Author: lskenazy

Hi Folks! This is an amazingly smart piece from, of all places, Cracked magazine. Remember Cracked? Used to be the also-ran to Mad? (And, okay, I used to write for them. A lot. And all my friends thought I was writing for crack, and shook their heads. So now you know.) Anyway, now Cracked seems to actually be fact-based and this piece  gives just fantastic insights about the failure of the Sex Offender Registry and Zero Tolerance laws in school. Enjoy! — Lenore

Dear Readers: This arrived today. I think the attitude of this writer happens to be the  prevailing one today. Voila: I’m sorry, but I think you parents are naive and negligent to allow your children to walk alone to & from school. Do you people not watch the news or read the papers?   Do you honestly not realize the number of children who are abducted while walking unaccompanied?   I think some of you just use the “free range” crap as an excuse to sit on your lazy behinds at home instead of getting up off of your non-working…

Hi Readers! Look at this great story about a 3-year-old who felt really sad when she heard not all kids have crayons…and did something  about it! I love the psychologist’s quote: If kids are ready to do something and it’s not harmful to them or the world, let ’em do it! — Lenore

Dear Readers: There will be a quiz at the end of this post — a letter just in from a reader. (I actually read it on the subway!) Dear Free-Range Kids: It’s 70 degrees here in sunny Florida, so I opened all my windows and blinds. My 8-year-old   daughter and 6-year-old  son came home from school and wanted to play in the front yard on the tree swing. OF COURSE I obliged because it was so beautiful out, how could I say no?!? My 18-month-old cried because brother and sissy were home and she wanted to play. So I…

Dear Readers: Cracked! That’s what the folks are over in Britain where one of the BBC’s kiddie programs (created for children with special needs but a big fave with all the under-fives, apparently), is teaching the kids that Humpty Dumpty did indeed sit on the wall. And he did have a great fall. BUT all the kings horses and all the kings men somehow “Made Humpty happy again.” And not in tasty omelette form! Good God, are we SO AFRAID for our children that we think they will be traumatized by hearing of an egg that broke? Are they going…

Hi Folks — On Friday  I wrote a piece based on a blog by a mom who said the TSA took her baby son while frisking her — and him, I guess. I said it sounded like the mom was hysterical and the TSA employees were rude. The TSA then released a video of the incident which certainly makes it look as if the baby was never taken from the mom. It also looks like they did make the mom wait longer than necessary to be re-frisked. In other words: It sort of seems like the mom was hysterical, and…

More bake sale news. This time, a goodbye to all homemade treats at a Long Island school — complete with a  farewell  cake. Maybe instead of selling cupcakes,  kids in afterschool clubs  can sell their blood? — Lenore

Hi Readers — Here’s a great article from Parade Magazine by the Freakonomics folks, all about how we fear the wrong things. Allow us to quote one particularly salient paragraph (or two, actually): There are any number of topics about which our fears run far out of proportion to reality. For instance, whom are you more afraid of: strangers or people you know? While “strangers” is the obvious answer, it’s probably wrong. Three out of four murder victims knew their assailants; about seven of 10 rape victims knew theirs. While the public is justifiably horrified when a stranger snatches a…

Hi Readers — It’s hard to believe, but the rest of the world is not exactly like America except with different condiments at McDonald’s.  Here’s a note from far away: Dear Free-Range Kids: We have definitely tried to embrace as much of the Free-Rangeness as possible into our kids’ life. One twist we have is that our children are both Type1 diabetic, which makes us a bit overprotective to begin with (how do you feel, are you feeling low, tell us before you eat, yadda yadda yadda). Our family recently moved to Germany for a work opportunity. Our kids are…

Folks, this is one of those stories where I am appalled by both sides and, for good measure, by a lot of the reactions, too. Long story short: A mom went through airport security with her baby. The baby’s pacifier clip set off the alarm. But rather than just saying  , “These things happen,” and re-sending the clip through the metal detector, the TSA folks put mom and kid in some sort of holding pen. After quite some time (while mom understandably  worried that she might miss her flight) the TSA people proceeded to take the baby away for several…