Today I again found myself perusing the world wide web out of sheer boredom. I happened across this article from April 1 of 2008 on the New York Sun's website. I thought I would share it with you and give you yet another day off of searching the web for empty entertainment. The article is title: Why I Let My 9 Year-old Ride the Subway Alone. It reads as follows:
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"I left my 9-year-old at Bloomingdale's (the original one) a couple weeks ago. Last seen, he was in first floor handbags as I sashayed out the door.
Bye-bye! Have fun!
And he did. He came home on the subway and bus by himself.
Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn't strike me as that daring, either. Isn't New York as safe now as it was in 1963? It's not like we're living in downtown Baghdad.
Anyway, for weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.
No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn't want to lose it. And no, I didn't trail him, like a mommy private eye. I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn't do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, "Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I'll abduct this adorable child instead."
Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.
Long story longer, and analyzed, to boot: Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It's not. It's debilitating — for us and for them.
And yet —
"How would you have felt if he didn't come home?" a New Jersey mom of four, Vicki Garfinkle, asked.
Guess what, Ms. Garfinkle: I'd have been devastated. But would that just prove that no mom should ever let her child ride the subway alone?
No. It would just be one more awful but extremely rare example of random violence, the kind that hyper parents cite as proof that every day in every way our children are more and more vulnerable.
"Carlie Brucia — I don't know if you're familiar with that case or not, but she was in Florida and she did a cut-through about a mile from her house … and midday, at 11 in the morning, she was abducted by a guy who violated her several times, killed her, and left her behind a church."
That's the story that the head of safetynet4kids.com, Katharine Francis, immediately told me when I asked her what she thought of my son getting around on his own. She runs a company that makes wallet-sized copies of a child's photo and fingerprints, just in case.
Well of course I know the story of Carlie Brucia. That's the problem. We all know that story — and the one about the Mormon girl in Utah and the one about the little girl in Spain — and because we do, we all run those tapes in our heads when we think of leaving our kids on their own. We even run a tape of how we'd look on Larry King.
"I do not want to be the one on TV explaining my daughter's disappearance," a father, Garth Chouteau, said when we were talking about the subway issue.
These days, when a kid dies, the world — i.e., cable TV — blames the parents. It's simple as that. And yet, Trevor Butterworth, a spokesman for the research center STATS.org, said, "The statistics show that this is an incredibly rare event, and you can't protect people from very rare events. It would be like trying to create a shield against being struck by lightning."
Justice Department data actually show the number of children abducted by strangers has been going down over the years. So why not let your kids get home from school by themselves?
"Parents are in the grip of anxiety and when you're anxious, you're totally warped," the author of "A Nation of Wimps," Hara Estroff Marano, said. We become so bent out of shape over something as simple as letting your children out of sight on the playground that it starts seeming on par with letting them play on the railroad tracks at night. In the rain. In dark non-reflective coats.
The problem with this everything-is-dangerous outlook is that over-protectiveness is a danger in and of itself. A child who thinks he can't do anything on his own eventually can't.
Meantime, my son wants his next trip to be from Queens. In my day, I doubt that would have struck anyone as particularly brave. Now it seems like hitchhiking through Yemen.
Here's your MetroCard, kid. Go.
lskenazy@yahoo.com"
.
........wow
Could someone hand me a roll of duck tape please? Because, in the words of Glenn Beck, I think my head is about to explode. But before I lay into this article, I would like to preface my response by saying that I do not doubt that this mother loves her son. I'm sure she loves him like any mother love their son. I just think she is terribly ignorant and naive.
I don't have a whole lot to say, just some general comments. I don't think I need to say too much. The article speaks for itself.
"I left my 9-year-old at Bloomingdale's (the original one) a couple weeks ago. Last seen, he was in first floor handbags as I sashayed out the door." - I'm not going to harp on this point BUT first of all, why is a 9 year old boy looking at handbags?
"Isn't New York as safe now as it was in 1963?" -No. And even if the numbers are the same, they are still astronomical. I don't think it would have been very wise to let your 9 year-old ride the subway in 1963.
"So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn't want to lose it." - Are you kidding me Mrs. Skenazy? You don't want to lose your phone, but you will send your 9 year old child out into the heart of the Big Apple? If you didn't trust him enough to bring your cell phone back, how did you trust him to bring himself back!?!?
