The difference between now and the seventies is not the risk of a kid on the subway falling victim to a predator. The risk is the same now as it was then. EXACTLY the same. The difference is that today
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.
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.