How to answer the people who think you’re nuts?
Remember the “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” that used to run in Mad?
That’s what we need here at Free Range Kids. As a recent email from “Skyscraper” put it: “This site needs a seperate idea page for what to say when others question the ‘free-range’ parenting approach.”
So true. What do you say when someone thinks you’re nuts for letting your 8-year-old jump rope by herself on your driveway, or for letting your pre-teen walk to school?
I’ve been doing a lot of radio interviews and I turn into a self-righteous bore when the host inevitably asks, “How could you let your son take the subway alone?”
I quote crime stats that show a child is 40 times more likely to die in a car accident than by being abducted. I appeal to common sense. I remind people that a couple of generations back, a 9-year-old probably would have had a part-time job. And then I ask the interviewer, “Didn’t you get to run around and do things by yourself when you were a kid?”
“Sure!” comes the answer, but “times have changed.” Once they get that out of the way, they go in for the kill: “How would you have felt if something DID happen to your son?”
“Uh…bad?”
So much for my years of media training.
What I really want to say is: “Terrible! Earth-shaken! I’d be cursing God — and especially the radio hosts who asked Him to zap my son just to teach me a lesson! But, Mr. Fulminator, sir, don’t you see there’s something sick about immediately and endlessly envisioning the very worst? Isn’t that the very definition of paranoia? And isn’t it wrong to teach kids that they are incapable of taking care of themselves, that they can’t trust their community, and that it is better for them to live a virtual life inside, where life is programmed, than a real life, outside, where they can glory in the wonders of the world? Are you ever going to let your kid GROW UP?”
That’s what I’d like to be able to get out, but it sounds a little hysterial and it’s not exactly pithy. So if you have any amazing zingers that really seem to open people’s eyes (or shut their mouths), we are all eager to hear them.
And even more eager to start using them.
– Lenore
Filed under: Uncategorized
Probably not helpful, but a variation on one of my favorite snarky responses to dumb/prying questions:
Them: Why are you endangering your child so?!
You: Didn’t I share my philosophy/reason/answer with you already?
Them (puzzled, curious): No.
You: Then it must not be any of your business!
Stick to your guns and your beliefs. I first heard about you and your son on the web, and then later on Talk of the Nation. I’m the father of two small children (almost 2 and almost 5), and while we live in the suburbs of Portland, you’ve inspired me to always make sure I’m not smothering them all the time, and depriving them of (safe, sane) ways of exploring the world, becoming more self-reliant, and being better people when they grow up.
So, thank you!
I remind people that it’s my job to raise ADULTS. The kids won’t be kids forever - and wouldn’t it be nice if they weren’t terrified of the entire world?
I tell people that I don’t just shove my kids out the door unarmed. I taught them their address, phone number, how to read a map (seriously) and each kid even has a Google Map of our neighbourhood in his backpack. They have a card with all sorts of information in there, too - home phone #, cell #s for me and Dad, work #s, address, emergency contacts, etc.
I go out with them on new adventures until they’re confident and competent. I adjust the freedoms according to their age, ability and comfort level.
And if one of the kids tells me that they’re scared (as opposed to nervous) I just don’t let them do it alone - whatever it is. THAT would be wrong. Letting them explore and learn about the world? Right. Definitely the right thing to do.
Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions still runs in Mad Kids!
“no, I’m afraid my kids will grow fat and lazy staying inside all the time.”
“no, aren’t you worried you’ll hit another kid while driving yours all over town?”
“no, this is the front of the line and we’re all standing backwards!”
“How would you have felt if something DID happen to your [ten year old] son?”
I’d feel the same way a parent would feel if something happened to their 18 year old child, 25 year old child, or 40 year old child. But that doesn’t justify a parent controlling the behavior of their adult children. The responsibility and empowerment I’m giving my son today will make my son safer and more successful for the rest of his life.
I am thrilled with the idea of free range parenting, but I too have people criticize my choices. I had friends that were horrified I let my 6 year old run into the gas station alone to buy a snack while I filled the gas tank. I thought this was a rather minor thing compared to some of the other things she is able to do. I generally just say that every child is different, and I am raising her as I see fit. After hearing about the mother who was arrested for leaving her toddler in a locked, alarm-set car that was within sight at all times at a Walmart loading zone, I am more determined than ever to raise my child with a sense of reality about what is and is not a danger in this world. This site is a wonderful place of support for these values!
