America’s Worst Mom?
Mothering without smothering.
That’s the responsible balance Lenore Skenazy was seeking when she recently allowed her 9-year-old son to ride the New York City subway alone for the first time.
As a writer for the New York Sun newspaper, Skenazy penned a column about why she fully supported young Izzy’s desire to undertake his solo ride-of-passage. “Over-protectiveness is a danger in and of itself,” she wrote. “A child who thinks he can’t do anything on his own eventually can’t.”
Armed with a map, a subway fare card, and emergency cash but no cell phone, Izzy navigated the underground, transferred to a city bus, and arrived home, unescorted and unperturbed.
The kid was exhilarated.
The mother was excoriated.
“Sending your nine-year-old on the subway alone: child abuse?” begged a typical newspaper headline. A radio show caller wondered how Skenazy could give her son “a day of fun that would probably end in death.” And on the Today Show, an introduction to her was point-blank: “Is she an enlightened mom, or a really bad one?”
Bad or good, Skenazy had re-ignited an old debate about determining when a child is old enough to take on the world alone. In a follow-up newspaper column she titled “America’s Worst Mom?” Skenazy wrote, “People kept pulling me aside to say that they had been allowed to get around by themselves as kids.” But there was a dramatic generational twist. “In the next breath they admitted: They would never let their kids do the same.”
All of which prompted America’s worst mom to launch a blog called Free Range Kids, which she hopes will also launch a movement of “sane parenting.” Free Range’s mission statement gives a nod to protection—“We believe in helmets, car seats and safety belts”—but also a wink to future solo subway-riding kids: “We do NOT believe that every time school age children go outside, they need a security detail.”
Tell us what you think: What’s the responsible way to take off the training wheels and let kids go solo into their everyday world?
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Kids Today
Kids today are so over protected and it’s no wonder with the way the world has changed for the worse. Kids do not really know how to play or do much of anything anymore without an adult practically tied to them.
My grandson is almost 14 and I just started to allow him to go off alone with his friends. It is a sad situation but with all the sick perverts running loose we have no choice. We have created a generation of helpless and totally dependent children.
Laurie K | 1 year, 9 months ago
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What To Do?
Over-protecting – Under-protecting: there are valid arguments on both sides. Encouraging children to be independent is great until they become victims of a crime while traveling alone. The possibility is always there. Encouragement is a necessity in child upbringing, but subways and other public areas are still dangerous for children that are alone. There are predators out there. Regret is a bitter pill to swallow and never goes away. Parents should always be there for their kids, if they can. Don’t let the false pride of being ‘progressive and modern, etc.’ override safety for your kids.
John N | 1 year, 9 months ago
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Inflammatory Title
Calling this story “America’s Worst Mom” is damning her. Frame it that way and it’s a fast track to having people see her that way. It’s a biased title, even if you meant it only as a hook to get people reading.
This title minimizes the harm done to children by mothers (and fathers) smacking their kids, withholding food and other “lessons” being taught.
Those of us who grew up taking subways, walking to school by age 7 (about a mile) and taking public transportation in a large city (father was an M.D., mom was a stay at home mother) and then raised our own kids to be independent – do not see value in helicopter parenting.
Ann | 1 year, 9 months ago
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Kids wrapped in cotton wool
I grew up in England. Each week I rode the bus 8 miles by myself to ballet lessons from the age of eight. Granted it was a different time and place. Today we parent from a place of paranoia. Children need to be protected and they need our guidance, but being overly suspicious and paranoid does not help them.
A couple of years ago I visited Tokyo; anyone offended by the story of the mother in NY would be absolutely horrified to see kids as young as six navigating the Tokyo subway ALONE! I must admit I was a little taken aback; but these children are safe. Japan is a more homogeneous society and people would notice a child on the in trouble (and take action). Here we don’t notice one another or feel responsible for people beyond our own lives. That’s the REAL problem. In England there was recently some attention given to children who are taken to school by bus or car verses those who walk. The ones who walk are ultimately safer because they have more experience of pedestrian safety, contact with strangers etc., and they know what to watch out for – makes sense?
