Last week I was intrigued by the case of Lenore Skenazy. Skenazy equipped her 9-year-old son with a map, a subway card, and 20 bucks, then dropped him off at a New York department store to find his way home by himself. Skenazy wrote about this in The New York Sun and promptly heard it from outraged folks accusing her of endangering her son. There was some supportive feedback as well. Check out the article and a Today show segment about the episode. Skenazy, who believes today’s parents have allowed the culture to make them more paranoid than in earlier eras, has launched a website called Free Range Kids, where she calls parents to stop being so overprotective of their children. Here’s how she describes it on the site:
Do you ever let your kid ride a bike to the library? Walk alone to school? Take a bus, solo? Or are you thinking about it? If so, you are raising a Free Range Kid! At Free Range, we believe in safe kids. We believe in helmets, car seats and safety belts. We do NOT believe that every time school age children go outside, they need a security detail. Most of us grew up Free Range and lived to tell the tale. Our kids deserve no less. This site is dedicated to sane parenting.
This story caught my attention because I sometimes wonder whether I’m being overly protective of my kids. I grew up in the ‘hood of Rockford, Illinois, in the ’70s and ’80s, and my parents allowed me to do stuff on my own. We [the kids in my neighborhood] got to ride our bikes around the community (without helmets), walk to the local recreation center by ourselves, and play on metal playground equipment that would be deemed unsafe by today’s standards. And, as Skenazy notes, we survived.
Times are different today, of course. But, again, are parents too fearful? By not allowing our school-age children to do more things on their own, are we denying them the chance to develop the independence they’ll need to be functional and responsible adults? Are you sympathetic to Skenazy’s perspective? What has been your parenting experience so far?
Goodness! I don’t know. Teaching independence is a good thing — but a 9-year-old on his own in New York? If they lived in the country I could see letting him try like this, but in the big city . . . I’m not so sure. The “I trusted a stranger” part really made my eyebrows go up.
Of course, I’m not a parent yet, so maybe my viewpoint is skewed. We singles tend to get told that we don’t know what we’re talking about where kids are concerned. (Then again, while working in the church nursery yesterday, I did know enough to realize that the mother who had put a necklace around her baby girl’s neck was not doing a very wise thing. So maybe I know something after all.)
I meant “letting him try something like this.” Sorry. Not quite awake yet. 🙂
Well, I’m the mother of two grown (26, 24) daughters, and though I don’t think I would have done what she did, I do believe that many are raising hothouse flowers for kids. We need to give them gradual amounts of freedom so that they can grow up with confidence in their own abilities. If they, after being shown how to do it safely (and at a reasonable age), can’t so much as walk a few blocks to the store, then what are we teaching them about themselves? That they’re weak, or maybe that the world is full of people to be frightened of?
As the parent of a child with special needs, I believe you go with the mother’s intuition. She knows the child. She knows the options. She’s not always right, but in most cases, she’s right more often than anyone else.
I’m fascinated by the concept of perceived risk vs actual risk. Kids aren’t being kidnapped at any higher rates than in the past, but now we hear about every case on the news in great detail, so we are much more conscious of the risk than we used to be. Even though kids are usually abused by relatives and trusted friends, we fear the sex offender down the street that has no real access to our kids.
Letting a nine year old ride the subway alone seems a little extreme to me, but parents seem more overprotective than is necessary. I think parent peer pressure has a lot to do with it. No one wants to be seen as uncaring or irresponsible. So you put a helmet on a 2 1/2 foot tall kid riding a big wheel so they’ll survive the head first plummet to the sidewalk below.
We live in what Glenn Loury recently called “the biggest black ghetto ever created in the country”. We have 7 kids (none of which match the ethnicity of the community). My 14 year old will use public transportation (an hour each way) to high school next year. My 9 year old daughter walks my 3 and 5 year old boys to school most days. It’s all good.
My 13, 14, and 15 year olds travel the neighborhood and the city regularly either alone or with one or two others.
But all of that said, if my boys ethnicity was that of the community it would not be safe for them to do so. Crazy huh?
Ed,
Great question. I’ve asked it so many times myself, but times have changed and we’re not backing up … so it seems.
I got up at 4:30am, delivered papers on a bike and drove around Freeport IL without ever a thought of danger. Then I made breakfast, hopped on my bike and drove a mile or so out to the golfcourse where I found friends to play with. Then I drove home … and wherever I wanted to go.
We wandered throughout our town on our bikes.
We wandered south of Freeport around rivers and streams and farms.
Adventure, imagination, freedom to explore … operative, experienced words for me.
Scot
Excellent thoughts, everyone. Thanks for wrestling with this one along with me. Like Gina, Darcyjo and Judy, I don’t think I would ever allow a 9-year-old to do anything like that subway experiment. But I do get where Lenore Skenazy is coming from.
Recently, I was talking with some men from my small group about our local kids soccer league. Both of my kids (8 and 6) have participated in the league at different times. Right now, my 6-year-old son is the only one. I was complaining about how much I dislike the whole thing. Don’t get me wrong; I think it’s great that the leagues provide a way for kids to develop skills, get exercise, learn teamwork, etc. But there’s just something about it that feels forced and artificial.
Suddenly, we got to reminiscing about how when we were kids we didn’t participate in organized sports leagues until we were a little older. Instead, we went to the park (usually without our parents) and played impromptu games of baseball, basketball, and pig slaughter (anyone remember pig slaughter?).
It was good to go down memory lane, but we all understood things aren’t like they used to be. We all agreed how hard it is to feel comfortable letting our kids out of our sight for too long in this day and age. One guy suggested that, as an alternative to the big organized soccer leagues, perhaps we should find more ways to provide a safe setting for kids to start the ball games on their own, without constant adult interference.