Brad’s response there was sensational.
Let’s see what the overprotective contingent thinks when their adult kids refuse to leave home and get jobs because they’ve been raised to be frightened of the big bad world and to distrust their own abilities.
How about: The words ’surveillance’ and ‘parenting’ are not to be confused!
If I do my parenting job well, then my kids will not need to be under my constant surveillance. If I parent well, then they will have skills to navigate the real world, and common sense, too!
They’ll never be able to exercise their own minds, their own judgment, if I am there 24/7 telling them what to do.
“Of course I’d feel horrible. But I’d also feel horrible if he/she was killed in a car accident or died of a rare disease. I’m not going to keep my kids out of cars and in plastic bubbles because I’m afraid they will die in car accidents or of rare diseases. I take reasonable precautions.
The world isn’t really much more dangerous than it was when I was his/her age; we just know more about the dangers. When I was his/her age I was allowed/made to do (all kinds of dangerous things) and we don’t do that now. So, my kid is still safer than I was as a child.”
Snappy Answers to Dumb Questions:
Q: When did you start letting your 9 year-old son ride the subway alone?
A: After he got his first DWI.
Q: Aren’t you afraid when your kids don’t come home on time?
A: Nope, I make them take a time-reactive poison pill before they leave. They’re always early.
Q: Do you let your children play with guns?
A: Only in the pitch dark on the West Side Highway.
Q: How do you know if your child has misbehaved?
A: He fails his nightly polygraph test.
Q: When will you let your sons date?
A: When they qualify to vote…in Algiers
Q: What do you do when your kids don’t finish their vegetables?
A: I combine their nightly bath with waterboarding.
Finally
Q: Will you ever let your sons live with a woman without the benefit of marriage?
A: Only if it’s me.
love this “free range kids” concept - just came across this blog…i’m so tired of the fear-mongering. i actually tried to connect up school communities thru a simple web application i found (called schoolspace - its on facebook) and was thrown into a tizzy with all the potential dangers - there is always a sense of impending doom rather than looking at the potential benefits..it is so confusing and limiting!!
“Q: When did you start letting your 9 year-old son ride the subway alone?
A: After he got his first DWI.”
Heh heh.
This reminds me of some of responses I’ve read for rude strangers who lecture you about breastfeeding if they see you buying formula, like “I tried it, but all the crack in my system made the baby nervous and irritable.” (My son was fed through a tube for the first four months of his life, so I was particularly sensitive about that issue.)
Because of his ongoing medical problems, I’m *always* walking a fine line between keeping him safe medically and feeling like a hysterical parent. I don’t need to add unlikely scenarios of stranger abduction to my list of things to worry about! So I think my answer, if anyone is ever rude enough to challenge me, will be something like this: “Compared to having to make the decision to have him flown several hundred miles to another city for major surgery at three weeks old, and then watching as he nearly died from an infection in his IV… letting him play in the front yard reeeeallllly doesn’t seem all that scary.”
That should make them uncomfortable enough to not bother me again… or bring out the good part of them that made them care enough about my child’s welfare to try to do something about what they see as my lax parenting.
I wish you’d said what you wanted to say. I don’t think it was hysterical at all, I think it was an entirely reasonable and honest response. Besides, staying calm will only take you so far… maybe people would believe you actually have your child’s best interests at heart if you get a little heated. On the other hand, screw ‘em. If they don’t get it now, they probably never will.
I wish you’d said what you wanted to say. I don’t think it was hysterical at all, I think it was an entirely reasonable and honest response. Besides, staying calm will only take you so far… maybe people would believe you actually have your child’s best interests at heart if you get a little heated. On the other hand, screw ‘em. If they don’t get it now, they probably never will.
Thankfully my family and I live in a suburban town where children’s freedom and free-range nature is cherished. It really is a diamond in the rough and a wonderful place to raise children. It is only when we leave town that the hysteria begins.
I tell people they will be a lot happier overall if they stopped watching television, specifically the television news. I think that is the root of the problem. Really. Fear driven infotainment plays on our psyche and distorts our perception of risk. People become blind to the fact that news, by definition, is stuff that doesn’t happen very often.
Numerous studies have shown that happiness increases as tube time decreases.
As an adoptive mom, I get stupid comments alllll the time.
