Lenore Skenazy writes about her son’s first solo subway and bus trip in the New York Sun. He had been preparing for the chance, and knew how to read a subway map. The 9-year-old made it home just fine, but half the people who heard about it thought it was too dangerous. What do you think? How can we balance the remote risk of crime with the necessity of teaching children to negotiate the world on their own? Link -via Reddit
That said, I was on the subway a few months ago and there were two kids, a sister and younger brother (10 and 6, maybe), in their school clothes riding the subway by themselves. Some creepy guy started talking to the girl, and immediately everyone on the subway had their eyes on the kids, visibly ready to jump in and take care of them if the guy tried anything/followed them off. It's the walking the streets alone part I'd be afraid of, and 9 is way too young for that, in New York especially.
Parents, please stop being so over-protective, trust your children and the society! The world isn't more dangerous than it was 30 years ago, when all of us were able to wander around, walk home from school alone and "somewhere" outside for whole days.
A nine year old has the mental and physical capacity to make the trip. I'm a small woman. My ten-year-old nephew is nearly as big as I am now. If someone much larger than myself attacked me, I couldn't fend them off either. Does that mean I should hide in my hotel when I make my first visit to New York City in a couple weeks?
For a fascinating look at how children have lost their right to roam over the past several generations resulting in an increase in mental health problems, check out this article.
While I wouldn't let a kid of that age walk around solo at night, in the well-populated daytime subways, it's not a big deal. Also, I'd have a LOT more security of them walking around in NYC than in most small towns -- there are always too many people around for anyone to try anything with them. Contrast that with the creep hiding in the bushes at a small town park.
I went to a boy scout troop run out of a catholic church that had a priest as one of the scout masters. That would never happen now-a-days.
You were just young in the seventies and didn't know the danger was there.
Kids are smarter than you think... give them some credit.
Lucky? The probability of anything happening is so low that it is 'safe' to let a kid do this. If you bring your kids up properly to be careful, observant, and know what they're doing, etc. then you should have little to worry about.
It seems like oppression of your kids so they can't think or act for themselves when most are quite capable by that age.
I was on the PATH subway coming into NYC in 1989 when I saw a 14 or 15 year old teenager push a much younger kid to the ground and try to steal something out of his backpack. The police intervened.
I think people who say that "nothing" will happen mean that the kid won't get killed. I find that young teenagers walking through my neighborhood are approached by other teenagers, sometimes in a threatening bully-style way, every day. These pretend gangsters will challenge, "Where you from?" Which you have to answer with the name of my neighborhood, I presume.
This is definitely true of the Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and even Manhattan of 10 years ago and 30 years ago? Don't kid yourself.
How in the hell does having one's own sailboat Biff or Muffy, relate to a 15 yr old subway thief?
---------
Yes they were, read the crime statistics for your state and county, duh. They may not have been safer in the Bronx is Burning era, but they were much safer down here prior to the crack war of 1987. They were measurably safer.
this is one of my pet peeves. the helicopter parents. the bicycle helmets. the antibiotics. the allergy medications. the fenced-in yards.
jeez....let a kid be a kid. we all made it to adulthood and didn't wear helmets and rode our bikes 5 miles away from home and played in the woods and all that.
these overprotective anal-retentive "parents" are just creating an environment for their children that will cause them to be immature, irresponsible adults that will probably end up running this country.
morons.
Smothering your children only serves to create a generation of people who can't do anything for themselves, and will rely on government to protect them at the cost of their freedom (just as you want to do to our children).
The likelihood of a child being taken off the street in a big city approaches zero, simply because there are so many people around, and most people are good. Your child is far more likely to be raped by a relative than by a stranger. Does that mean that you should never leave your kids with relatives?
When I was a kid, I rode my bike wherever I wanted, the only rules were not to talk to strangers, and DON'T BE LATE FOR DINNER.
Times have changed. There are too many weirdos and perverts out there. Just bear in mind, that in order to save money, the politicians opened the mental wards in the early 1970's, letting the mentally challenged out on the streets, uncared for. That accounts for the influx of 'homeless people', that we never had before.
