I Stumbled across an interesting article a day or two ago.  It was written by a woman a year ago who two years ago allowed her nine-year old child to find their way home on their own.  In New York City.  Including a ride on a subway.  The woman then wrote a column about it in the New York Sun. This caused a media sensation, mostly with cries of outrage about how she would endanger her child like that.  She even got to be on the Today show with some shrink telling her what a terrible mom she was.  In fact, she got labeled “America’s Worst Mom.”

Seriously?  There are moms out there physically and verbally abusing their kids and this one gets labeled “worst” because she gives her kid a little independence?  As she points out in the except from her book in the above article, the national crime rate is down.  I looked it up on Wikipedia, and she’s right, even two years after she let her kid get home on their own:  The overall crime rate for the country is roughly where it was in 1966.  That’s right, it is at its lowest point in thirty-four years!

The problem, of course, is exactly the reaction I mentioned above:  Media sensation.  Thanks to the internet and a bazillion channels on TV, we hear about the worst crimes quickly.  We hear about kids stolen from their beds at night and terrible things being done to them all over the place and we wonder how can we possibly let them go anywhere without wearing a suit of armor and a GPS tag.  The answer, to me, is simply that not only can we give them a bit more freedom but that we should give them more freedom, just as Lenore Skenazy, the woman who let her child ride a subway alone, did.

I was not coddled as a child, but that does not mean I was not protected.  When I was nine, my parents allowed me to freely roam around my neighborhood–a suburb of Indianapolis–and they did not worry terrible things would happen to me.  Mostly because such things did not.  The worst that happened–and I can’t remember a specific incident–was that I would come home with a cut or a bruise.  Being a young boy, I probably didn’t complain about such things; they were part of being a young boy.

Let’s look at this a different way.  If a thief is determined to steal your car, he or she will do it.  Car alarms and locks will be bypassed, as car thieves have learned how to get around such things.  If somebody wants to rob your house, same story, they’ll do it.  They won’t worry about alarms; they’ll run in, grab a few things, and run out.  If somebody wants to harm your child, quite frankly, it’s probably going to happen.  The sick, evil people who hurt other people’s kids have, as the media has been kind enough to note, taken their victims without much trouble.  They have stolen them from their very beds in some cases.  Certainly, we should take some precautions–I am not advocating a complete lack of responsibility on the part of parents–but in the end there is only so much we can do.  One of the worst things about being a parent is knowing your child may come to harm no matter what you do.

So Ms. Skenazy let her child go home on their own.  Later, she allowed her child to do other things on their own and, to date, no harm has been done.  The simple truth here is that the world is, by and large, a reasonably safe place.  Yes, there are dangers and bad things out there, but for the most part one can go from point A to point B without harm.  Educate your children, make sure they know what to do when things go wrong, and then take the chance they might need to use that education.

I will end with a note about another child.  In California, a man would likely have died had it not been for the education he gave his three-year-old girl.  He took the wrong medication and collapsed.  The girl knew something was wrong, so she left the house on her own and walked two blocks to the fire station.  Her parents often told her when they passed the station that firemen were good people and she should go to them if there was ever any trouble.  So she did, and they followed her home and saved her father’s life.

This is what it’s about, folks.  Teach your kids a little independence and what to do when things go wrong.  Then let them go free and you’ll be surprised how often things turn out okay.  Ms. Skenazy did, and her child is fine.  A California man is alive because he taught his child it’s okay to go get help.  Independence is the hardest thing we can give our kids, but I believe it is also the most important.