My favorite free range comment: “The way these two fight, a kidnapper would bring them back after 5 minutes…”
I was talking to my own mother - who was considered free range when she was raising me (I’m 23) - and she said that the thing with abductions etc. is that no one is going to abduct a kid on the subway who knows where s/he is going and has a *purpose*. There are plenty of vulnerable kids out there who have run away from home or are homeless for people to prey on.
Like people said, if you equip your kids for the situation, they will be fine.
One of the worst stories that I know is my friend’s mother who is the second-most overprotective parent I know, well, her kid died in a car accident 3 weeks after getting his licence (no alcohol or drugs were involved and it wasn’t suicide). There is no way you can protect your kids *all* the time.
“Times have changed” is not an answer! Of course, times have changed, it’s what times do. Ask the people who tell you that times have changed to prove you that times have changed in a way that makes life on their own more dangerous for kids. (If they answer “terrorism”, they lose. “Terrorism” isn’t attacking kids on the way back from school.)
I agree with Violet about adults….
I always tell people I am raising adults, not children. There are plenty of 6 foot tall children, already.
My other favorite, when asked what parentlng style I ascribe to, is benign neglect. It usually shuts them up and we don’t have to play with their kids either.
Ugh, I hate “times have changed” and “it’s not the same world we grew up in”.
Damn straight. It’s a *safer* world than the one I grew up in, than the world kids grew up in half a generation before me - and it’s just as safe as the world my mother grew up in. (Maybe safer. When she was my age, my mother turned down a dance with a man who turned out to be Son of Sam, and I’ve never had the chance to reject a serial killer yet.)
When I was as young as 5 years old and growing up in the INNER-CITY I would frequently play outside ALONE since I was an only child. My mom would be in the house. I have a 5th grader and a 4th grader who play outside TOGETHER in our yard in a SMALL TOWN and she freaks out that I let them go out without me. When I bring up that she used to let me out alone in a big city at a much younger age, she uses the “Times Have Changed” line. I never know what to say to her either.
I feel that I am often referred to (behind my back, of course) as a lazy parent when in reality, I seem to be a free-range or natural consequences one. I’m so glad this blog is here! Maybe it’s because I have all boys that I’m not so paranoid, but good grief, even if there is a
molesterchester on the direct route home I figure if my children are walking home in a big group and act on what they’ve been taught about stranger danger they’re not going to get “got”.“… but times have changed.”
You might want to answer that with
“Yes. For the better. So what’s the problem?”
Wow. It is sad that:
a - some of you folks are agonizing & angsting over letting your kids be kids
b - you are letting the opinions of others dictate your child rearing.
Get out of your kids way, relax, let them be kids and watch them grow & flourish. Get over yourselves.
shocked: MALAYSIA MAKE NEW RULES FOR CHRISTIANS!!
EVERY CHRISTIANS MUST SAY “ALLAH” RATHER THAN “GOD” & DONT SAY “TRINITY” ANYMORE..
This is because English language not suitable anymore because the original Bible is in Arabic.
The full story is here: ckasih.blogspot.com
I have explained my philosophy as ever increasing bands of freedom. My 3 year old has free reign in the house and back yard. He’s allowed to go to a certain expansion joint on the driveway. My seven year old can ride his scooter to a friend’s house 2 blocks away but not allowed to cross a main street to get to the park. When I was 7, I frequently rode my bike to the store (3/4 mile) to buy a treat or some small item. I wasn’t allowed to buy milk until I was older because it would have been too hard to carry home on my bike. Times haven’t changed. abductions are down. People have changed. Oh, and my kids wear helmets, ride in car seats, etc. My kids are more independant and capable in my humble opinion than many of their peers. They can also be more considerate and observant of their surroundings. I’ve never been particularly good at snappy comebacks, but I think it’s good to point out the utterly dangerous things that we did as kids.
I want my children to be raised free range, not as veal.
My “kids” are now 18 and 19, and they were raised as hybrids
My husband and I divorced when they were very young and we disagreed strongly about how to raise them.
When the children were with me they were given small pieces of responsibility at a time and when they handled it well they were able to get the next bit. Once they figured out that responsibility lead to freedom they were right on board.
My son is now living at home part time while attending university, and I see a lot of him and his girlfriend. She is also 19 and was definitely not raised free range. When they are planning to go somewhere she is terrified of taking the bus or train on her own if she hasn’t used that route many times before. She’s not afraid of strangers, but of making a mistake, taking the wrong bus and ending up somewhere else. She is a lovely girl and I adore her, but I’m saddened every time they make plans to go somewhere new.
