Readers, Here’s a video that has gotten over 10 million hits so far: It’s about motherhood being the hardest job at all, requiring 135 hours a week, lots of standing, very little sleeping and zero breaks. But as “The Evil H.R. Lady” points out in this brilliant post, motherhood is not the utterly difficult, demanding, exhausting job society (and this video) paint it as. It’s only that way if we believe our kids can’t do anything safely or successfully on their own. So, says Evil H.R. Lady: ….You are doing it wrong if you never get to sit down, never…
Author: lskenazy
Readers — This just in. Two masked men grabbed a 4 year old from a playground and threw him in a van. Surprise! It was to make a video about “kidnapping awareness.” Why is this insane? A – The “perps” could have been shot. B – It is based on the crazy idea that WITHOUT a video of masked men snatching a child off a playground, no one would be aware that masked men shouldn’t be doing this. C- It is also based on the crazy idea that this is happening so much, no one should consider the playground a…
Readers — I haven’t signed up for Amber Alerts, so I haven’t experienced this. Have you? How common is it? I realize Amber Alerts CAN save kids, but not if they become the boy who cried wolf. (What a famous boy!) — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I am a faithful reader who grew up in the dangerous ’70s and ’80s and was a criminology major. I have a very difficult time explaining to my friends that the world is much, much safer for my children. Part of the perception problem is the insanity of the Amber Alert. Yesterday, while…
Readers — I find this little report, “Neuroscience Used and Abused in Child Rearing Policy” so interesting, for two reasons. First, by questioning the common wisdom that kids’ brains”irreversibly ‘sculpted’ by parental care” the first three years , it alleviates some of the incredible pressure put on parents to make sure that every single second they spend with their babies (even prenatally) is optimal: stimulating, educational, enriched. That’s a lot to demand of us. Second, it echoes a point I make in my book and lectures: That while experts purport to “help” parents by telling us exactly how to interact…
Readers — Why do I keep blogging? It’s to remind us, literally daily, that there are HUGE CONSEQUENCES when we believe the BIG LIE that our kids are in constant danger. One consequence is that we interpret normal parenting behavior through the lens of both sanctimony and fear, seeing danger where there’s just the usual chaos of raising kids. The consequence of that consequence? Read on: Dear Free-Range Kids: When my son, now 15, was about a week shy of his fourth birthday, I ran out to pick him up from his preschool, located four short blocks from home, with…
Folks, Canadian school bus driver Kendra Lindon was about to pick up kids on a freezing cold day when her bus broke down. Other recent times this had happened, she recalled, no replacement bus arrived. And so, with windchill temperatures dipping to -37 C (-34 F), she took matters into her own hands and picked up the few students along her route in her own SUV. From there, Lindon planned to keep the kids, including her own son, warm until another bus arrived — no frostbite, no problems. Or so she thought. It turns out another parent had watched Lindon…
A Biker mom in Pa writes: Dear Free-Range Kids? I could have written this letter [about being scared to let a child, 10, walk to school on his own] 4 years ago. We lost our bus service and most parents opted to drive their kids to school but a small group of students (my son was one) wanted to bike to school. So I let him. We did practice runs before school started and had lots of conversations about “what ifs”. Learning together the route and where safe places to go along the way helped a lot. His…
Readers — How I love this piece from DGIwire by Louis M. Profeta, an emergency physician practicing in Indianapolis and author of The Patient in Room Nine Says He’s God. Once we accept the good doctor’s words, we can let kids spend at least some time playing on their own again, because Jerry Maguire (most likely) isn’t calling. — L Your Kid and My Kid Are Not Playing in the Pros by Dr. Louis Profet I don’t care if your eight year old can throw a baseball through six inches of plywood. He is not going to the pros.…
Readers, you will be SHOCKED to learn that the driver of the car that was “caught on tape” practically abducting a child (or so the media told us) was actually on a nefarious mission to … buy boat parts! So says this Sheriff’s Report, send to us by Mike Smith: Yamhill County Sheriff’s Office Locates Suspect Vehicle – 04/07/14 The Yamhill County Sheriff’s Office reports the suspicious vehicle and driver reported on Ballston Road outside of Sheridan has been identified. The vehicle and driver of the suspicious vehicle reported to the Yamhill County Sheriff’s Office on Monday, March 31st…
Readers — So a 79-year-old sub in New Hampshire (the good ol’ “Live Free or Die” state) was given the choice: De-friend all the students you’ve friended on Facebook or never work in this school system again. She chose the latter. This story is dismaying for a bunch of reasons, the first being that Facebook is like the modern-day town center, where people meet and greet — even people of different ages. Seeing it as the Pedophile Pages is like seeing the outside world as Child Snatch-o-Rama. Also disturbing is the comment one supporter of the rule wrote on Facebook…