There’s Hope for Mayberry Yet!

Hi Folks! Talk about a beacon of hope.  A Hollywood ending! Success! Get this:

As you may recall, a few years back, a mom from small-town Mississippi wrote to this blog in a quandry. After teaching her 10-year-old son the route to soccer, she’d let him walk there — less than a mile — by himself. On that first time out, a cop picked him up, scolded it wasn’t safe, and tracked down the mom. He told her  he’d received “hundreds” of calls to 911 about the boy and that he could book her for “child endangerment.”

That mom was Lori LeVar Pierce, and that day marked a turning point. Instead of cowering in fear, she called the chief of police and asked if the town was really so dangerous a kid couldn’t walk to soccer. The chief said it was very safe and apologized for the cop’s actions. But mere facts did not calm the local paper. As it wrote in an editorial:

Once upon a time, decades ago, mothers were able to let their elementary-aged children roam free and alone.

While many, including us, look upon this halcyon time with fondness and a longing for its return, the fact remains that things are different now.  The days of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry and “Leave it to Beaver” are gone.

Yeah, in large part because fearmongering media bashed them over the head.

But some people have decided not to listen to doomsday blathering anymore. Lori, for instance, became twice as determined to have her kids play outside after the  cop incident, and thus saw for herself  what her town really lacked. Sidewalks! She became an activist and  now there are sidewalks all around town, thanks to her.

But that’s not all. As of last week, even the local PAPER is changing! Check out this Jan. 25 editorial:

…we, as a community, need to use more discretion when calling 911. It seems we’ve all gotten paranoid.

If there are teenagers you don’t know walking down the street, they might just be kids taking a stroll. And odds are, if you spend much time outside or looking out of the window, you’re going to see an unfamiliar car.

Pay attention. Look out for yourself and your neighbors. But don’t always rush to call the law.

We should feel safe in our own neighborhoods, and the police play a major role in that. But they shouldn’t have to console us every time we have unsubstantiated fears. It wastes their time and our money.

Don’t give in to unsubstantiated fears? Expect to see children strolling down the street? Get to know your neighbors? Darned if Columbus, Mississippi isn’t going…Free-Range!

If a town that told its citizens “This isn’t Mayberry” back in 2009 is telling them that kids can and should be walking down the street in 2012, I gotta say: Columbus, you rock! It takes courage to reject fear.  So hi from your new friend in New York City, and hi also to Lori, who got the ball rolling…and the kids outside. — Lenore

Let's hear it for a little street life!

The Drop-Off in Drop-Offs

Hi Readers — I thought this was just a great observation of how our kids-in-danger society is changing what it means to be a child — and parent. It’s by Matt Wall, a full-time stay at home dad of two boys, former software geek, part-time baseball umpire and Coast Guardsman — as well as “a recovering hovercraft parent.”

THE DROP OFF IN DROP-OFFS by Matt Wall

My topic today is the disappearance of the drop-off. As in, you drop your kids off at school, a friend’s house, sports practice, or practically any activity for a child under the age of twelve — and then you leave.

That doesn’t happen any more. Why not?

After all, our coaches are background-checked, we file sports physicals for the kids, and everybody on the planet has a cell phone, so emergencies are already covered. And of course parents are forbidden from interfering with coaching  — rightly so — so they’re not needed that way. I’m searching my memory for a sports practice in my youth when there was a parent present besides the coach, and I’m coming up empty. And yet, parents are required to attend practice these days, or their children are not allowed to participate.

What earthly good are we doing there?  I have never had this explained to me other than, “You need to be there in case something happens.” In case what happens? Nobody knows! It’s a generic fear of a generic something.

Of course, the real message to parents is: You are an adjunct,  parenting by penumbra, “participating” in your children’s sports event by watching them dribble a soccer ball from one end of the field to another. And I say this as someone who actually enjoys sports! What a deadly bore for the parent who does not.

Bear in mind, I’m not even getting into the subject of how kids never get to organize their own time and games. Whatever constraints or inhibitions our kids have in our presence remain.  Their experiences are never fully their own.

And I pity the poor coaches, teachers, and other organizers. It’s hard enough doing these  jobs without having your every move put under the microscope!

My kids have a range of activities, from formal to not so much, where this parental presence requirement is in effect, sometimes subtly, but often legally. My kids’ swimming lessons require us to be present, since who knows what could happen in a pool with six trained lifeguards surrounding it and another four swimming instructors in it.  I also can’t leave my older child alone in the craft section of the local children’s museum while my younger one plays in another area, because my child might go berserk with the glue gun, or fatally cut himself with the blunt scissors were I not there to supervise him.

Even more disturbingly, I have had a real problem getting other parents interested in swapping “drop-off playdates.” (I’ll resist the temptation to get into the very concept of a “playdate,” which did not exist when I was a child.) I offer  to let my sons’ friends stay with just me as supervisor of the kids all the time, but never has another family taken me up on the offer. (Nor have I had it offered in return.) This has extended thus far to birthday parties and “group playdates” (which we used to call, in their parent-free incarnations, “afternoons” when I was a kid).

As for school drop-off: I still have to escort my second-grader right to his classroom door. Really? The child of course can’t be trusted to walk fifty feet by himself? So much danger lurks that a parent can’t be more than an arm’s reach away until the child is safely delivered to the teacher?

So it has gone for Cub Scouts, the library (where I’ve been chastised on two occasions for letting my kids return their own books in my full view while I browse books from thirty feet away), gymnastics, and even giving a neighbor a misdelivered piece of mail.

The net effect is that a large portion of my life is spent being idly present in my sons’ lives, not living a little extra of my own, or letting them live their own lives in tiny, incremental pieces of independence. The subtext is that adults can’t be trusted, unless it’s your own parent.