This is what confining our children during their growth period does. It leaves us with adults who are afraid of trying in case they make a mistake.
How about (wait a beat)
How do you think I’d feel?
or, and this would only work if asked in a true spirit of inquiry without any attitude,
Why are you asking? Do you think I wouldn’t be devastated?
then of course follow up with stats on actual danger of the escapade, danger of not allowing independence and the general culture of fear that rules instead of logic.
I’ve been raised ‘free-ranged’, I’m now 26 years old and I’m so happy my parents did everything they did and let me do all the things I have been able to do.
Thanks to them I’ve been traveling all over the world by myself since I was 17 years old, experiencing life to it’s fullest. And best of all, it has made me brave, I’m not scared of much (except dogs… for some odd reason
) and always willing to try new things.
Yes, some bad stuff has happened because of some choices I made when I was a teen, but I’m very proud to say that I’ve been able to overcome all the bad things by myself, with the guidance of my parents.
Please, everyone who is raising their kids like this, please keep doing it, I’m sure you’ll all raise wonderful, smart kids. Hopefully all the fearmongering will stop
Even if one were to accept the premise that the world is becoming a more dangerous place, wouldn’t that make it a greater imperative to prepare your child for it now — before they become an adult in an-even-more-dangerous world? Sheltering a child is an easy cop-out for parents unwilling or incapable of raising a well-adjusted person. The real tragedy is that we — as a society — are raising a generation of paranoid neurotics who will be unable to function outside their gated communities.
Of course the premise is wrong to begin with: violent crime has been dropping for decades.
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
“Better to die free than to live as a slave.”
OK so i have a 5 year old son and a 3 year old daughter. We live in a COUNTY not town a COUNTY that’s total population is ohhh about 18 thousand I’d say…..our town is about 3 thousand. Our county is ohhh about 40 miles by about 60 miles I’d say….give or take a litttle so Needless to say we’re pretty spaced out over here lol. What I dont get is this. Why are people so concerned about letting their kids play in the yard? I mean sheesh my 3 year old roams our 5 acres like she owns it lol. She goes down by the creek GASP! she gets IN THE CREEK ! Bigger GASP! she pets “strange dogs” lol and she walks alone between my home and my inlaws which is on the back half of the 5 acres….which means a WHOLE 200 yards away! thats like GASP! 600 FEET! lol. People are so NUTS. I mean I wouldnt take her to walmart and leave her or anything I mean obviously she’d be scared and yes there is always that potential threat. But what is WRONG with letting her have enough freedom to play outside, play in the creek, pet dogs, talk to neighbors, walk to my inlaws, walk to my neighbors house (2 MORE acres over lol). I mean she’s 3 and she’s done this since ohhhh I dono she could walk and so has my 5 year old. I just dont understand ppl who think they have to sit on the porch while their kids play in their own yard, ESPECIALLY here. I mean sure there is always a threat…but geeze if they’re gonna get snatched outta your yard, they could just as easily get snatched out of your arms right?
OH yeah and I was a free range kid I am 25 now, my parents sent me to Europe when I was 15….with 10 0ther kids LOL and ONE adult. It was pretty awesome..I called home often and had TONS of fun and it was a great experience and NOw that I am married and have 2 kids I am glad that I Had a chance to travel the world while I was younger. I cannot understand how a dad could follow a kid on her school trip for 4 days to “keep her safe” lol. He has too much time on his hands if he’s doin that crazy stuff. Sheesh ever heard of helicopter parenting?
Denial and projection of fears run very very deep. Facts don’t even crack the surface I’ve found. Responding to this kind of stuff, when you have to do it, is really tough. I think the starting place is to switch it back to the questioner’s own feelings. “So you’re frightened that something might happen?” and then delve deeper into why and exactly where the fear comes from. But ultimately, many times, there seems to be a need to believe other ways can’t work because if they do it is a huge worldview threat.
When people use “times have changed” fear mongering techniques to try to convince me to do anything, I always remind them of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. That seems to help put things in perspective … well, at least for people who know enough about history to identify despots and conquerers of times past.
[...] 2008 Uncategorized As someone who has, I hope, three reasonably decent sproggs I found this a really pertinent post on the Free Range Kids blog. We’re living in a culture which does so much to engender fear [...]