Wake up, people. It is not safe out there. As an adult male, who knows how to take care of himself, I sometimes think twice about personal safety. I can only imagine what it must be like to be a kid.
we live in a society dominated by irrational fear. This fear all around us has been artificially created over a period of decades by the media in this country, that we too often blindly accept without
questioning. The media is all about selling newspapers and TV air time, and sadly, most of us aren't interested in buying thoughtful analysis. That's why the National Enquirer sells way more copies than
The Economist.
Proof of that is the many knee jerk responses to this article which are critical of Ms. Skenazy.
Most predatory attacks on kids - the VAST VAST majority - are made by people close to them in their lives. Adult relatives, neighbors, teachers, coaches, etc. That's a well researched and documented
fact. On the other hand, it's extremely rare for say a child molester to even initiate contact with a child in a public place like a subway system. I'm not saying it's impossible, it is possible and it has
happened. Just extremely rare compared to all the other sources of child victimization. And when it does happen, the media blows it out of proportion, and we eat it up and think "this happens all the time to
kids whose irresponsible parents let them out by themselves in public".
A nine year old who has been trained by his or her parents to take a subway trip across NYC is totally capable of pulling it off.
I applaud Lenore Skenazy for teaching her son to take intelligently calculated risks, preceded by careful training and conditioning. That's what we all do in adult life, most of the time without even giving it a
thought. We do it every time we take our car onto the freeway with our kids in the passenger seats (again, a massively bigger risk of injury and death than sending a kid on a subway trip).
This is only one example of how fear has replaced thinking in this country and reduced the quality of our lives. I think it's really sad. If you want to see what a society can be like without being dominated by
fear, visit Singapore or Denmark, where you'll see kids on public transportation in inner cities all over the place.
Winston Churchill famously said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I'll take Winston over the National Enquirer any day of the week.
A European mother would most likely think, that a child is safe on the subway (during daytime) as there are usually many people around.
When it comes to the argument of being unable to defend himself, I think that one should then worry about elderly people and women, too.
Of course it is important, that the subway-system is safe enough for everyone to use.
And, yes, the world is dangerous.
But if you really think that your child will most likely be molested or killed(!!)(these crimes mostly are committed within the families!!) only because it takes the subway home, I guess you are a victim of the media.
i'm sorry, not trying to be uncouth or insensitive or anything like that, but.....gay village?
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/why-i-let-my-9-year-old-ride-subway-alone
----------
Are you a fool?
In my grandmother's farm neighborhood not one of the kids I played with is still alive. Army accident, hunting accidents, killed by father of girlfriend, drunk driving driver, drunk driving passenger, drunk driving pedestrian, fell off all terrain vehicle, cocaine overdose. Everyone of my generation on her "block" of farms was dead before 30. Every one.
I'm glad that all your friends lived, but to presume this is true of all kids everywhere is asinine in the extreme and insulting to the parents who grieve their lost children.
But I think that by 11 or 12, most kids would be ready. My older son was barely 11 when he started taking the public bus on his own (we live in a small city). He was totally ready and we did talk about 'what to do if' kinds of things. But still, the other mothers here are shocked when I tell them he rides the bus on his own. Rampant irrational fear. It's a shame, really.
I think the big difference is that folks are hyper aware of the potential dangers around, and tend to overreact a bit with kids these days.
It's an absolutely ridiculous argument to say that today, 9 year olds shouldn't be allowed to do so. Are 9 year olds of lower intelligence today than they were in the past? Ludicrous.
A lot of harm is done to children by being afraid to let them experience the world.
I've seen a 7 year old driving a small motorcycle with a boy about 2 on the back, in Siem Reap,Cambodia.
I fully support Ms Skenazy's decision, however were it my own child (I confess here that I have no children and am completely aware that if I did, I may assess the situation differently) I would probably have suggested my child took a friend (OKd by said friends parent, of course).
In the past (in my 70's - 80's childhood and adolescence for instance) this kind of independence was often possible and allowable, even with parents who might be deemed 'overprotective', because of the nature of kids to 'gang' together.
