Readers — Just a little bit of infuriation (is that a word?) to leave you with till I compose an actual post. Read it and grrrrr. Yes, yes, the kid was not supposed to bring candy to camp. But the administrators weren’t supposed to OPEN HER SEALED LETTER to READ about the candy either. It’s like the NSA at Camp Sweets-B-Gone.- L Got contraband?
Author: lskenazy
Hi Folks! Since to the marketing world I am an “influential mommy blogger,” I hear from a ton of companies pitching their products. Sometimes, they’re peddling something sensible. Usually, they’re peddling the idea that kids today are so fragile and needy, they absolutely cannot live without…whatever. It’s part of the pernicious idea that we have to buy, buy, buy and do, do, do more for our kids than ever before. To counter that trend, I’m introducing The Hall of Ridiculousness. It will highlight silly and/or unnecessary products peddled as necessities. So here’s our first entry, edited down from an email…
Readers — This story is so bizarre, I have to share it so I don’t explode: While kids were napping at a Florida day care center last week, their teacher smelled smoke and went to investigate. Sure enough, she says, some chicken nuggets had caught fire in the oven. She tried to put it out but when the fire alarm went off, she ran back to get the kids out of the building. After a second check for kids, she went back to the kitchen, saw the fire was small, and put it out. The owner of the center fired…
Readers — If this is the land of the free, why are cops treating happy-go-lucky kids like escaped convicts? When did giving kids an old-fashioned summer become a crime? — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: This just happened to me. My six year old daughter and her friend went for a walk on their own and now we are getting a fine. The cop wasn’t at all interested in what we had to say just said we were getting a fine in the MAIL. In PA there are no laws regarding what age to leave your child alone, this cop…
Folks — This story comes to us a mom named Erica who lives in a converted warehouse in Oakland, CA, with her husband, two daughters, and her now-retired father. The event happened about eight years ago, when her younger daughter was six. Here’s a crime map of her nabe, and a crime comparison chart. Her note came as a response to my call for “Nothing bad happened when my kid…” stories. (But sort of goes beyond them!) L Dear Free-Range Kids: Call this, “My kid discovered absolutely terrifying levels of freedom that no sane parent would consciously allow… and still,…
Folks — Read this one and gird your loins for a similar battle. Not that I’m quite sure how to gird any loins, and not sure it’s a thing that women can even do. But — forgetting loins for the moment (I said FORGET THEM!), let’s get ready to convince our schools that WE should be allowed to determine how our kids get there. — L . As we gear up for a new school year, and I have yet another kindergartener starting a new phase in life, I am preparing for the inevitable Walk to School Battle that will…
Readers, here’s a look at two world views. Free-Range Kids received both last week: IT’S ABOUT TIME! I was raised in the 60s & it was nothing for me to take the subway or bus to the N.Y. World’s Fair. I was 8 at the time, & knew enough to be home by dinnertime. Nowadays way too many kids are hovered over & as adults lack the simple skills to be social & accountable in public settings. Summertime saw me, along with MOST of my friends, earning money cutting lawns, washing cars, etc., & as time went on we all…
Hey Folks — I am putting this up in the hopes that we can help this mom and her son. As I told her in an email, even yours truly tends to worry when anything’s up with the kids, but fortunately, life is fluid and so are they. . It also seems that being less than adventurous at age 7 today is almost a given. Yes, I want to change that — I think it’s a great age to start exploring. But he’s part of the world of modern 7-year-olds, and most of them are constantly supervised, so he may…
Folks: I am more than impressed by this piece on the Today Show blog about criminalizing parents who let their kids wait in the car during a brief errand. As you know, this is a topic we talk about here a lot, and one of our stories — this one, about Christina Moon — caught the eye of writer A. Pawlowski, who then wrote a story about it (and got 400 comments). Pardon me for featuring the chunk that quotes yours truly: “I feel as if we’ve criminalized something that we all know in our heart of hearts is generally…
Folks — I am putting this up as an artifact from the nexus of the worlds of parenting, insurance, and medical care. Our correspondent is Anne Boysen,a trend researcher who blogs about the youngest generation at afterthemillenials.com. — L. The Abominable Insurance Man was never a consideration our parents had to worry about when we sledded like devils down the hills back in 1970s Norway. If neither our well-padded winter overalls nor the white powder surrounding us failed to muffle the impact, we knew that a trip to the ER wasn’t going to bankrupt us, as we would be covered…