On Good Morning America last week, a spokesman for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children — the people who put the missing kids’ pictures on the milk cartons without bothering to explain that the vast majority were runaways or taken in custody disputes, not nabbed by predators — told parents NOT to teach their kids stranger danger. And actually, NCMEC told me that, too, when I interviewed them for my book — I quote them. But it always felt like they were talking out of both sides of their mouth, because when they were interviewed by OTHER sources,…
Author: lskenazy
This letter illustrates the kind of “Mothers must be perfect or all bets are off!” belief that makes my blood boil. (Ouch!) Dear Free-Range Kids: I had a friend whose wife went into labor sixteen weeks early due to all kinds of complications. She was in the ICU for nearly a month, massive blood loss, several major surgeries, medically induced coma, you name it. Then she developed a serious infection. They weren’t going to put her on the antibiotic the disease specialist recommended because, get this, it’s not safe for breastfeeding. . My friend (normally the most mild-mannered guy you…
When yet another mom wrote about her kids ALMOST being sex trafficked — an assessment she made on the basis of noticing some men at Ikea (yikes!) who seemed to be looking at her children — I checked my favorite urban-myth-busting, hysteria-slaying site, Snopes, searching for “Ikea sex traffic.” There wasn’t anything there — yet. Now there is: a gloriously rational take-down of the idea that predators are prowling the aisles of popular stores, tearing children away from their moms, racing them out to their cars and then across state lines, without anyone stopping them. Not the screaming mothers. Not…
Okay, 89,000 shares of this piece from ForEveryMom: Mom’s Warning to Other Parents After Being Followed While Shopping: “We Were Targets” A trip to IKEA with her 3 kids turns terrifying when her family is targeted for human trafficking by two men. Diandra Toyos is a Southern California mom of three kiddos aged 4, 1.5, and 7 weeks. Looking for a fun outing, she and her mom decided to take the kids to their local IKEA recently to do some couch shopping and “get the kids out of the house.” But Toyos never could have imagined that their lighthearted shopping…
It is a quirk of our era that we don’t seem able to do anything — fill in a crossword puzzle, drink a glass of water, butter a roll — without having some expert reason for doing so. It’s good for the brain! The immune system! Epigenetics! Hand-eye coordination! Kidney function! Marital bliss! This is irksome, because it means that we keep expecting and ingesting all sorts of silly studies, as if the unproven life is not worth living. It is with that caveat that I present to you Part Two of the “Why dhrieraktk Aren’t Kids Playing Outside on…
Stephan Pastis, forgive me for reprinting this here, but we are so on your side! And you are on ours! Here’s the link to Stephan’s Facebook page, and his website, and — heck — his Twitter feed. And his road tour calendar! And for those who can’t read the strip because it’s too small on your phone, the script is below! . STEPHAN STROLLS DOWN MEMORY LANE: When I was a kid, my dad drove me around in the back of his pickup truck. When I was a kid I flew across the country by myself. When I was a…
Look, if it turns out this Texas tot was deliberately abandoned, which strikes me as the least likely scenario, then go ahead and deal with that through the legal system. But if it was a mistake, please recall that even the PRIME MINISTER OF BRITAIN forgot his kid in a pub. These things happen, they are unfortunate. They are not crimes. Here’s the story, from ABC 13 News: A couple was arrested on Tuesday after their eight-week-old baby boy was left in his car seat on the ground of a busy parking lot in Katy, Texas. Sarah Shibley, 33, and…
Hi all — There has been some sort of shift in the Rhode Island legislature, pushing this bill off today’s agenda. I will keep you posted! — L. RHODE ISLAND: The bill criminalizing parents who let their kids wait in the car a few minutes keeps coming back like a bad penny. (Or bored cop! Or eager busybody!) In fact, it’s having a hearing again tomorrow — Thursday, Mar. 23. Here’s your chance to let your lawmakers know that parents should be allowed to determine whether or not it makes more sense to drag the kids out of the…
Precisely 99 years ago, California was battling a bushy-tailed terror: squirrels. They were destroying too many crops. To fight the furry fiends, reports Atlas Obscura, the government enlisted a platoon of pint-size perps: This children’s crusade was part of Squirrel Week, a seven-day frenzy in which California tried to kill off its ground squirrels. But how would they beat the bushy-tailed bullies? This way: . In the upper righthand corner the woman says, “Children, we must kill the squirrels to save food. But use poisons carefully.” I’m sure you’ve used those very words yourself. The trick seems to have been…
Hi all! This story was sent in with a note I sort of agree with: A school in Illinois is randomly assigning prom dates, thus removing the anxiety of asking/not-getting-asked. So, wrote the note-sender, isn’t that assuming young people lack even the basic social and emotional resilience to deal with the time-honored ritual? Well, yes, perhaps. But the tradition at this school began in 1926, so it’s not some newfangled coddling. And while of course kids can handle some embarrassment and disappointment, Free-Range figures there’s enough to go around even without this one particular hurdle. And there’s something about rising…