I don’t know. As I said, I think there is a place for the organized kids leagues. But for some kids, I think there needs to be a better balance of supervised activities and solo opportunities. You know, letting kids do their own thing. Letting them learn to play, to create, to establish the rules, and work together without grownups always pushing the agenda.
I agree with the prevailing sentiment of the earlier comments. Julana’s comment about parents intuition for what each child is ready for and the environment is really good. We were reminded recently how different our kids are when we noticed our 21 month old was confidently doing things on the playground that his older brothers didn’t do even attempt until twice that age or more.
This wasn’t a case of a parent pushing or forcing a kid to do something that he didn’t want to do. She was responding to a passion of her son’s and did lay the groundwork so that the chances of success were pretty good.
The tragic anecdotal stories do tend to stick with us and skew our perception even though the broader reality is that these sad cases are actually quite rare. Throw in a 24 hour news cycle to constantly reminds us of what can go wrong and we tend to overreact on the side of fear.
For Christians there is an element of submitting to God’s Lordship in trusting Him with our kids even as we seek to be responsible parents. That is a fine line to tread with dangers on either side.
The Lost Dogs introduced me to Bob Dylan’s song, “Lord, Protect My Child” which comes to my mind often as I parent my boys. It acknowledges the joys of watching your child grow up while ultimately admitting a lack of control and a need for God’s protection. (OK, I will have to admit that I didn’t know the Dogs were covering a Dylan tune until about 3 minutes ago.)
(http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/protect.html)
I think I had a decent balance of organized vs unorganized sports. I grew up in the country so there weren’t that many kids within walking distance, but we managed some kick ball and wiffle ball with “ghost” runners. I started organized sports when I was six, a year early because I was bigger than the other kids and my dad signed me up (pee wee baseball). I was very much a tomboy and played football with neighborhood kids at my grandparents house who lived in the city (Warren, OH).
I’m going to have to look up pig slaughter. Didn’t have that in Ohio. I’m wondering if it’s the same shildhood game that goes by an extremely politically incorrect name around here. 😉
They have soccer leagues for toddlers around here, and I don’t think I could stomach 3 year old soccer. My baby just started walking and I think I’ll hold out a little longer.
[…] Edward Gilbreath points out the story of New Yorker Lenore Skenazy and her son. Skenazy equipped her 9-year-old son with a map, a subway card, and 20 bucks, then dropped him off at a New York department store to find his way home by himself. Skenazy wrote about this in The New York Sun and promptly heard it from outraged folks accusing her of endangering her son. […]
Pig slaughter?? Please, you have to tell us what that is! 🙂
Oh, no. I did a Google search and couldn’t find any info on this game from my childhood. Does that mean it really didn’t happen? Anyway, in grade school we used to play this game with a football (hence the “pig” ) where we would throw the ball around and whoever caught it was the target for a wholesale tackling (hence the “slaughter”). The person with the football (usually of the Nerf variety) would run as far as he could, evading all tacklers. When he did get tackled, there was usually a heap of guys piled on top of him. Brutal, but fun. 🙂 Has no one else heard of pig slaughter? Did it go by another name in some places?
Oh, well, that sounds a lot better than it originally sounded!
It is probably best to do it gradually. Knowing your child’s bent. And to the single sister, you’re on point! I agree with some of the Free Range stuff.
We have been releasing gradually, and trying to instill a sense of awareness, and responsibility. And it’s rough in the inner city. But let’s not get it twisted, you don’t need the news media to tell you, come on my side of town where I work or where I attend church, and you’ll see a drastic difference in the times.
BTW, I grew up inner city Los Angeles, and if I’m not mistaken there were limits to our freedom.
Most of my friends would never allow totally unsupervised playtime for their kids. We do: in our city alley — which has the great square milk crate nailed up for a hoop — and in the yard and down the street at the park (I should say “almost” unsupervised as we use older children to do the supervision and/or check in on them).
But conversely we don’t allow unsupervised use of the internet. All my kids from 5 years up use the internet but must keep doors open, allow my access with all passwords for facebook, etc..
That type of non supervised activity seems to be equally dangerous to me.
I personally have great memories of kick the can. . . wish my kids played that!!!
Ah, pig slaughter. I had pretty much blocked that out of my memory. Maybe it’s a Rockford thing?
Ed, thanks for bringing back the trauma and emotional scaring. 🙂
I had a feeling pig slaughter was another name for the game I was speaking of with a politically incorrect name. I’ll give part of the name… Smear the _____. Figure it out for yourself 😉 It rhymes. Maybe unsupervised play isn’t so great 😉
[…] From Lenore Skenazy, founder of Free Range Kids (via Ed Gilbreath). […]
I do identify with the sentiments of the post. We played Round Robin (baseball w/rotating positions), tag, hide and seek, freeze tag, horse, and colored eggs. No uniforms, no scheduled times, minimal equipment.
I know Ray Bakke would agree with this. I once saw him shock a room full of students with stories about how he had his son (who was about six at the time, if I remember) riding the public transit system in by himself in 1960s-70s Chicago. He’s written about it one of his books, as well, I think.
I wonder what she would think if this happened to her child:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009760889_girl28.html
I’ts all OK until it’s your child. I personally don’t want to take the chance. Yes, I’m very sorry we can run around all over the city like we used to…there’s a lot of things we can’t do like we used to. I think it would be better to work toward fixing those problems then just throwing your child to the wind (and with no cell phone either, what’s THAT all about?).
The world is always changing and we have to change with it or fix the problems.