I find, these days, people don’t mind their own business… all hail freerange children
Sometimes, old men in white vans DO actually follow the school buses around, string at the little boys, and driving off when any adult approaches. And the cops will tell you that he hasn’t done anything illegal.
And sometimes guys in pickup trucks DO actually try to lure little girls from your daughter’s brownie troop into their trucks, in broad daylight. And sometimes it happens to more than one of little girls in the troop over the course of a three day span.
So what I’m saying, is that I’m having a very difficult time raising free range kids when there are REAL threats in my neighborhood., and despite the statistics, which I believe, about the low odds of my kids getting abducted by a stranger, there is now, and have been in the past, strangers, displaying predatory behavior, in my area of town.
The threat may be low, but it is real, and when it gets real, there’s few things more frightening, and I, for one, can excuse a little paranoia in the mean time.
The other debate in our neighborhood is whether it’s okay to walk up the 2-lane (heavily trafficked) road, because it lacks sidewalks. Although it does have a 30-foot grass berm on either side.
rambling done.
[...] This post talks about how to deal with people who basically raise their kids in fear - not letting them out of their sight. Ever. While I also think that is a bit extreme, I’m not sure I’d be as extreme as some parents are either as far as letting a kid ride the subway alone or something like that. The poster said she quotes stats such as kids being 40 times more likely to die in a car crash than to be abducted. That may be the case, but my argument would be that a lot of criminals commit crimes of opportunity. If a kid isn’t out on the street alone to be abducted, he won’t be abducted. If he is, there is always the chance. I’m not saying never let that kid out of your sight necessarily, but use some common sense. If there are more kids out on the streets alone, there are more opportunities for kidnappers to abduct them. [...]
How would you feel if despite all your coddling and paranoia, something happens to YOUR child? 90 percent or so of non-auto accidents happen at home . So he’s safer elsewhere!
People need to get real. Every time someone justifies helicopter parenting their kids by harping on sexual predators I want to ask if they’ve vetted their boyfriends and male relatives, because the VAST, VAST majority of abusers are heterosexual men their victims already know.
My sons are 25 and 29, and while I am in the direction of an overprotective mother, I raised them “freerange” as I see it descriibed on this site (they always wore bike helmets and seatbelts, as well as protective sports gear — to me those dangers are more real, more probable and preventable at much lower cost than the hypothetical abduction danger of letting them walk to school)
The biggest downside to me of the anti-freerange troops is that my kids had to walk to school alone (yeah, they had each other, but neither saw that as a plus). As near as I can tell, and I put a lot of work into finding them “walkpool buddies”, no other child in their grade school walked to school. This made it both boring (the walk was about half a mile) and socially unacceptable. I remember when I walked to school, I would encounter maybe 50-75 other kids in my 1 mile walk. It was arguably the best part of the day (especially the walk home). My kids didn’t have that experience.
So freerange families need to band together, so that kids can find other walkers/bikers/commuters. I’m glad you are bring this to public attention — perhaps my grandchildren will have the joys of walking to school, playing on their own, etc. with other kids, rather than being that kid whose mother doesn’t care what happens to him.
My sons are 5, 7 and 9. We live in Haarlem in the Netherlands and they do pretty much what they want, though 5 and 7 are not allowed to cross the fastish parked up road two streets away on their own.
The scariest stuff that has happened to them was in the home: the two eldest went mountain climing out of a roof window (we suppressed that fiercely) and middle one almost set fire to his bedroom by knocking over a halogen desklamp onto a pillow.
Heaven bless flame retardant pillows and smoke alarms.
Unsnappy comeback
“socialogical and historical research shows conclusively that the “it was safer/better when I was a kid (e.g. more than 20 years ago)” belief has been reported since records began. If it were true we would truly be in the pits now…
I got a reasonable sound bite to answer the “wouldn’t you feel horrible if something happened to them?” question by combining Jenne’s lead-in with the “40 times” stat:
“Of course I’d feel horrible. But I’d also feel horrible if she was killed in a traffic accident or died of a rare disease. And I’m not going to give up on driving her around despite the fact that she’s 40 times more likely to die in a car wreck than be abducted.”
“So freerange families need to band together, so that kids can find other walkers/bikers/commuters. ”
This is the smartest thing I’ve read here. A child alone is in more danger than in a group. But it’s hard to find other kids out there in the world. Someone above said “If there are more kids out on the streets alone, there are more opportunities for kidnappers to abduct them.” but what they don’t get is that more kids on the streets means they WON’T BE ALONE.