"'How would you have felt if he didn't come home?' a New Jersey mom of four, Vicki Garfinkle, asked.Guess what, Ms. Garfinkle: I'd have been devastated. But would that just prove that no mom should ever let her child ride the subway alone? No. It would just be one more awful but extremely rare example of random violence, the kind that hyper parents cite as proof that every day in every way our children are more and more vulnerable." - Guess what, random violence is reduced by responsible citizens. If I walk in front of a tractor trailer doing 80 mph and get killed, that is not random. That is stupid.
"These days, when a kid dies, the world — i.e., cable TV — blames the parents. It's simple as that. And yet, Trevor Butterworth, a spokesman for the research center STATS.org, said, 'The statistics show that this is an incredibly rare event, and you can't protect people from very rare events. It would be like trying to create a shield against being struck by lightning.'" - I agree with Mr Butterworth... kind of. You can't protect your kids from everything. But you can try. Not every tragedy comes at you with the unstoppable force of a bolt of lighting. There is a line between being paranoid and being protective. There is nothing wrong with taking reasonable precautions in your parenting. Furthermore, I am not saying that parents are responsible for tragedies such as school shootings, or bus accidents. However, there are measures that parents should take to watch out for their children. And you want to know the sad fact, sometimes parents are to blame. Sometimes people don't think. Sometimes there is someone to blame.
I am not a parent, but I could think of one way that would have been a safer way to build this child's confidence in himself. How about do everything you did, but ride along with him. Hang out with him while he navigates. Have him call the shots. It would also be a great way for you to spend some time with your child. Is this really a lesson he has to learn by himself? Isn't there another way to go about doing this without putting his life in danger? Or did that just make a more interesting article for you to write Mrs. Skenazy?
People will make mistakes. Until the end of time this is a truth we have to live with. Parents will drop the ball. Does this necessarily mean they are bad parents? No. But the defining attribute of a parent is how he or she takes responsibility for their actions, and prevents future mistakes. There are more than enough cases of violence in our world today that we can learn from. As long as their are people out there who do not think they are in control of their environment, there are other people out there who will try to run it.
p.s.
It just so happens I will be in New York City for the first time this weekend. Needless to say, even I am a little nervous about challenging the infamous New York Subway. Maybe I could get this 9 year-old to be my tour guide.
.
"I left my 9-year-old at Bloomingdale's (the original one) a couple weeks ago. Last seen, he was in first floor handbags as I sashayed out the door.
Bye-bye! Have fun!
And he did. He came home on the subway and bus by himself.
Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn't strike me as that daring, either. Isn't New York as safe now as it was in 1963? It's not like we're living in downtown Baghdad.
Anyway, for weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.
No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn't want to lose it. And no, I didn't trail him, like a mommy private eye. I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn't do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, "Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I'll abduct this adorable child instead."
Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.
Long story longer, and analyzed, to boot: Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It's not. It's debilitating — for us and for them.
And yet —
"How would you have felt if he didn't come home?" a New Jersey mom of four, Vicki Garfinkle, asked.
Guess what, Ms. Garfinkle: I'd have been devastated. But would that just prove that no mom should ever let her child ride the subway alone?
No. It would just be one more awful but extremely rare example of random violence, the kind that hyper parents cite as proof that every day in every way our children are more and more vulnerable.
"Carlie Brucia — I don't know if you're familiar with that case or not, but she was in Florida and she did a cut-through about a mile from her house … and midday, at 11 in the morning, she was abducted by a guy who violated her several times, killed her, and left her behind a church."
That's the story that the head of safetynet4kids.com, Katharine Francis, immediately told me when I asked her what she thought of my son getting around on his own. She runs a company that makes wallet-sized copies of a child's photo and fingerprints, just in case.
Well of course I know the story of Carlie Brucia. That's the problem. We all know that story — and the one about the Mormon girl in Utah and the one about the little girl in Spain — and because we do, we all run those tapes in our heads when we think of leaving our kids on their own. We even run a tape of how we'd look on Larry King.
"I do not want to be the one on TV explaining my daughter's disappearance," a father, Garth Chouteau, said when we were talking about the subway issue.
These days, when a kid dies, the world — i.e., cable TV — blames the parents. It's simple as that. And yet, Trevor Butterworth, a spokesman for the research center STATS.org, said, "The statistics show that this is an incredibly rare event, and you can't protect people from very rare events. It would be like trying to create a shield against being struck by lightning."
Justice Department data actually show the number of children abducted by strangers has been going down over the years. So why not let your kids get home from school by themselves?
"Parents are in the grip of anxiety and when you're anxious, you're totally warped," the author of "A Nation of Wimps," Hara Estroff Marano, said. We become so bent out of shape over something as simple as letting your children out of sight on the playground that it starts seeming on par with letting them play on the railroad tracks at night. In the rain. In dark non-reflective coats.
