Lenore Skenazy has walked herself into a media storm by letting her 9 year old ride the Subway in New York city. Here is the article and the follow-up. Suffice it to say, she has a point and now a blog; freerangekids. The basic argument being that parents are a bunch of 'worry warts' and that there is not a lot of difference between 'very very very extremely unlikely' and 'impossible' when it comes to statements such as:
And, in any case, how sad it was that our daughter had to be 9 before we would let her ride her bike for an hour outside the front of the house without direct adult supervision let alone take public transport which she is entirely capable of doing.
If I let me kid go across the street to the park it is 'very very very extremely unlikely' that they will be abducted and beaten but if I let them play at home it is 'impossible' that they will be abducted and beaten.Of course, the storm she encountered makes me wonder whether we caged our kids because we really think we are protecting them or if we caged them because we are protecting ourselves from what other people will think.
And, in any case, how sad it was that our daughter had to be 9 before we would let her ride her bike for an hour outside the front of the house without direct adult supervision let alone take public transport which she is entirely capable of doing.
I have been very conscious of the disapproval of other parents when I proudly point out that all three of my children (aged 14, 12 and 9yo) ride to school, and have been doing so unaccompanied by an adult since they were 7-8yo.
ReplyDeleteMy response is that by encouraging a healthy lifestyle I am reducing the significant risk of obesity related disease, they enjoy the ride and sense of independence (and the older ones are proud to escort the youngest when necessary), and the risk of abduction on a Canberra bike trail at 8.30am is statistically insignificant.
None of this would make me feel any better in the case of an incident - but the more parents who encourage their children to play and exercise safely outside, the safer and healthier our communities become for all children.
I don't think this is just an issue of managing extreme probabilities. Skenazy herself frames the issue differently: as a choice between possible harm and cruelty (from and by a criminal) and certain harm and cruelty (from and by an overprotective parent.) People would do less caging of their kids (for better or worse) if other people thought that such caging was harmful.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's another problem of decision-making: at what age do you trust your kids? Trust (and its flipside, maturity) is relative; but independence (and, for that matter, harm to your kids) is closer to binary.
Although there might be some cultural, historical and demographic differences in the comparison, this incident reminded me of an article in Newsweek a few years back.
ReplyDeleteIt was the "My Turn" column, I think, and it was an American woman living in Tokyo explaining how her 6 year old son traveled alone everyday across the city from their home to his school. In doing so, he had to change trains at Shinjuku -- one of the world's busiest train stations. She discussed how it would be unheard of in the US, but how it was perfectly normal there.
I've tried Googling to find the article online, but couldn't locate it, unfortunately.
Thanks for this link. My kids are younger (6 and 4) and have never been anywhere by themselves, but I walked a mile and then caught a train to school when I was 9 - which wasn't unusual at the time.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to let my kids do the same, but I do think part of the issue (as you say) is the disapproval from other parents.
I am right in the middle of this. I have a 7 yo and a 3 yo. This summer will be tough for me. I am going to have to let go more. Last summer was really the first time we let my oldest outside without a parent around. The boundaries are just going to get bigger and bigger each year.
ReplyDeleteThe best way to get people in the USA to do something is by making them afraid. If they are afraid then they act or don't act whatever may be the case.
This is such a tough one. I roamed the streets of my city as a child, but wouldn't consider letting my kids do it. Why in the world do I feel this way?
ReplyDeleteI have often thought how much better off we would be if we didn't have newspapers reporting on crimes. Because a very rare incident - a child abducted and killed, for instance - is so widely publizised.
Were it not for papers I, personally, wouldn't know that such crimes even existed. I would know of house burgling, but not of violence or robberies or rape or mugging or murder.
Try to think for a second: have you known of any of these things by personal experience, or from it happening to someone you know, who could tell you of it?
Well, no, in most cases. It IS rare, but somehow we feel that there is great risk.
If papers only printed statistics once a year, we would have some perspective: so many kids in a 1000 died from cancer, so many killed in traffic, so many commited suicide, so many killed by a parent, so many killed by a stranger, so many dead from lightningstrike, etc.
You see? Then we would know what to worry about, or rather, not to worry at all.