What ways can we connect people in the same area? Meetups?
We’ll be looking for a house in a year and what I wouldn’t give for a list of neighborhoods with lower traffic and kids out playing.
I think that you can let them be a little free but I also think you have to have some responsiblility but most of the time as parents you are too busy ignoring your child and then you are offended when called a bad parent. Maybe you should be active in raising your own off spring and then you don’t have to be so offended!
I was raised “free range” by parents whose only rules were that I would have to live by the consequences of my actions. They did not ask (when I was a teenager) where I was going or who I’d be with; they just always said “Have a good night and be safe” and I was, because it was very clear at a young age that if I got pregnant, I’d have to pay for my own abortion or keep the baby on my own or find my own adoptive parents to take the child; if I got a DWI or was involved in a drunk driving accident, I’d better have the funds with me to bail my own ass out of jail; if I got caught smoking pot, they weren’t going to give me the money to make up for the funds the US government would now deny me.
Etc.
It was the way I was always raised. When I did something wrong, it wasn’t “that was bad!” but “why did you do that?” to see if there was some logical reason and to try to teach me to learn from my actions.
I also played in my front yard and sometimes *gasp* even the street when my friends and I played soccer! The horror of having to move our nets when the cars slowly drove down the block.
I’m 27 now. I’ve never been pregnant, never driven while intoxicated, never done drugs. I’ve never been kidnapped, hit by a car, murdered (obviously!) or otherwise victimized. I know that danger is in the real world, but I also know self defense including how to take a weapon off someone and how to use a gun. (My parents are also a bit conservative and took me to a gun club when I was 8 to learn marksmanship, which I loved. They felt, as they kept a gun in the house, I should know what a gun was, that it was *not* a toy, and how to handle one should I ever need to. I never have.)
I have self-confidence. It probably sounds conceited, but I am also not self-absorbed the way some college students are today — I know I have limitations. I’ve gotten low marks on tests and even failed one subject for one marking period in high school because I didn’t do my homework. I learned my lesson pretty quickly too, by the way! I’ve also racked up massive debt because I got a credit card at 18 that I’m still repaying today and I have a less than stellar credit rating thanks to that. But, I’m happy. I learned my lessons through my own mistakes, and I feel so much more like I can take on the world because I’ve always bailed myself out of my own messes.
Oh, and I do know that if I was ever in over my head, my parents would honestly help me out. I’ve just never been silly enough to let any situation get that bad!
Oh, and for those who are scared of their children being abducted by “real” predators, my mother took care of that by teaching me three things:
1. DON’T GO WITH PEOPLE YOU DON’T KNOW. (Why don’t parents teach their children this anymore? Isn’t this like How To Be A Good Parent 101?)
2. Scream “fire” as loud as you can. Get people’s attention.
3. Kick in the crotch and poke in the eyes. Repeat as necessary, then run like hell.
The end.
I want my children to be raised free range, not as veal. Love it, Skip!
One of my sons died in utero from a rare umbilical-cord accident. My heart was broken and I learned that all the worrying and safety-obsessing in the world won’t stop plain bad luck. I want my living children to savor life now, because it’s a gift. I’ve only had to say this once, to a relative who lambasted me for letting my children play in our fenced backyard, but I haven’t heard a peep from her on the subject since.
Thanks for this site, Lenore.
I’m half of a DINK couple but I’m starting to see more kids in our (pretty safe, suburban) neighborhood out playing by themselves… more then there used to be.
I think this is awesome. It was downright creepy knowing the neighborhood is full of families and they must have all been playing video games or something instead of getting some fresh air and playing.
And yes, I am always careful when I drive home!
I don’t have kids but am glad to see that some are actually allowed to ride their bikes and wander around like I did and my husband did.
There’s safety in numbers, too. So it’s helpful if other parents are on the same page, I think. Then the kids have others to play with and aren’t all alone, if that is a fear.
I was raised free-range (I’m 39 now) and I want my son to be able to experience a lot of that freedom. What concerns me is not the dangers of the world, it is the fact that there are so few other kids out in it.
Our snappy answer seems to be the goal of parenting; not fostering an ideal child by-way-of a perfect childhood but producing a socially functional and independent adult.
