Readers — It’s not often Free-Range Kids meets Free-Range Chickens but they do in today’s post, which comes to us from the CBC — Canada’s NPR, if you will: The owners of a farm in east-central Saskatchewan say they’re shocked they are being investigated by the province after it received a complaint about minors working in the family’s processing business. “I was flabbergasted,” Janeen Covlin told CBC News about the investigation by the Occupational Health and Safety Division (OHS). “Our whole farm vision was to include our kids.” An OHS officer arrived at her farm near Endeavour on Tuesday. Cool…
Author: lskenazy
Readers — Here’s a long blog post by a mom whose husband left Walmart with their daughter while she finished checking out. The greeter assumed the father was an abductor even after she — the greeter — followed the duo out to the car and asked the girl, “Who is this man with you, sweetie?” and the girl replied, “He’s my dad!” That wasn’t enough for Sherlock, who took down the car’s license plate and called it in to the cops. The cops later arrived at the family’s home. We pick up at the point where the writer/wife, author Jen…
Readers — Lest you think America is alone in going plumb crazy with worry for its kids in almost every situation, take heart! Australia is at least as terrified! As the newspaper The Age reports: Parents who leave their children unattended in a car or at home face harsher fines and double the jail time under proposed laws. New legislation will be introduced on Wednesday that will mean any parent leaving a child under the age of 12 unattended could face a jail term of up to six months or fines of $3690. It is not limited to cars and…
Suzanne Lucas spent 10 years in corporate human resources, where she hired, fired, managed the numbers, and double-checked with the lawyers. She blogs as the Evil H.R. Lady, and in this post notes how an overblown sense of risk drifts into the workplace. This is the same thing we are seeing in the worlds of school, play and parenting. She was commenting on this Wall Street Journal article by Rachel Feintzeig and Alexandra Berzon: Safety Cops Patrol the Office For High Heels Kyle Bennett and his colleagues recently filled out cards issued by their employer describing the safety risks…
Readers — This is not just a bit of nostalgia. It’s a piece by a transportation writer/city planning thinker trying to figure out how to get kids — and life — back outside. It ran in the magazine Governing, and begins: The Death or Life of a Sidewalk Ballet Are Jane Jacobs’ lively streets disappearing for good? BY ALEX MARSHALL When I first lived in New York City in the late 1980s, I was struck by how the proprietors of the tiny grocery store below my apartment on upper Broadway would hold keys for the children/guests/friends of nearby residents,…
Bill Frezza, host of the Real Clear Radio Hour, sends this to us as a little reminder of what kids are really capable of. Post by David Garcia Rodriguez. You can watch just 30 seconds to get the point. The rest is more of the same…and more proof that the idea today’s kids can’t even walk to school on their own (“He’d have to cross a street!”), or go three aisles over to get the bananas at the grocery (“Anything could happen!”) is just plain bizarre. – L
A shout out to Julie Davidson Meyers for sending this one, via Gawker. Nine-year-old Chris Villavicencio was at New York’s Central Park Zoo with his mom, dad and sister, when — he became lost and wandered the city for two hours, trying to retrace his steps. The boy meandered through Times Square and eventually ended up at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where police officers found him and gave him yogurt. “This was the greatest day of my life, because this was the first day I was at the police station!” Chris, of Union City, N.J., told the Daily News.…
Readers — Yesterday, I listed my three Free-Range wishes. Then Kenny Felder came up with this great idea: It might make an interesting blog if you invited all your readers to submit their 1-3 Free Range wishes. Here are mine.1. I wish more people had the common sense that Lenore Skenazy displays every single day.2. I wish that people who make and enforce laws about danger were required to base them on statistics. You’re allowed to think and feel whatever you want, but before your thoughts and feelings pass into laws and judgments, they have to be based on facts.3.…
Readers — Here’s a story that has been getting attention: Florida mom Nicole Gainey let her 7 year old walk to the park, and on the way, some adults feared for his safety and called the cops. The cops swooped in, scooped up the boy and drove him home. Then they arrested the mom, because there are “sex offenders” all over the place, so apparently the mom deliberately placed her child in danger. I’m grateful that the Huffington Post called yesterday to get my take. From the piece by Caroline Bologna: Lenore Skenazy, who wrote “Free Range Kids” and gives…
Readers, Here is the latest instance of what happens when a country has been brainwashed into believing that any parent who makes a mistake is a menace who deserves her kids taken away. In this case, an Atlanta mom of four kids, ages 1-6, had them wait in the car for all of 16 minutes while she ran into the grocery. One version of the story says the windows were rolled down, which suggests to me there was zero problem. The kids might be sticky — it was 90 — but so was everyone in Atlanta just a generation ago.…