Hi Readers! Remember the horrifying 2011 case of a mom convicted of vehicular homicide after her son ran into the street and was hit by a drunk driver? (Who was NOT charged with homicide?) She was facing a possible three years’ jail time. As I wrote at the time: In brief: An Atlanta mom and her three kids got off a bus stop that is across a busy highway from her home. She COULD have dragged everyone to the next light, three tenths of a mile up the road, but it seemed to make sense to try to cross. Not…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers — This insightful note comes to us from reader/commenter Linda Wightman, who says she is “passionate about ‘small’ in the big things of life: birth, education, parenting, homemaking, health, church, conservation, farming, business and more. Except for families, where large is good: seven Free-Range grandchildren and counting!” She blogs about all this and more at Lift Up Your Hearts! . And meantime, from me, hi from Bulgaria! – L Dear Free-Range Kids: Hey, worst-first thinking has a psychological category all its own! Look at this excerpt from Difficult Personalities by Helen McGrath and Hazel…
Hi Readers and greetings from Csopbanka, Hungary, a town of 3000 outside of Budapest, where I am staying with a friend I haven’t seen in (ahem) a couple of decades: Erno Gyori, and his family. We met way on a train going from Paris to Istanbul — same route as the Orient Express — except really cheap. I was traveling solo, and at the time (don’t do the math) Eastern Europe was still Communist, so it was kind of cool for folks on this side of the Iron Curtain to meet a young woman from the other side. And…
Hi (from Vienna!) readers: This ad is so sane, so Free-Range, it’s making me a little suspicious.Why is an insurance company reminding us about the importance of taking small risks? Is it to make us less lawsuit-happy when something bad happens? Or to get us to buy insurance? (“A car can crash…”) Or maybe Allstate’s ad agency has been reading this blog? Hmmm. – L.
Readers — This letter comes to us from a mom in Alberta, Canada, who is giving me a lot of hope. Change can be swift and, since it makes everyone happier, lasting. Meantime, this intro comes to you from Vienna, where I just flew in (arms tired, etc.) to give a talk tomorrow at the international Velo-City conference. Guten tag! — L Dear Free-Range Kids: I started a new job about 2 years ago at a small non-profit with about 20 employees. Most of my coworkers were from a suburb that is known for being….well a bit uppity and above…
Readers — A school in Hayward, Ca is offering a “toy gun buyback” to its students, modeled on the buybacks of real guns at real police stations. While I don’t have a big opinion about the idea — on the one hand, sometimes people mistake toy guns for real ones, which is tragic; on the other hand, laws based on one-in-a-million odds are usually over-reaching — I am appalled by the reasoning of the principal: “Playing with toys guns, saying ‘I’m going to shoot you,’ desensitizes them, so as they get older, it’s easier for them to use a real…
Readers — An area of Alexandria, VA, a suburb of D.C., is debating whether to allow a hostel to open near, among other things, some day care centers. As the reader who sent us this news story wrote, “To hear some of the comments, you’d think they were planning to build a gun store/brothel/drug den!” Notes the article, citing the local parents’ concerns: The business fronts, doorsteps and play areas of the concerned would all be traversed by the hostel’s travelers if it is approved by City Council later this month. My favorite comment from one of the folks quoted…
Just a reminder of what education can be. Happy weekend! L. Kids Microadventure from Alastair Humphreys on Vimeo.
Readers — Here’s what happens when we panic, whether about security or about bumbling the security: Dear Free-Range Kids: Something that happened this weekend made me think of you. My husband, our almost 3-year-old son and I have been going to the Indianapolis 500 since 2011, when the little one was only 9 months old. My husband loves cars (he’s an automotive engineer), and the 500 is a big day of fun. Every year (until this one) we’ve been thrilled with the sense of camaraderie we feel with the 300,000 fans at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and everyone has been…
From my mailbag…straight to my stomach, which is knotted in fear and anger: . Hi Lenore, my name is Christina Moon. I am a 32 year old mom of two girls, ages 7 and 4. A few weeks ago I had to make a return at a jcpenney near our home in Michigan. My four year old begged me to let her wait in the car and watch her movie so I let her, I left the car running with the ac on and the doors locked. I parked my car in front near the handicap spots. It took a…