you have to take precautions and listen to your instincts.

I remembered that when I was traveling alone in Europe on train and bicycle at age 20. I found safe places to sit, and to look for an exit if I found myself in a bad situation. I also met incredible people on my journey, by sitting with them. I was invited to many wonderful and exiting adventures. I never felt I was in danger, and nothing happened to me on my travels ever.

I learned to deal with what happened on my own terms. I understand that sometimes bad things happen to good people. I realized you have to take the good with the bad. I learned that some things you have to get through yourself and other people can not always help, no matter how well meaning they may be. I forgave the perpetrator and I believe karma will get him in the end.

I also believe what happened to me when I was young made me who I am today, every thing that has happened to me whether it be good or bad has made me who I am today.

I trust you are teaching your son what to do when he is alone. Sit in/close a group (even if you do not know them) preferably a mother with children or the driver. If you are the only one on a subway car and someone else comes in you can get off and get in a different car, or get off the subway and wait for the next one. You always have options, you just have to be open to see them. And even then no matter how cautious you are bad things still can and do happen.

P.S. and yes, i have seen men exposing themselves here in sunny beautiful california — the most recent in broad daylight in golden gate park. this young man was more than exposing himself, he was also
“pleasuring himself” — this was before i had a cell phone. and believe me when i say i just HATE THIS — and the thought of my children having to see this behavior just makes me so incredibly ANGRY — please stop gambling with your children’s safety – their very lives depend on our thoughtful protection. again, go on line — it’s all public record now — our children are too precious and important for us to be so cavalier. i hope nothing bad happens to your kids. i wouldn’t hesitate to call CPS if i knew you. not for a second.

There is more of a risk when children are young and vulnerable. IMHO You’re neither responsible or smart doing this. I would suggest a good age is more like 12 years old + when they are slightly more developed and in secondary school – even then there is ALWAYS a risk. Such is life and predators are out there and probably more than you care to imagine by the sounds. There is no angel watching over your kid it seems in anyway, so quit acting like your child has your developed ability (they were only 9) and maybe we should wake you up perhaps to the real statistics of child abuse on all horrendous levels. Fact is, it does happen and all because stoopid irresponsible parents like you leave their kids at too young an age in risky situations. Good luck, let’s just hope your son doesn’t want to swim the atlantic on his own soon… you’d probably give him some goose fat and a snorkel. Ridiculous attitude you have. WAKE UP. Child abuse happens in the family more so, case in point.

If we discussed how old should we let our kids walk alone by themselves. I could not answer that because we don’t know when a danger strike. The question how ready and prepared they are in handling situations like this. I would like to share this to every parent who only wants their children to be safe. It’s a safety application the works on cell phone that has a panic button that could save child’s life in danger. To know more about this safety application and how beneficial it would be to you entire family. Follow this link http://www.tsuethatswhatshesaid.com/2011/09/keeping-your-child-safe-supporting.html

Lenore Skenazy is an intelligent and excellent parent. Children should learn independence as early as possible. Helicopter parents are the most abusive parents around. These parents do not love their children one iota. They protect and infantilize their children. I am a writer on HubPages and have written many articles on overprotective/helicopter parenting.

Parents who are free range usually have the closest relationship with their children. They view their children as individuals, not an inanimate objects to mold like helicopter parents. Furthermore, children will learn to hate their helicopter parents. No helicopter parents have close relationships with their children. These parents are poison and their children learn that sooner or later. When they do, they usually cut off all contact with such poisonous parents. Give me a a free range parent anytime. They are the BEST parents around.

I am extremely inspired with your writing talents and also with the layout in your blog. Is that this a paid topic or did you customize it your self? Anyway stay up the excellent quality writing, it’s uncommon to see a great blog like this one these days..

agree with you. I also grew up totally free climbing trees and biking the whole city without a helmet. I grew up playing and creating street games, and that was very important for me. It made me the strong and independent person I am today. Kids that lack this freedom tend to be depressed. I feel so bad for those kids and how miserable are their lives. I don’t want to have a child just to not have to listen the cops telling me I’m insane for letting my child play without an adult supervision.

It’s really very complex in this active life to listen news on TV, so I just use internet for that purpose, and obtain the newest news.

When I was a little girl growing up in Moscow ( and that’s a lot more scary city than New York), my parents put a key on my neck when I was around 8 and I was on my own after school each day after that! I loved it!- yes I took a subway to see grandma once and ended up going in circles a couple of times missing my stop :)- but I was so proud when finally got there! .. I rescued homeless dogs and had a little shelter ( oh god, rabies :)), made my own friends and figures out social situations without overarching mother, had friends over, baked stuff and in general had a pretty awesome childhood.. My parents simply had no choice, and we do – and it makes me sad that I’d be scolded and reported to child services if my kid is at the park alone or in the car for a minute ( hate waking up a baby but someone was trying to call the police when my husband left out baby in a car with a window rolled down when he went to an ATM..

Growing up the way I did certainly helped me feel more socially skilled, confident and safe in the world( and by the way I did get into strangers cars on multiple occasions as a teenager – another no no around here :))..

I want m daughter to be safe of course, but it doesn’t mean I won’t put her in a car or a boat, so would it mean that I won’t let her play by herself outside without The silly “play date” concept which even at 2 years old seems odd except in cases I actually like the mom enough to make it worth it..

Oh, and here is another one – I spend plenty of quality time with my kid but it’s a relationship not a cult, so when we are alone at home, we can often be seen doing own things – if mommy is into a novel doesn’t meant that she needs to rear Clifford the big red dog for 100th time instead At reading time.. And since i am in a confession mode, our bed time is at 10 not something silly like 6pm that books recommend – because mommy likes to sleep in or swim in the morning..

And I have a happy kid 🙂