Weirdly, this is almost the exact plot of the Tim Allen/Last Man Statnding episode I discuss in the post below this one! Dear Free-Range Kids: I hope this isn’t completely off topic but I have a story from yesterday. So we started letting my 8 year old walk home this year from school. He LOVES it. However, we have rules and the first rule is don’t cross the street. There is no need, we live just under a mile from the school and it is a straight shot on the same side of the street and…
Author: lskenazy
“The line of cars for pick-up was three stupid blocks!” announces “Boyd,” the adorable moppet on “Last Man Standing,” as he gets home from school. Turns out he is quoting his grandpa, played by Tim Allen, who allowed him to walk instead of being driven. The boy’s dad, Ryan, is horrified. “It’s way too dangerous!” And so begins an episode titled, “Free-Range Parents.” Yes, we’ve hit the big time. So the dad and grandpa argue about the dad’s hovering. The dad — who looks to be about 38 — says, “Don’t even joke. There are child abductions all the time.…
This piece in The Nation by Michelle Goldberg proves how easy it is for parents to get labeled abusive, or even have their kids taken away, thanks to overzealous, under-trained, excessively suspicious and persnickety child protective service workers. She begins with a story you’ve read here: HAS CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES GONE TOO FAR? by Michelle Goldberg On July 29, 2013, a Latina mother in Illinois named Natasha Felix sent her three sons, ages 11, 9, and 5, out to play with a visiting cousin, a young girl, in a fenced park right next to her apartment building. The oldest boy…
What an honest — and funny! and sad! and exhilarating endorsement of Free-Range Kids by veteran journalist Philip Lerman. His piece appears on the CNN Website: A HELICOPTER DAD EMBRACES FREE-RANGE PARENTING by Philip Lerman Two separate events occurred on our family’s beach getaway this summer. One, my 13-year-old son rode a Jet Ski at 60 miles per hour. Two, I did not have a heart attack. Taken separately, neither of these events would be of particular significance. The fact that they occurred simultaneously, however, is a minor miracle. It’s not that I am one of those neurotic fathers who…
After hearing from so many parents worried that if they let their kids play outside or walk to school they could run afoul of the authorities, I wrote the statement below. Please fiddle with it to your satisfaction, then bring it to your mayor, or next town meeting, or post it on Facebook — or shout it from the rooftops. (If you do that, please take a video.) I believe that the first town that goes Free-Range will reap a ton of publicity, and property values will soar. (Buy now!) Eventually families will routinely seek out Free-Range cities or towns…
A new law in Rhode Island will make sex offenders living beyond 300 feet of a school move to a place at least 1000 feet from a school. They have 30 days to uproot their lives. Guess who thinks this will make children safer? Only the R.I. Brotherhood of Correction Officers, which sponsored the bill. No one else. Not even law enforcers. As this amazing article by Amanda Milkovits in the Providence Journal reports (boldface mine): Remarkably, law enforcers, civil-rights advocates, supporters of victims of sexual assault and experts who study sex-offender management say the expanded ban could actually decrease…
What is most pernicious about our judgmental society is illustrated below. Just because you — or I — might not choose to transport our child to school the same way as this mom, that does not make her a menace. And disagreements should remain disagreements, not an excuse to sic the authorities on a parent who is raising her kids a little (or even a lot) differently from they way we’re raising ours. When did parenting differences become an opportunity to turn state’s evidence against a loving mom? Dear Free-Range Kids: I almost got reported to Child and Family Services…
Enjoy. Quibble not. All hail Remy, and producer/editor Sean Malone- L.
A 9-year-old girl starts coughing so hard in school that she can barely breathe. You’re the school officials. Do you: 1 – Take bets on how long till she turns blue 2 – Call your lawyer, just in case she dies 3 – Let her use her inhaler At Columbia Elementary in West Jordan, UT, officials chose “none of the above.” They certainly didn’t let the girl use her inhaler, for one simple reason: her name wasn’t on it. So of course they had to grab it away. I mean, just because SHE brought it in and SHE needed it…
Pretty much weekly I hear from some company that wants to solve a problem that does not exist: How to keep tabs on your children every second of every day, in order to keep them “safe.” Here’s the latest, from a company called FamilySignal: Why does this strike me as a corrosive idea? Because products like these are teaching our kids that they are never safe unless they are supervised — in person or electronically — by their parents. And they are teaching parents that letting their kids have any unsupervised time is something good parents don’t do. . Meantime,…