Just in case you missed it, there has been a story in the news about a couple who got in trouble for letting their young (6 and 10 year old) children walk a mile to a park by themselves. It created a huge discussion all over the country. Now there is a ridiculous term, "Free Range Children." It is absurd.
When I first heard this story, I felt like an instant libertarian. I was immediately on the side of the parents who were making careful judgments about how they wanted to raise their kids. Why in the world would we need a law to keep parents from making their own decisions about how much freedom is appropriate for their children?
Of course there have been a storm of other perspectives on this topic. And the issue of families who can't afford child care of any kind also gets mixed in, which is not really quite the same as the first story, but it is relevant.
Everyone in my generation, broadly speaking, remembers a childhood of relative freedom. Or at least we all remember being outside without being able to actually see our parents. So many who were children in that time after the war and on into the 1950s and 60s have clear and fond memories of playing outside until dark and then getting called in for dinner.
Obviously there are a number of issues here. Somewhere along the line, people got scared. They were afraid of having their kids stolen or poisoned or abused. Whenever something like that happened, however rarely, it confirmed that we should be fearful. Surely there are places where we should be vigilant, but there are also huge swaths of this country where that fear is unnecessary and unfounded. People are so ready to be afraid.
In our own homegrown neighborhood here, we have quite a range of parenting styles, shall we say. Even here, where it is hard to imagine a safer environment, some parents are afraid of anyone who is at the border. I think our kids grew up right at the very tail end of the time when parents let their kids be alone outside. When Rebecca was in the fourth grade, she walked from our house all the way down to the end of the farm driveway to catch the bus every morning. We thought nothing of it. I believe she is the youngest person in the history of Blueberry Hill to walk to the bus stop, wait for the bus, and go to school all by herself. I do not recall every accompanying her. Every elementary school child since then has either been driven or walked to that bus stop by an adult.
What is different now? What makes these parents feel that they are putting their children in danger by letting them walk through the farm (it is not even like walking in the suburbs or in the city) by themselves? Or, do they not want their kids to be alone because they won't be able to cope if something unexpected happens?
And do not get me started about all the parents everywhere in this hyper privileged region who drive their children to the bus stop (even a block) and then wait for the bus with the car running, five cars all lined up on the shoulder until the bus comes. That is an issue of laziness, overprotectiveness, wastefulness, and general obliviousness to the consequences of driving your children anywhere that they could walk.
Lots of people say this, but it is absolutely true that my parents would have been in big trouble in this day and age, if they were raising us now in the way they did. Our parents were unusually negligent. I mean, extremely negligent. But they gave us the tools to cope. They actually didn't leave us without a strategy for dealing with unexpected occurrences. Most people would say that my siblings and I have more than our share of self-confidence and competence and calm in the face of chaos, etc. Surely this has something to do with the way we were raised. We were definitely never babied. Not ever.
Just so you can picture the level of underprotectiveness we experienced:
When I was 7 years old and Lani was 5, we would go to public school on the DC transit bus. We lived in Washington DC near Dupont Circle. We were not the only children who rode the public bus to school -- there was a whole system of bus tickets that were sold in booklets at the post office or somewhere (I am making that up, since I never purchased those little booklets). Mom would tape the bus ticket to our lunch box. The bus drivers looked out for us, and some of them were nicer than others. I remember that we sometimes let one of the buses go by, waiting for the bus driver we liked the best. When we came home, we got off the bus at 18th and Q and walked the block back to our house at 1707. I don't remember anything about a locked door or keys. We often went home and were there by ourselves until our parents came home from the farm, with our younger siblings. One evening, a prospective worker, an Oberlin student, named Tim Wyant came to Q Street while Lani and were there alone. We made him some dinner (having never met him) -- frozen peas and tuna fish, I think the story is -- and we ate together. He remembers this much more clearly than we do, as we were only in the second grade and in kindergarten. He still tells this story, and it's not about parental neglect. It's about how capable we were at welcoming him and feeding him.
I am generally unimpressed by the way parents schedule their children's days. I don't think it is a matter of having no choice. That is how they talk about it, but it makes no sense to me. The problem starts with the ways that we organize ourselves -- the current model of suburban living goes against everything that children want and need. They don't think so, because they don't know any better. Parents and children now cannot imagine a world without screens and electronic toys. They see no choice. So in order to maintain control over as much as they can, they schedule their kids: classes, sports, clubs. The outdoor world is not available to them without an appointment.
So, these parents in Silver Spring decided to teach their kids to walk alone. They gradually expanded the circle of where the kids would be ready to go by themselves. And eventually that got to be a whole mile from home. And someone noticed and called the police. Of course they did, you just don't see children walking by themselves outside anymore. It is a shame and a crime that children are not allowed to be alone.
The goal of being a parent is to raise children who can take care of themselves, independently and happily. That is what Jon always says. There are lots of corollaries to that goal, but essentially you want your kids to be capable, self-sustaining, well-adjusted, unafraid, and armed with a range of coping mechanisms. Knowing how to make and save money is also essential.
I know that we were supremely lucky in the children that we got, and the ones who grew up next door. Our children came with many gifts. And we enhanced those gifts by treating them like capable people, not by driving them places when they could walk, not by filling their days with forced activities, and not by telling them to be afraid. Sometimes it seems we might have gone too far (hence the motorcycle trips and other international adventures), but not really. You want your children to grow up full of confidence that they can do whatever they decide to do.
I want that for everyone's children. So it drives me nuts that there are lawmakers trying to figure out how to keep parents from raising children like mine.
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