Readers — This note from the commenter CoasterFreak reminds me of a fantastic Bloom County comic by Berkeley Breathed reprinted in the Joel Best book I am devouring: “Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern About Child-Victims.” (It’s all about how predator panic began and spread.) Anyway, the comic, from Nov. 21, 1987 (if anyone can figure out how to find it online), shows the reporter Milo rushing into his editor’s office shouting, “Boss!” “Yes, Junior Intern Milo?” “Remember all our sensational, panic-causing stories about The Great Child-Stealing Epidemic?!” “Yeah?” “There NEVER REALLY WAS ONE!” Milo shouts. “Great Scott!” replies the…
Author: lskenazy
Readers — Parenting norms seem to reflect so much about society and so little about what kids really need — as evidenced by the fact that the norms are so different across eras and the globe. Glad this mom-to-be get that! I am 9 months pregnant with my first child and Free Range Kids has been such a tremendous antidote to the avalanche of unsolicited parenting advice I’m getting as a soon-to-be-mom! I often find myself clamming up in social situations when child-rearing conversations get underway. This cropped up in my Facebook feed today, and I think it’s largely because…
Readers, this comes to us from Tiffany, who calls herself “a nomadic mom of 11 & 12 year old Free-Range boys traveling the USA via RV.” How cool is that? Dear Free-Range Kids: My late father’s occupation, and love, was teaching mobility to blind students. He was employed by the school district and taught blind, k-12 students how to move about in the community. The “classroom” consisted of busy intersections, the mall, the post office, and many other places. He had been doing the work for 35 years and had seen society change so much. During the last 10…
Readers — Here’s a case I’m very curious about, because I truly don’t know how I’d react. First — the news report: And here’s a note I got about the story: Dear Free-Range Kids: It is so refreshing to have a rational place to reaffirm my instincts, that we are not living in a world where “times are different now”. If I hear that phrase uttered one more time… Anyway, today our town’s police department received some sort of threat in the mail against our schools. Neither the police nor superintendent of schools has given specifics as to what was…
Readers, Here’s an infuriating, reassuring piece (first one, then the other) by Laura Flores Shaw in the Huffington Post: “Stop Using Neuroscience to Scare Parents.” It reminds me of my book’s chapter, “Relax! Not Every Little Thing You Do Has That Much Impact on Your Child’s Development!” In this essay, Shaw is reacting to a Time piece that blithely stated, “In a brain scan, relational pain — that caused by isolation during punishment — can look the same as physical abuse. Is alone in the corner the best place for your child?” Whether you use time-outs or not, the idea…
Readers — When I was growing up, I knew what predators were: Lions, hawks, sharks…. Now animals come to mind only distantly when we hear that word, and that has changed our outlook on crime, childhood, safety — and parenting. This musing comes to us from the commenter signed worthdoinganyway: Dear Free-Range Kids: I think just the explosion of the use of the word “predator” is part of the problem. I don’t remember, when I was growing up, people talking about “predators.” Sure, we knew there were kidnappers and child molesters and murderers, but it seems like in the…
Readers — Here’s a piece from Tasha Batsford, “a working mama of three small children,” who writes about her parenting journey at www.maybediaries.com. She lives in New Zealand. The Downfall of The Baby Sling by Natasha Batsford For millennia, women the world over have been taking the fabric at their disposal and using it to tie their babies to their backs. While the practice largely died out in the 20th century, it has recently seen a revival and there are now a large number of businesses, from international organisations to work-at-home moms, creating their own interpretations of the traditional…
Readers — Here’s a poem to keep in your pocket…forever. It came to me by way of Bob Weiman, director of the lower school/assistant head of school at St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes in Alexandria, VA: COME nzansdhndn TO THE EDGE, by Christopher Logue Come to the edge. We might fall. Come to the edge. It’s too high! COME TO THE EDGE! And they came, and we pushed, And they flew.
Readers — Once again cops have been called to the scene of a tragic crime: Some children were photographed in a water park by a man. Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t quite tragic. No one was hurt at all. And it wasn’t actually not a crime. In fact, you could call it a NON-EVENT. As the CBC reports: As far as police know, the individuals taking pictures had no connection to the children present. In the most concerning incident, on Sept. 21, a man with what police called “a powerful lens camera” was seen talking to children while taking…
Readers — This is an idea that someone should write their doctorate on. Dear Free-Range Kids: During the height of this summer’s “hot car” hysteria, I found your website and it was like a lightbulb went off. All the common sense I have stifled in the interest of being a “good mom” has a voice! And a community! Anyway, as I delved into your site, and came face to face with some of my own irrational fear as a modern day mother of three children (ages 9, 7, and 4) I started to really wonder, what happened? Like pretty…