On the subject risk management, I calculate that the danger of kidnaping, by a stranger, is about equal to that posed by UV radiation but who doesn’t let their kid outside for fear of melanoma. Both risks are easily mitigated.
I wrote an article on Playborhood.com a few months ago entitled, Is Driving Your Kids Around Safer Than Letting Them Roam Outside on Their Own? .
The answer, in terms of mortality statistics, is an emphatic “NO.” Kids are roughly three times more likely to die as passengers in an automobile accident than the sum of three roaming causes of death: death as victim of an abductor, death as pedestrian, and death as bicyclist.
Sure, if more kids roamed, its possible that more would die (it’s also possible that fewer die due to “strength in numbers”), but three to one is a pretty wide margin.
I’ve shared these numbers with a few people who were first amazed, then enraged, then defiant. I do believe that American people aren’t dumb when presented with facts.
i really like your ideas! thanks for sharing
btw: answering the people who think you’re nuts often times sounds like sarcasm and is tons of fun and can actually be a really good answer
How about - “I’d feel terrible - how would you feel if your kid broke his neck?”
A;
“So do you stop him playing football?”
Or, you could point out that when you see the kids being driven to school, you relax and think “My child is much safer than them”, and then explain the statistics.
A W E S O M E. Not only do we have free range kids, but free range chickens for the kids to mind after!
I have 4 free range kids. People are always questioning what I ‘let’ my kids do. I think these people want to hear my logic. They just want me to be wrong. If I am wrong, they must right. Right?
My snappy combacks are limited to:
1. I’m just lazy that way.
2. Report me to the bad mom police.
3. I’m counting this as practice for when they grow up and move away.
OOPS! They don’t want to hear my logic.
My 12 year old grandson was visiting here in NYC last month from Israel. (He’s a native English speaker.) He was bored with us at a museum on upper 5th Avenue, so we gave him a Metrocard, three quarters in case he had to call, four dollars for drinks or ice cream, and a house key, told him he had to be home in four hours, and sent him downtown to the Apple store on the bus. He hung out there for a few hours, called us on the iPhone, took himself to see FAO Schwartz, and caught a different bus home. Said he had a great day. He’s used to being pretty independent at home, so this was a welcome relief from the regimentation of a family vacation. It’s certainly easier to give a kid freedom in the city than the suburbs because of the public transportation. That’s partly why we raised all our kids in the city. Most people who I’ve told this story to responded with shocked silence.
How about replying, “How would you feel if you were in a car accident going the same route as my son, knowing you could have sent your child on public transportation?”
I think the biggest problem we(parents who advocate more independence in their children) are the parents who don’t. When they see my kids “unsupervised” they feel like they have to step in and compensate for my lack of parenting. Sometimes I just have to say, that “No, they need to learn to do it themselves.” Or “He needs to learn”. It’s just annoying that they look at you in way that says “How could you?”
does anyone else find it ironic that the poster who called everyone here “bad parents” uses the screen name Lolyta (=”Lolita”)? That’s funny.
I think you guys are great and am going to figure out how to give my eight-year-old a bit more room to explore. When I was his age I was catching turtles in a SWAMP … he has a pet turtle in a tank.
This has been coming up for me quite a bit because my kids are playing outside a lot these days.
When neighbors ‘inform’ me that the two and the four year old are outside, I try to stay calm, say ‘thank you, they are CHILDREN, so I am letting them play OUTSIDE and I can see them from the window, but again THANK YOU.”
I’ve also taught the boys to wave and say “thank you for your concern” with a kind of porky pig rattle to their voices. They love doing it- especially the 2 y.o. who will say it 30 times and chuckle to himself for hours…
Kick those kids out of the house!!
Here’s a GREAT talk from TED “Five dangerous things to let your kids do”
http://www.glumbert.com/media/dangerchild
OUTSTANDING
My answer? “Freedom is better than safety.”
I like Sally’s response a few posts above. Personally,If one more mother rushes over to my 3 yo climbing a ladder at the playground and behaves instead as if he’s scaling Everest without oxygen,I’m going to explode.
It’s no wonder that people freak out about a 9 yo riding the subway, when they were spotting him on the slide just a few years prior.
With hotheaded radio show hosts and the like, they don’t care about stats, zingers or pithy comebacks. They care about ratings. I’d enjoy the publicity, calmly reiterate your POV, hope a few people listening take the time to rethink their own practices, and move on.
