Hi Readers — This post was sent to me by Mendel Klein, a Brooklyn father and a pediatric occupational therapist who writes about the benefits of letting children fail over at, yes, Let Your Child Fail. — L Leiby’s Law Wouldn’t have Prevented Leiby Kletzky’s Death Here we go again. While Leiby Kletzky’s parents and sisters were still sitting the seven days of shiva, mourning the brutal killing of their son, politicians in our community were already announcing a law in reaction to the terrible tragedy that struck them. No need to guess what the law is called. It’s…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers! Ever look at a map of the local sex offenders, the ones with little dots showing where the guys live who prey upon helpless little children? Well, as of this week, there are two dots that won’t come off until the guys die of old age — which could be quite a while. Right now, they’re both 16. The boys committed their crime at age 14. And just what was it? Horseplay. Stupid, disgusting horseplay. According to NJ.com, the kids pulled down their pants and sat on two 12-year-olds’ faces for the simple reason that they “thought it…
Hello, Readers: This is a wonderful thing, this statement by Leiby’s parents, asking the world to remember him by doing good deeds for each other. It doesn’t mention anything about distrusting strangers or men or the “crazy world” we live in, it is about bringing us together, not apart. Bless them and their son’s memory. – L
Hi Readers — A bunch of you sent me links to this wonderful NY Times story by John Tierney yesterday, about how maybe we have been making playgrounds SO safe that they actually stunt our kids’ development. (Or at least make it too boring for anyone over 7 to want to go play.) It’s a point I agree with so much that I wrote a piece about the same thing, last year. Here’s a link to that one, too. Basically, both articles point out that in our desire to eliminate ALL risks, we create new ones, like the risk…
Readers — Sometimes I need a break, as I’m sure you do too. And what could be better than a snippet from The Onion reminding us just how driven the news media and “experts” can be when it comes to whipping up fear? Enjoy! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQdZQjgGT-I]
UPDATE! Readers — Here’s a petition asking Georgia to release the mother from her “vehicular manslaughter” conviction and PUT IN A CROSSWALK! I just signed it! — L. Hi Readers — This case is so sickeningly sad, I don’t know where to begin. Fortunately, a blog I’d never heard of before — Transportation for America — does a PERFECT job of summing up the whole story and why it is such an outrage. Read it right here and kudos to the author, David Goldberg. In brief: An Atlanta mom and her three kids got off a bus stop that…
Hi Readers. Here’s a slightly updated column I wrote for my syndicate, Creators, this week. What Happens When We Dangerize Childhood This has been a big week for pointing fingers … including at me. As the lady who started “Free-Range Kids” after letting my 9-year-old take the subway solo, I’ve spent a lot of time explaining that crime rate is actually LOWER than it was in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, which means our kids should be able to enjoy the same kind of childhood WE had — playing outside, riding their bikes, even walking home at age 8. But…
Hello, Readers. It is with an actually, physically aching heart that I report to you the death of an 8-year-old Brooklyn boy, Leiby Kletzky, who disappeared from a short, solo walk yesterday and was later found in a dumpster. Here is the story. I bring it up because it seems to prove that the incident that kicked off Free-Range Kids — my letting my 9-year-old ride the New York City subway alone — was foolish, or worse. At the time I said that I felt this was a reasonable and safe thing to do, because I believed in my son,…
Hi Readers! Let us pause to celebrate a moment of sweet sanity. Remember Anne Bruscino, the young woman was put on New York State’s Child Abuse Registry for up to 25 years for the crime of accidentally leaving a toddler at a fenced-in, security-camera-monitored, daycare center playground for less than six minutes? (Here’s the original story, as reported by the Times Union.) Well now she has been officially taken off that list! She is free to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher! Read the tale of this fantastic turn-around, just granted by a state appellate court. As the Times…
Hi Readers! I’m busy filming my TV show, so I was glad to get this pithy guest post on Caylee’s Law. It’s a proposed law I’ve been disturbed by, mostly because often when we make laws named for tragic children, they seem to make sense only in very specific situations, and retroactively, to boot. Like, “If only we’d had a law against moms buying duct tape, this never would have happened!” Then we get saddled with a law that doesn’t keep anyone safer, but does impinge on everyone’s freedom. So here’s an essay by suburban Chicago dad Mark Buldak, who…