Hi Readers — Here’s a great post from Amy Wilson, whose book, “When Did I Get Like This? The Screamer, The Worrier, The Dinosaur-Chicken-Nugget-Buyer, And Other Moms I Swore I’d Never Be” just came out this week. Congrats, Amy! You can follow her on Twitter (amywlsn), visit her blog, check her out on Facebook, or order her book. And in meantime: You can enjoy her article right now! How Did This Happen? By Amy Wilson I did not think that I would be a worrying mother. I thought motherhood would be when I finally relaxed. As the oldest of six…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers — Just got alerted to this ad and service, BeenVerified.com. It allows you to do a background check on anyone, from the comfort of your own home. Check the guy you met online, check your mortgage broker (make sure it’s not Alan Greenspan), check your electrician — yes, a guy on the ad says he’s going to do just that. And of course, check anyone AT ALL who ever has ANYTHING to do with your kids. As the pregnant lady in this spot says, “No stranger comes around MY growing family without a background check.” Really? Not the…
Hi Readers — Here’s the latest “help” on the way for kids threatened by those terrifying thugs: community gardeners. In Denver, people can rent small plots on school grounds to grow what sound like “victory gardens.” But now — after 25 years of this program — suddenly anyone who plants on school property is required to undergo a criminal background check, or get out. Said one participant, quoted by the Denver Post’s Mike McPhee, “Where did we go so wrong that if you potentially have contact with a child you have to have a background check? ” Where indeed? That…
Hi Readers — Those of you who have read my book know there’s a chapter called, “Fail! It’s the New Succeed!” The idea being that when we let kids fail, they learn that it’s not the end of the world and this is a great lesson, even though it’s very painful (for parents. And kids, too, I guess.) So here’s a fantastic Wall Street Journal column by Sue Shellenbarger timed to coincide with all the rejection letters high school seniors are currently receiving from the colleges of their choice. Warren Buffet, Meredith Vieria, Tom Brokaw — they all had their…
Hi Readers — I got this note the other day and found it very intriguing. You may, too. It’s about two issues that affect how we think about kids and freedom ! Dear Free-Range Kids: These thoughts have been swirling around my mind. 1. Have you noticed that “anything can happen” is the new code phrase for “s/he could be kidnapped” but people don’t like to spell it out? I’ve started pushing people into telling me exactly what they mean and then giving them a lecture on the real risks in life (as non-sarcastically as I can manage, but that’s…
Hi Readers — You read that headline right. Apparently in England it is now illegal to sell a pet to anyone under age 16 who is not accompanied by an adult. (England? Are you feeling okay? Something bump you in the head?) Anyway — this granny did! And she was fined 1000 pounds (about $1500) and given a curfew and forced to wear an “electronic tag.” Even more unbelievable: It was a sting! The kid — a 14-year-old — was working for the police! And the authorities had targeted this particular shop because on another occasion the granny ostensibly sold…
This note! And all the others! Dear Free-Range Kids: I don’t exactly remember when or how I stumbled across this site — but I recall that when I did I had been feeling absolutely miserable with being a parent. Sad but true. I was inundated with everyone telling me that to be a good parent I had to play with my kids all the time, follow them everywhere, watch them always and I noticed how I didn’t even exist anymore and to top it off, everyone was telling me that THAT was parenthood! I hated it and was growing…
On April 1, 2008, The New York Sun ran this column of mine. Alas, the paper has since folded (so to speak). But I think we can agree this column is still doing its work. Two days after it was published I found myself on the Today Show, MSNBC, FoxNews and NPR defending myself as NOT a terrible mom. That weekend I started this blog. My Free-Range Kids book came out last year and the paperback version is coming out later this month. Quite a journey! — L. WHY I LET MY 9-YEAR-OLD RIDE THE SUBWAY ALONE by Lenore Skenazy…
Hi Readers — Here’s a link to my essay on ParentDish, “Can a Mom Leave Her Kid Alone at the Library for Three Minutes?” It’s about a mom who left her kid in the children’s room to run upstairs and check out a book in the adult department. She told the librarian she’d be back in a few minutes and the librarian warned her that this was okay, but that the dangers of the real world lurk in the library too. My piece said that while I don’t think librarians should be treated like babysitters, this seemed like a fine,…
Dear Readers: This one just proves what monkeys we become when we refuse to use our brains (or tails). A 5-year-old boy in England climbed up a tree at the end of recess. Fine. But rather than helping — or even ordering — him down, the teachers followed their “health and safety” guidelines…and left him there. Their rules apparently say they are supposed to “observe from a distance” (lest they distract the child) rather than actually DO anything. Well they observed from such a distance that it wasn’t until about 45 minutes later that some lady passing by saw the…