There is no snappy answer. I have three grown, relatively “free range” kids, two of whom had the unfortunate burden of growing up in suburbia. Nevertheless, I was able to train them to be independent. Training for the first began at age 4, when he wanted more french fries at McD’s. I gave him money and sent him to the counter. By 15 my daughter spent the year in school in Europe. Not only did she fly there alone, but she negotiated crises with her host family and language problems at school. By the time she came home she had nothing but contempt for her symbiotic American peers. My youngest was raised in a big city, where I never had to drive him anywhere. As a result, he was independent from age 10.
Just ignore the idiots who think that helicopter parenting will allow their kids to develop. Those parents will never understand. I’m not sure how America changed from a country of adventurers to a place of frightened ninnies, but it surely has happened.
There’s a movie coming out soon called Two Million Minutes (www.2mminutes.com/) that I think shows the end result of this. Check out the YouTube trailers. (Since my older two graduated from the U.S. high school shown in the film, I know it’s not an exaggeration.) If kids are not taught independence, how can they possibly think globally? If they don’t, what will happen to America? You may be in the minority, but you are most definitely right in creating free-range children.
How would you feel if nothing happened to your kid?
You could sit him in front of the tv and feed him/her Mickydees.
A: You’re funny. You remind me of Marlin (Nemo’s dad.) “I promise I will never let anything happen to you.”
I honestly think one of the only ways to deal with such people is to ignore them. Simply thank them for their concern and maybe tell them you’ll consider their advice. Then don’t.
If I encounter this problem when I have children, I will simply tell them that this was how my parents raised me, and they are very proud of who I grew up to be. I think this is a good answer for anyone, even if it’s not necessarily true.
I think keeping the confrontation with those who disagree to a minimum is important, even if that means not “converting” them. That said, it is also important to actively encourage raising “free range” children among friends and family members who we know are likely to be open to the idea.
Unfortunately, not everyone can be raised “free range.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that that we should abandon “helicoptered” children to their parent’s overbearing ways. A child’s friend’s parents often have a great deal of influence over them. They are someone to come to who won’t punish them for doing the wrong thing, but who can give them good adult advice from the perspective of a parent. This is a powerful position to be in. Such “free range” parents have the opportunity to take “helicoptered” children under their wing and allow them some lessons in independence that their parents might not allow. Often this requires an unfortunate bit of subversion, but in the long run, the benefits outweigh the costs.
My mother did this with my best friend (of course, it helped that she and my friend’s mother did not get along too well because of this difference). For example, if my mom took us to the neighboring town to get ice cream, she would allow (and encourage) us to wander the downtown area and window-shop without her while we ate, while she did the same, in the opposite direction. Were it my friend’s mother we were dealing with, she might have had us finish our ice cream in front of her, then remained at the ice cream shop to watch us as we window-shopped, with the promise that we would be back in exactly 15 minutes. A minute later and we would get yelled at. Then she would ask us exactly where we had gone and what we had seen, and if there were any inconsistencies between what she had observed from her “perch” at the ice cream shop and our story, she would grill us on them mercilessly. I firmly believe that my mother’s interference in my friend’s life helped her build a much stronger sense of independence than she could possibly have had with only her mother’s influence.
My theory is that every kid needs a second mother. We moms are too close to our kids to objectively see what they really need. T
This is not particularly snappy, but I think it cuts to the heart of the argument. I’d say… ” I let my child do x for a number a reasons, I don’t think it’s particularly dangerous in and of itself, I know that the likely hood that anyone would abduct or harm my child is extremely slim (wouldn’t it be great to say you’d have a greater chance of winning the lottery? - someone who is more numerate than I am should check that out) but most importantly because THIS ISN’T ABOUT ME.
If it were about how *I* feel I would never let my child do anything. It’s about him. The benefits of allowing him the freedom to do what he is ready, willing and able to do far out weigh the importance of any thing I might or might not feel.
Children are not possessions to be *kept* safe. They are human beings who should be allowed the opportunity to be the most they can be. The best protection from the ups and downs of life is LIFE.
So before you wag your finger at me, nosey stranger, you should take a long hard look at your own motivations. Is this really about what’s best for my child? Or is it about something else (like getting some sad, validation from admonishing strangers - you could leave this part out if you want…
Ask why they let their kids get into a car, even though they’d feel awful if their kids were in a car crash …