Unaccompanied Minors: Boys, 10 and 6, Travel Solo from Oklahoma to New York City — by Horse!

Hi Readers — What a story! The boys traveled by themselves, over a thousand miles, to meet the President.

Okay, so it happened in 1910. Still, what  a great reminder of what kids are CAPABLE of ! And today we dither about sending them to play at the park before dinner! Jeez Louise — let’s get a little perspective! Here’s the Wikipedia entry about the amazing Abernathy boys — Louis and Temple:

Louis (sometimes styled Louie) Abernathy was born in Texas in 1899 and Temple Abernathy was born in 1904 in Tipton, Oklahoma. Their father was cowboy and U.S. Marshal Jack Abernathy.

In 1909 the boys rode by horseback from Frederick, Oklahoma, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and back. Louis was nine, and Temple was five.^[2]

When the boys completed their Santa Fe journey, they began planning a cross-country horseback ride to New York City, again by themselves, to meet Theodore Roosevelt when he returned from his trip to Africa and Europe. They made that trip in 1910. They were greeted as celebrities, and rode their horses in a ticker-tape parade just behind the car carrying Roosevelt. While in New York, the boys purchased a small Brush Motor Car, which they drove, again by themselves, back to Oklahoma, shipping their horses home by train.^[3][4][5]

In 1911, they accepted a challenge to ride horseback from New York to San Francisco in 60 days or less. They agreed not to eat or sleep indoors at any point of the journey. They would collect a $10,000 prize if they succeeded.^[6]

After a long trip, they arrived in San Francisco in 62 days, thereby losing the prize but setting a record for the time elapsed for the trip.

In 1913, the boys purchased an Indian motorcycle, and with their stepbrother, Anton, journeyed by motorcycle from Oklahoma to New York City. This was their last documented adventure.

There they are! And here’s a  lovely song by a descendant  — with fantastic old photos in the background. – L

Competence is Catching!

Hi Readers — Here’s a brilliant idea that came in response to the previous couple of posts about how our kids can become more responsible when we back off a little. This mom not only liberated her OWN kids from too much help (however kindly proffered), she liberated a whole classroom! — L.

Dear Free-Range Kids: I always hated when my kids wanted to dress themselves — not because I was dying to do it, but because I would have to defend myself against the “bad mommy” accusation from the other preschool parents. My guys like wearing stripes and plaid or really odd color combinations.

One day I decided I had had enough. I made up “I dressed myself today!” stickers and rewarded my little guys for doing it on their own.  Pretty soon, all the little preschoolers wanted stickers too, so everyone began to dress themselves as well.  I stopped being embarrassed by the independence of my children and began to embrace it.  It can be hard to be the mom who doesn’t do it all for the kids, parents feel peer pressure too! — Sarah

The idea of “I did it myself!” stickers is incredibly powerful. Think of all the situations they could be used in, and how the idea of celebrating kiddie competence could catch on! — L

Okay, it looks like someone DID dress these kids (funny).

Two Boys Save a Third

Hi Readers! Okay, enough about cosmetics. Here’s a bracing little tale of what happens when we trust our kids to take on some grown-up responsibilities: They rise to the occasion! In this case, the occasion being a boy who fell off his bike, suffered a severe gash, and needed basic First Aid while waiting for the medics.

Let’s remember that when we worry, “Oh, she’s too young to babysit!” or, “He’s too young for a paper route.” Our kids are often way more competent than pop culture leads us to believe. (Or maybe they should just stay home and play with makeup. The girls, that is. The boys can play with squirt guns until they’re outlawed.) Good night! — L.

8-Year-Old Scientists Publish Study in Journal

Hey Readers! As you know, one of the things I talk about a lot is not only that kids are SAFER than we think, but they’re also more COMPETENT than pop culture leads us to believe.  Here to remind us just how clever kids can be is this story, of 8-year-olds who studied whether bees can learn patterns and colors. Then they got their research published in a peer-reviewed journal. That’s the buzz for this morning. Enjoy! — L.

The bees that the kids studied were smaller. And flew.

My Take on the Arrest of the Mom Who Let Her Kids Go to The Mall

Hi! Lenore here, feeling it is time to weigh in on the Montana mom case still causing a commenting frenzy.