Admittedly getting away from the point a little, this 'safety in numbers' allowed me to explore the world and negotiate a microcosm of society with minimal risk. There was always someone else with you to give a different opinion on how best to respond to trouble, or to run for assistance if someone got hurt (no-one ever had their life ruined by a childhood broken arm - one of the most serious incidents I can remember).
My pal and I WERE confronted on a beach by an old paedo at the age of 11 at about 5pm. He offered us money to touch 'it' but shrank away into the encroaching dusk as we howled with laughter and shouted his suggestion into the twilight, drawing the attention of other adults in the area.
He was a silly old sausage, and we were confident, both that WE were smarter and HE was ridiculous. We were never frightened for a second, and I still believe, were never in danger.
Sorry for such a long post - but as well as wanting to moot my support for the active independance of children, I also wanted to suggest that parents who do want to encourage this, need to band together in their streets, apartment buildings and neighbourhoods and encourage their kids to know and explore with each other.
We know a lot about what's going on out there, and it's better to protect kids than not to.
(The story is hardly newsworthy, but it has stirred up a few comments)
MURDER, RAPE, ABDUCTION etc.
and not like: The child could get lost or feel bad about being alone in one or another situation.(Is there any report on how the child felt in that situation mentioned above?)
Ok. There are bad people around "out there". But do you really think that they gather in your nearest subway station just waiting for YOUR child to walk by and immediately rape abduct and murder it??
You are watching too much tv.
You can't save your child from life.
do this, Lenore Skenazy, who writes a weekly column
for (I think) the Daily News would be most fully
informed of the dangers and would have trained her son
well.
You have to learn how to survive on mass transit in
NYC. Them's the rules and if you don't, you're at a
serious disadvantage later in life.
For they are far better informed about paedophiles and other crazies than we were as kids.
This also applies to the population in general, we are all far more savvy about kiddie fiddlers and far more likely to intervene in a situation that we feel is suspect or even just a little odd.
There will always be paedos, there'll always be abductions,molestations and killings.
They will also always be incredibly rare.
So should we raise generations of kids to fear everything and everyone?
Riding the NYC subway in daytime is pretty much as safe as you can get, coz even the gang bangers and carreer criminals will look out for a little kid.
It's little kids kicking the tar out of other little kids that is far more likely.
With all of that , I want you all to know that I now have a 9 year old son. He, like myself, is small for his age BUT he is a very intelligent self aware young person (Lenore commented in her article that her son is 10 going on 40 and so is my son). If I still lived in NYC I would let him at least ride the buses by himself. And explore his neighborhood alone (but preferably with friends.. it's much more fun that way). Thanks to the State of Connecticut, I am not allowed by law to leave him alone unattended until he is at least 12 years old. And by law, he is supposed to still be in a child safety seat in our car (because he is still not 80 pounds). I can understand that we all want our kids to be safe, but things are getting way out of control. What ever happened to just hanging out with your friends after school? We're not letting our kids have the experiences they will need to become responsible adults. We now have college kids who email their school papers home to be checked over by their parents. I've also heard of many young adults who bring their PARENTS on jobs interviews! Enough is enough people. It's time to let our kids grow up as we did. And if the start is to let our 9 or 10 year olds ride the subway for 5 stops or so, let it be. I only wish my son could have that opportunity too.
"Fear Destroys" as Jon Anderson once so wisely penned.
the same element who would gladly prey on her son were he to get into their car or van is riding the SUBWAY, ready to make a move on some vulnerable child. at the risk of being crude, she is offering her son up as boymeat to one of them...by their own admission, these people look for unattended kids.
i don't like the subtext in this story.....
I appreciate that my mom was "overprotective" and didn't let me go places alone til I was older, even though I always complained, "but Mom, other kids are doing it!" And guess what? Other kids were getting abducted too, including a very smart/observant/mature schoolmate of mine. Fortunately, she managed to get away. So being "intelligent" doesn't make a kid safe from predators.
Let's also keep in mind that predators come in many shapes and sizes, it's not just the creepy guy who lives next door. They are men, women, young and old. In my town, there was a little old lady who killed over a dozen people and hid their bodies in her basement.