The problem with this everything-is-dangerous outlook is that over-protectiveness is a danger in and of itself. A child who thinks he can't do anything on his own eventually can't.
Meantime, my son wants his next trip to be from Queens. In my day, I doubt that would have struck anyone as particularly brave. Now it seems like hitchhiking through Yemen.
Here's your MetroCard, kid. Go.
lskenazy@yahoo.com"
.
........wow
Could someone hand me a roll of duck tape please? Because, in the words of Glenn Beck, I think my head is about to explode. But before I lay into this article, I would like to preface my response by saying that I do not doubt that this mother loves her son. I'm sure she loves him like any mother love their son. I just think she is terribly ignorant and naive.
I don't have a whole lot to say, just some general comments. I don't think I need to say too much. The article speaks for itself.
"I left my 9-year-old at Bloomingdale's (the original one) a couple weeks ago. Last seen, he was in first floor handbags as I sashayed out the door." - I'm not going to harp on this point BUT first of all, why is a 9 year old boy looking at handbags?
"Isn't New York as safe now as it was in 1963?" -No. And even if the numbers are the same, they are still astronomical. I don't think it would have been very wise to let your 9 year-old ride the subway in 1963.
"So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn't want to lose it." - Are you kidding me Mrs. Skenazy? You don't want to lose your phone, but you will send your 9 year old child out into the heart of the Big Apple? If you didn't trust him enough to bring your cell phone back, how did you trust him to bring himself back!?!?
"'How would you have felt if he didn't come home?' a New Jersey mom of four, Vicki Garfinkle, asked.Guess what, Ms. Garfinkle: I'd have been devastated. But would that just prove that no mom should ever let her child ride the subway alone? No. It would just be one more awful but extremely rare example of random violence, the kind that hyper parents cite as proof that every day in every way our children are more and more vulnerable." - Guess what, random violence is reduced by responsible citizens. If I walk in front of a tractor trailer doing 80 mph and get killed, that is not random. That is stupid.
"These days, when a kid dies, the world — i.e., cable TV — blames the parents. It's simple as that. And yet, Trevor Butterworth, a spokesman for the research center STATS.org, said, 'The statistics show that this is an incredibly rare event, and you can't protect people from very rare events. It would be like trying to create a shield against being struck by lightning.'" - I agree with Mr Butterworth... kind of. You can't protect your kids from everything. But you can try. Not every tragedy comes at you with the unstoppable force of a bolt of lighting. There is a line between being paranoid and being protective. There is nothing wrong with taking reasonable precautions in your parenting. Furthermore, I am not saying that parents are responsible for tragedies such as school shootings, or bus accidents. However, there are measures that parents should take to watch out for their children. And you want to know the sad fact, sometimes parents are to blame. Sometimes people don't think. Sometimes there is someone to blame.
I am not a parent, but I could think of one way that would have been a safer way to build this child's confidence in himself. How about do everything you did, but ride along with him. Hang out with him while he navigates. Have him call the shots. It would also be a great way for you to spend some time with your child. Is this really a lesson he has to learn by himself? Isn't there another way to go about doing this without putting his life in danger? Or did that just make a more interesting article for you to write Mrs. Skenazy?
People will make mistakes. Until the end of time this is a truth we have to live with. Parents will drop the ball. Does this necessarily mean they are bad parents? No. But the defining attribute of a parent is how he or she takes responsibility for their actions, and prevents future mistakes. There are more than enough cases of violence in our world today that we can learn from. As long as their are people out there who do not think they are in control of their environment, there are other people out there who will try to run it.
p.s.
It just so happens I will be in New York City for the first time this weekend. Needless to say, even I am a little nervous about challenging the infamous New York Subway. Maybe I could get this 9 year-old to be my tour guide.
Read the story for yourself here: http://www.nysun.com/editorials/why-i-let-my-9-year-old-ride-subway-alone
4 comments:
You should stop into Bloomingdales and buy yourself a handbag.
I didn't want to risk Danica walking out on me.
That's great. I don't disagree with the spirit of what this mom is trying to do. Too many of our child-rearing systems have been built to indoctrinate children and stifle their creativity and independence. But, there are many wiser ways she could of chosen to do so. I wonder what the kid will want to try when he is 10? Will she drop him off in Zambia?
Come on don't be so hard on the mom. Maybe she just gave in to the relentless begging of her son to let him try a new experience. I can hear it now, "but Kenny said he does it all the time", Mr. Anderson said it would be an educational experience"! Can you say California road trip?
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