Hi Folks! Here’s a post by Sharon Kennedy Wynne, a reporter/editor at the Tampa Bay Times (formerly The St. Petersburg Ties) about a disturbing trend: Requiring background checks for school volunteers. It’s a trend we should fight for three reasons: 1 – The assumption behind it is that any adult interacting with any child in any capacity could easily be a predator. Talk about a PERVERSE view of the homeroom mom! 2 – The checks don’t actually provide the kind of safety they’re supposed to guarantee. 3 – The checks cost money. Whether that cash comes from a…
Author: lskenazy
Heads up! You will LOVE this Pearls Before Swine comic featuring Humpty Dumpty (and his lawyers) today! This is not just some wacky notion of where our world is going. Recall that in 2009, we noted that a British TV program was actually assuring children that, “All the kings horses and all the kings men MADE HUMPTY HAPPY AGAIN!” Yes, because it’s too much to expect kids to recover from the emotional blow of hearing that sometimes an egg actually cracks open. The truth? Our kids can’t handle the truth! And if that’s not enough, tomorrow I will post about…
Hi Readers — All I can say about this is that I can’t stand the way insurance issues insinuate themselves into the way we act and plan as parents, neighbors, humans. It’s fear-based, it’s trust-killing and it makes us think of everyday life as one giant lawsuit about to crush us to smithereens. — L Dear Free-Range Kids: Have you heard of something like this? I belong to a mom’s group, which I love. I don’t think I would have been able to be a stay-at-home-mom without all the amazing friends I’ve made from this group. We’ve gone on camping…
Hi Folks! Here’s a post from the blog highlyirritable which I’m realizing could describe me, too, whenever I am contemplating our fear-crazed culture. (Slightly off topic, but while I was on the site, I found THIS post, which has a picture of the greatest word problem ever. Guaranteed laugh.) – L . A Ballsy Mom . I’m really not one to brag, but it appears that I’m considered a bit of a hero around these parts. A few weeks ago I wascalled “brave,” and “ballsy,” and I’m choosing to take those as compliments, despite the manner in which they…
Hey Readers! Here’s what every school needs: A set of fake logs to make a fake nature trail with fake leaves to remind kids of the great wide world of plastic! I know this is hardly a life-or-death Free-Range issue, but come on. The company insists that its “balance beam…looks like a real nature trail! Our rugged plastic set features everything from logs and leaves to branches and stump — each with a nonskid surface on bottom to keep children safe as they play.” Because they’re so unsafe on tree stumps that don’t have non-skid surfacing? Does the very idea…
Hi Readers! I was on Dr. Drew last night, as you can see, below. I like this clip and I very much liked the other lady he had on, Lisa Bloom. But what you won’t see here is the clip that played before my introduction. It was of the two Iowa girls who have been missing for two months. And what you won’t see that came AFTER this clip: an interview with the girls’ distraught aunt, who says she thinks they were quite possibly abducted into the “white slave” trade. And then came a caller who had been abducted as…
Hi Readers — Many folks tell me they’d LIKE to go Free-Range, but aren’t sure how exactly to start. Here’s one mom who took the first (baby) step that some of you might want to try. Good luck! – L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I think this might be the fourth or fifth time I’ve written you, so please do not think I’m stalking you, but I want you to know how Free-Range is just in my mind all the time and how much your blog has helped me. Yesterday I was playing in the sandbox in the backyard with my…
Hi Folks — Here’s what the “stranger danger” lectures kids are getting at school looks like to a girl with the X-ray vision of Superman and the snark of a middle school brainiac. — L Dear Free-Range Kids: I live in Edison, New Jersey. It’s a town with a large population, but for the most part people know each other pretty well. In elementary school, one of the parents told the school nurse I wasn’t wearing a jacket and the nurse called my parents and threatened to call DYFS, although the coat was in my backpack. This last…
Hi Folks! Love this essay by Bree Ervin, from her blog Think Banned Thoughts. I think a lot of them, too! – L WHAT I WANTED TO SAY by Bree Erwin The world isn’t a safe place, therefore we cannot let our children out of our sight even for a moment or something terrible might happen. This is the echo of the fear-mongering media and the people who buy into it. It’s true, the world is not a safe place. It never has been, it never will be. We cannot childproof it. However the world is AT LEAST AS safe…
Readers: If you take a look at the 300+ comments on the Anderson Live Facebook page about my “I Won’t Supervise Your Kids” class in Central Park — the one where I invite kids ages 8-18 to gather and figure out how to play (a lost skill!) while I go sip a latte — you get a pretty stark look at the way many Americans think about the world today. I.e., kids are never safe. Parents should never let their kids be on their own for a second because they are surrounded by danger. And if it’s not a pedophile…