I would love to live somewhere where children are safe and have freedom to walk to school and bike to activities. (Any suggestions?) I think wrapping kids in cotton wool is doing them a huge disservice. We create a climate where we expect and to a degree accept awful things happen (at least to others.) We are not outraged enough at our kids being unsafe and having to be chaperoned everywhere. We just try to keep them in a safe bubble.
H C Jenkins | 1 year, 9 months ago
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Fontana
Thank you single parent, when I was reading these posts first thing I thought of was the gossip and self-righteous attitudes that others are displaying in regards to their neighbors. It doesn’t matter what we think is overprotecting or not and personally just because that 24 year old woman can’t comb her hair which I doubt is even true and I have a feeling there is something mentally wrong with the woman, doesn’t mean she doesn’t have anything of worth to offer to society. As long as your children are fed, happy, and by no means is any child/Adult 100% incapable of taking care of themselves there is something we all can do for ourselves even if it’s the bare minimal of taking a breath
Kina Barnum | 1 year, 9 months ago
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I never said she didn’t have worth because all humans do. And she is definitely cognitively capable to function as an adult, but she does not because her parents have made her afraid of everything and limited her life experiences (which are the main avenue by which we learn). Her comfort level is functioning as a CHILD, i.e. letting everyone do everything for her and protecting her from the world without any effort on her behalf.
If she can get through grad school with a degree in Information Technology, then I would wager that she has the mind capacity for society. She cannot get a job, however, because she’s still afraid to talk to strangers and never makes it through an interview. Hence why I said she is “pragmatically crippled”. Yes, her mother does everything for her because her mother HAS to feel needed.
In this day and time, a newborn baby can breath but that does not equate taking care of oneself. That’s the whole point of this particular blog. Breathing is not living anymore than tying shoelaces is the same as putting shoes on one’s feet.
I was simply shedding light on the fact that age is not always an accurate indicator to maturity and societal readiness. Some people are ready for the world at young ages like the son in this article and some people get there much later, but it’s impossible to peg an exact age. It would be narrow-minded and self-righteous to do such a thing.
Mia | 1 year, 9 months ago
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Why not...
give the kid a cell phone? That seems excessive to me. You can have a free range kid with a cell phone. I was a free range kid, on my bike from dusk until dawn but I can guarantee that if cell phones were available, I would have had one.
Julianne | 1 year, 9 months ago
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couldn't agree more
I just feel that people are so busy “dying” that they aren’t “living”. Living in fear of the possibilities is only a cop-out to merely exist, and existence isn’t real unless you accept and learn from life be it the good, the bad, or even the ugly, all of which are going to happen. As people, if we spend all our time walking on eggshells we’re never going to recognize that you have to break some eggs if you want to make an omelet.
Mia | 1 year, 9 months ago
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Know Your Kid
Hey, if she knew her son and felt he was ready (and street smart enough) for a solo excursion—be it NYC Subway or biking to small-town grocery—she had every right to let him do that. All kids are different, and mature at different rates in different ways.
Have to admit, I’d want mine to have a cell along though….
Jessi Chelle | 1 year, 9 months ago
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Birds have to fly at some time
I grew up in a small town where a couple of thousand mental patients lived south of town. Often they came to town walked around freely and stopped to rest at my grandfather and father’s business. Initial fear was offset by time and learning that they, like others, wanted merely to be treated kindly. Offer of a drink, shade of a tree on a summer day.
My parents were always concerned but not overly protective. I rode my bike to school on a US highway that was a major truck route by the elementary school. Many would say a simpler time, but truthfully we had as many idiots on the road then as we do now. Mom worried, but she allowed that sense of freedom in all of us. I look back and can say in part her allowing us to “fly” is why my brothers and sisters are self-reliant, confident and not afraid of life and what’s around the corner.
Arthur H. Moore | 1 year, 9 months ago
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