To paraphrase a slogan of another social revolution: maybe it’s time to drop-off, drive off, and tune your kids in…to their own experiences. – M.W.

This child seems adequately supervised, for sitting on a bench. (He also appears to be the future king of Norway.)

Outrage of the Week: School Bans Soccer Balls

Hi Folks! At a school for 7- to 11-year-olds in England, says the BBC, they’ve banned leather footballs (that is, soccer balls)  at what sounds like recess and perhaps before and after school. Leather balls can be for “football club” and “specific” P.E. lessons. But otherwise, all regulation balls will be replaced by balls made out of sponge.

Sort of like childhood itself: That time of daring and doing gradually being replaced with a squishy-safe facsimile of adventure.

And while we’re on the topic of Safety First, Last & Always, to the point of no return, here’s a marvelous letter by Mike, the host of Dirty Jobs, responding to a viewer complaining about a time he did not wear goggles.

Couldn’t have said it better myself! — Lenore

“Do the Right Thing.” Yeah — But What Is It?

Hi Readers! Here’s a brilliant note from a gal named Ann:

Dear Free-Range Kids. Here’s a Liberty Mutual ad with the tag line “Do the right thing.” The situation is a mom picking up her two kids from soccer. They’re late and need to get to the airport. But another kid is still sitting on the bench waiting for his dad. It’s almost dusk and the kid is probably 10-12. Should the mom leave him ALONE at the field? Or should she forgo getting to the airport to make sure that the kid isn’t unattended. Guess what the “right thing” is!

Right — because calling the dad to make sure he’s on his way would be too sensible. So would leaving the kid there for a few minutes, because that’s what the ring of predators around the field is waiting for you to do. Basically, you should totally capsize your day and leave someone at the airport waiting (or let ’em miss their plane) because otherwise you are a bad person. — Ann

On the Other Hand: Sometimes (Parental) Silence is Golden

Hi Readers — Here’s a piece about something I’d never heard of, “Silent Sunday.” (Of course, maybe it would be hard to hear about something silent.) The post about it comes from Cindy Wilson, communications director at Playworks, an organization that provides play and physical activity to low-income schools in urban cities. Playworks is hosting its  Play On Conference in New York October 12 – 13, bringing together some of the country’s top experts on recess, play and physical activity. (I’m going!) Wilson is also the assistant coach of a U12 girls soccer team.  Here’s her piece:

THE SOUND OF SILENCE by Cindy Wilson

Walk past a soccer field on any given game day and you’ll be overwhelmed with parents shouting instructions from the sidelines, screaming directions to their kids, telling the players to pass the ball, shoot, run fast! The funny thing is that if you ask the players what they hear, all they’ll tell you is that they hear a bunch of parents shouting. Ask them if it helps, they will snicker and say no. Does it sometimes embarass them? You bet.

Next weekend, September 25 and 26, it’s going to be a bit different in Oakland, California. Parents, coaches, managers and players on the sidelines for Rockridge Soccer League games will be doing something unusual. They will be quiet.

As part of its annual Silent Saturday and Silent Sunday, everyone on the sidelines is asked to remain silent during games, while players on the field are allowed and are encouraged to speak to one another. No instructions, no directions, no cheering (yes, you can clap if your team scores), no call-outs (except for substitutions) for two beautiful game days next weekend. The only sound will be that of the players doing what they signed up to do ~ playing soccer, running hard, working as a team and figuring it out on their own.

Silence is golden. — C.W.

Mom of Boy Picked Up By Cops for Walking to Soccer TRIUMPHS!

Hi Readers — Here’s an INSPIRING story about what we can do when life hands us paranoid neighbors, officious cops and maybe a lemon, for good measure. Let’s hear it for Lori LeVar Pierce, the small town mom and teacher we first heard from in 2009 when she let her son walk to soccer and a local police officer slammed her for negligence. Here’s the original piece. And here’s her local paper’s editorial piling on, reminding her that “things are different now,” the days of “Mayberry…are gone,” and rare but terrible things could have happened to her son in the one third of a mile walk in this quiet Mississippi town.

Well you know what happened next? She didn’t crumble. She didn’t lay down and die. She decided it was time to make Mayberry come true. If her town wasn’t safe for walking, why then, she’d get it sidewalks, and stop signs, and everything you need to make a town walkable — enticingly so. And she got started even before this study came out, saying: “Want a slimmer, healthier community? Try building more sidewalks, crosswalks and bike paths.”

One year after the cop berated her for letting her son walk, here is Lori’s story!

MAKING MAYBERRY by Lori LeVar Pierce

Some of you may remember my story. Last year I let my then 10-year-old son walk to soccer practice from our home, a distance of less than a mile in a residential neighborhood. He was picked up by the cops after 911 calls about him. As a result of that experience, as a family we made an even more concerted effort be outside walking or biking and discovered just how unfriendly our city is to safe biking and walking.

So I educated myself on what could be done and connected with local individuals who wanted the same things and others who had made changes in their communities. Earlier this summer I contacted my representative on the city council to propose a “Complete Streets” ordinance. This is an ordinance requiring that any new developments or major street repair also include features for safe biking and walking, such as bike lanes or striping, sidewalks, good curbs, etc. I was able to provide him with examples of similar ordinances passed in other municipalities and encouraged him to make it happen in our city.

I am pleased to report that the city council my hometown of Columbus, Mississippi just passed its “Complete Streets” ordinance this week. There is a major development going in just a few blocks from my home that will include sidewalks and a pedestrian bridge. I’m so excited for progress!

Me too! Light the way, Lori!

P.S. Look! Lori just sent in this very positive story from yesterday’s paper about the Complete Streets initiative.