This is the case where a mom named Bridget let her 12-year-old daughter and her daughter’s friend, both experienced babysitters, take their siblings, age 3, 7 and 8, to the mall. After a morning of shopping and lunch, the group went to Macy’s. The 12-year-olds tried on some shirts while the other three waited in the handbag department — the 3-year-old now in a stroller. When the 12-year-olds returned a few minutes later, all five of them were scooped up by mall security, which called the cops. The cops arrested Bridget for child endangerment. Three hundred or so comments later I must say, first and foremost: Let’s try to keep the debate on a nicer, friendlier, agree-to-disagree tone, please.

But personally? I don’t think Bridget did anything wrong. Her kids were not in any danger unless a band of machete-wielding pedophiles happened to be parachuting into Macy’s that day, intent on that ever-popular crime of kidnapping three children at once while store employees look on.

The assumption that the 12-year-olds were wildly irresponsible for telling their younger siblings to, “Wait here,” while they tried on some clothes is strange to me, too. It’s normal to ask kids to wait for a little bit and that’s exactly what the kids were doing, in a safe place, not the Newark bus terminal at 3 a.m. (Sorry, Newark.)

And while I can understand that some people think 12 is too young to be responsible for younger kids — that’s certainly what the Bozeman authorities believed — somewhere between 40 – 80% of the world’s population is raised by older siblings, according to anthropologist David Lancy. Many a 6-year-old is in charge of her younger brother(s) and all the kids are expected to rise to the occasion, which can mean anything from helping to plant seeds, to running errands, to manning a shop.

This is not to say I’d send a 6-year-old to the mall with a gaggle of younger siblings, just that our current assumption of total kiddie incompetence until age 18 or so is new and unprecedented. Twelve is old enough to look after younger children — and the 12-year-olds we’re talking about did. To turn one’s back for a few minutes is not the invitation to instant death we have been lead to believe by CNN and CSI. To assume children are in danger from strangers every second of every day is to assume the only way to keep them safe would be with the kind of surveillance employed at maximum security prisons. Or, better still, to keep them IN maximum security prisons.

I have stated this before: We live in safe times that are represented as very UNsafe in the media, because that’s what drives ratings. We are squandering the incredible gift we have of living in 21^st century America, where all crime has been declining for the last 15 years, and four times more children make it to their first birthday now than did the year that I was born. We are not in a famine, we are not engaged in a war at home, our children do not have to dodge bullets, militias and malaria-bearing mosquitoes to drag water home from a brackish well.

Free-Range Kids does not say there is no evil in the world. But our movement believes our children are more competent and more safe than the worst-case-scenario chorus. We believe children don’t have to do everything exactly right – and neither do parents – for them to still be extremely safe.

The bottom line is not just that nothing bad DID happen to those children, it’s that it was extremely unlike TO happen to those children. As I state in my book, if you actually, for some reason, WANTED your children to be kidnapped by a stranger, how long would you have to keep them outside, unattended (or in a mall!) for that to be statistically likely to happen? For them to be abducted, I mean?

Guess before you look at the number.

 In fact, I will let you guess now, below. And tomorrow I’ll tell you. (Or if you can’t wait – get the book!)

 Speaking of tomorrow, I will be on the Fox & Friends show at about 7:30 tomorrow (Tuseday) morning debating, “Free-Range Kids.” You may hear the answer then!

Yours – Lenore

Kids Can Do More Than We Think

Kids rise to the occasion. That becomes abundantly  clear when we look at what kids get to do —  and are expected to do — in other countries, cultures, eras. Here’s a little note that just came in. I cannot think of anything my kids have done in school that rivals this for independence and instilling a “Can do!’ sense of confidence.

Then again, it’s not like I’m saying,  “Oh, if only I got to raise them in the  USSR!” either.

By a Free-Range Kids reader named Alena:

I grew up in a small town of the former USSR.  Even in the first grade we had to behave as adults.  Each class was responsible for their classroom, and after classes were finished we had to clean our classroom: map the floor, dust and such. During recess we would go outside and pick up any garbage around the school. We had our own garden behind the school were we grew greens such as scallions, dill, parsley and cabbage which were served then in the school lunchroom. From the 6th grade till the end of the high school we had done plays, concerts and many other activities by ourselves, teachers were there just to supervise.  It was never accustomed to ask parents for the money for one or another activity in school.  We made everything by hands from the supplies provided by the school.  Girls used to bake and boys would provide lights and music. My friend and I started baking cookies when we were 8 years old, i guess that’s when we learned how to read the recipe.

I live in NYC now and I have a 11 year old daughter.  Since she was 9 she was allowed to go to the nearest  supermarket to get milk or bread, she can make pancakes for us in the morning and she bakes cookies as well.

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