RSS
Home
Mom leaves nine-year-old in Manhattan
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
New Yorker Lenore Skenazy recently left her nine year-old son Izzy at a department store in Manhattan with a map, $20, and a transit card. She challenged him to find his way home using New York’s public transit system.
Her competent son was home in 45 minutes, but that wasn’t the end of it. Within a few days, the controversial Skenazy was on the Today Show, MSNBC, and Fox News. Some called her “America’s Worst Mom.” Others lauded her for teaching Izzy a valuable lesson in self confidence.
I think Skenazy was a little crazy. I have a three year-old son I do not let out of my sight. In six years, he will be ready to take Manhattan? I don’t think so. Even if he is, I won’t let him. What if someone abducts him?
Yet statistics are on Skenazy’s side. All parents worry about child abductors. But strangers victimizing children happen less frequently than CSI- and Without a Trace-lovers might think. In fact, almost 80 percent of child abductors know their victims, according to Pediatric Nursing. And just over 100 kidnappings occur annually for ransom or harm, in a country of 300 million kids. While even one kidnapping is too many, the odds (one in 3 million) do not quite equal our fears.
Perhaps we do hang on to our children’s hands too tightly. But we also don’t need to drop them off alone in New York City. There is a middle ground. What is so dangerous about letting an elementary-aged child walk to a friend’s house, or ride a bike to Little League practice?
That’s how many of us parents remember childhood. We had a lot of fun, we learned to trust our own intuitions and make our own small decisions, and we grew up just fine.
For more info:
Pediatric Nursing: What is not part of hte child abduction news story?
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Free Range Kids: Why Free Range?
John Rosemond: World Safer Than You Think
Pediatric Nursing: What is not part of hte child abduction news story?
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Free Range Kids: Why Free Range?
John Rosemond: World Safer Than You Think
More About:
Advice
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
.jpg)
My sister once told me that having a child is like wearing your heart outside of your body for the rest of your life. I did not have children at the …
Halloween starts early in this town. If you wait until the end of October, you are likely to find the costumes picked over, the candy aisle bare, and …
