http://bit.ly/10Mrne
Very interesting column, excerpted from a book called "Free Range Kids" by Leonore Skenazy.
The author let her 9 year old son make his way home from Bloomingdales in New York City, using the subway.
This sounds outrageous at first glance, but once you read the piece, you may start to feel differently.
She raises a point that I think we don't hear enough-life is dangerous, but it is statistically less dangerous than we really think. We protect ourselves intensely about unlikely dangers (terrorism, swine flu) while we ignore more likely ones (seat belts).
Wow. Interesting. No, she is not a bad mom. Yet,I don't know if I could do that. I'm a huge chicken and cluck loudly at my poor children.
ReplyDeleteWe moved from Fresno, Ca. to escape crime and to hopefully find a safer and healthier place to raise kids. We landed here in a pop. of 1,300 tops. Kids ran wild here... all hours of the day and night. Yet nothing ever seems to happen to them.
Fortunately for my last one at home, now 17... I've relaxed. But then, he's tall enough and stocky enough that you don't really want to chance messing with him anyway.
I do find myself agreeing with her on some of this. Look at what has happened to Halloween. Do kids still go door to door where you live? Here they do, some. But not as many as there were 20 years ago when we moved here. Now there is a city Halloween party where they win candy prizes or you can drive into the big city and trick or treat the mall.
Gone are the days of Aunt Penny's popcorn balls and Mrs. Miller's home made brownies. No more apples, even though it's been proven that the razor blade in the apple is strictly an urban myth.
Now that is sad. And I'm guilty of accepting that paranoia myself. Jeez!
Oh, exactly.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm just as guilty as anyone else-I know the statistics.
But I also get that queasy feeling when you're talking about MY son.