I was just whistling the Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There,” which famously begins, “Well she was just 17, you know what I mean?” I believe I do know. Which made me think: John Lennon wrote the “You know what I mean?” line. He and the Beatles sang this song on Ed Sullivan in 1964, when John was 24. If he’d actually, um, followed through with anyone 17 — you know what I mean? — by today’s laws he would be a rapist in 11 American states where the age of consent is 18. These include California, Virginia, Oregon and…
Author: lskenazy
If only there was a law preventing parents from making rational decisions about how to raise their beloved kids! That seems to be the consensus, at least about this particular case, as presented by this particular station: KHQ Spokane reported that a man noticed a baby in a car in a Target parking lot and confronted the mom as she returned after her brief errand. “You do not leave a baby in the car!” cried the man, Jon Evans, even though — clearly — she did leave the baby in the car, and the baby was fine. As babies generally…
This essay at Nature Play Nanny gets at one of my pet peeves: nature visits that treat the great outdoors like the Louvre — magnificent, precious, and only to be appreciated with a guide: “Which group are you supposed to be with? Are you here with a parent? Where is your mom?” I heard the woman snappishly asking these questions, but at first I didn’t realize she was speaking to one of my children. We were at one of the nature centers we visit frequently, and the woods were buzzing with groups of school kids. One of the groups was…
Voila, vintage footage of the now defunct Ontario Place — Children’s Village, a giant playground I’d never heard of. Designed by Eric McMillan, it included a “Punching Bag Forest,” as well as an enormous air mattress, and something called a “Snake Tube Crawl.” It was incredibly popular. What struck me most upon watching this 1973 clip, however, is that the particular din in the background — screams and laughter — is a sound mixture I just don’t hear a whole lot these days. Screams indicate a certain level of fear and excitement that is not necessarily encouraged. If something is…
. This carpool lane poster is getting a lot of Facebook cheers for teaching parents a lesson: . . “Are you delivering your son’s forgotten lunch” the poster begins. “His sports equipment? His binder or homework? Please turn around and save yourself from…’The Walk of Shame.'”After all, the poster points out, your kid will not starve or lose his starting position or fail to become President just because of this small screw up. All true. So why am I not chorusing in with my kudos? Because while I agree that kids can learn from their mistakes, I also think that…
. When it comes to kids and 23-metric ton apatosauruses, we’ve learned you just can’t be TOO careful. But at the time Syd Hoff’s Danny and the Dinosaur was published back in 1958, nobody even considered the terrible example it was setting for our most vulnerable populations — sauropods and impressionable children — by making it seem ACCEPTABLE (or, worse, FUN!) to lift telephone wires when galavanting about town: < Thank goodness when the book was re-released in the ’80s, Danny is shown encountering only non-electrified clotheslines, so he no longer models dangerous dinosaur-riding/telephone-line-lifting behavior. Who knows how many…
.Obviously, this young man would appreciate your help:.Dear Free-Range Kids: PLEASE READ AND RESPOND!.I’m a 14-year-old American male, and, until early November, had a father who led a Free-Range parenting style. He enjoyed this site a lot and talked about the things he had learned here. However, on November 11, I got into trouble with the police regarding an inappropriate statement I had made about my school online. Rather than allowing this to be another experience in my ascent to maturity, and acknowledging the fact that I had learned my lesson about Internet responsibility, my father took this as an…
Dots on a sex offender map terrify many parents. “Look! There’s one of them in the neighborhood!” Here is a letter from the wife of one of “them.” I would not be afraid for my family to live near him. Dear Free Range Kids: I’m married to a registered sex offender. I’ve told our story before, but I don’t mind telling it again, because I think too often we get bogged down in a false dichotomy about sex offenses: there are innocent people who don’t deserve to be sex offenders at all because they did nothing wrong (people who urinated…
Thank God for Snopes. Without it, I’d be left rolling my eyes so far up, you’d look at me and run because, like, where are my pupils? But thanks to Snopes, the will-not-die Facebook post below is at least getting the fact-finding it deserves. For instance, that cute girl we must presume was kidnapped and never seen again? According to Snopes: Facebook commenters correctly identified the photograph’s origin on a page about children’s hairstyles. What’s more: The scenario presented is one that is exceedingly unlikely. Among other implausibilities, this warning makes it sound as though the bad guys are stymied…
Considering fear has been the great motivator behind the marketplace push to get us to GPS our kids, put them into supervised activities, drive them everywhere, and spend every last dollar on them, lest they get hurt or fall behind in some way, it is no surprise that the pet-industrial complex has taken note. Hence, this press release I got. I guess I should have sent it yesterday because now it may be TOO LATE: Valentine’s Day is also PET THEFT AWARENESS DAY: [LS: I hope you celebrated!] Here’s how to protect your pet, and your heart, from theft Imagine…