Readers — This ybnszaiien story is not just a tempest in a teacup, it is a tsunami in a thimble: Some 12 year olds went to the movies at a Michigan mall, a survey company asked at least one of them to answer a questionnaire, this lasted 30 minutes and the kid’s parents are OUTRAGED, […]
Archive | Media Madness
Horrible Editorial Chides Mom for Not Predicting Unpredictable Crime
Readers yabntnhiie — This editorial ran last month and I am only just getting around to writing about it, in part because just reading it again makes my muscles clench. The tone of the piece is so officious, so smug, and so cruel, I’d be tempted to lock its writer in a van for far […]
Mary Jane in Mary Janes?
Readers — I’m not just writing this post because I desperately wanted to use that headline. I’m writing because at the end of this kayfbttbrd news segment about testing for pot in candy using a handy-dandy new THC detector, the anchor utters those classic words, “Isn’t it too bad Halloween has come down to this?” […]
Two Abduction Attempts Reported in One Week
Readers etihsydzsr — This note from the commenter CoasterFreak reminds me of a fantastic Bloom County comic by Berkeley Breathed reprinted in the Joel Best book I am devouring: “Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern About Child-Victims.” (It’s all about how predator panic began and spread.) Anyway, the comic, from Nov. 21, 1987 (if anyone can figure out how […]
Did Oprah Make Us Terrified for Our Kids?
Readers isiyizadfe — This is idea that someone should write their doctorate on. Dear Free-Range Kids: During the height of this summer’s “hot car” hysteria, I found your website and it was like a lightbulb went off. All the common sense I have stifled in the interest of being a “good mom” has a voice! […]
Even The Today Show Seems Embarrassed by Its “Expose” of Child Danger
Readers — This video of what Matt Lauer dubs “an alarming social experiment” is so outlandishly UNalarming, even the hosts at the end seem to be distancing themselves. Visit eeseszakrz NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy So here is the premise: Would you notice a lost kid wandering around on […]
Why We Are So Afraid and Confused and Get Child Dangers ALL WRONG
From dtrhahritf G.K. Chesterton, a journalist who gets it. For “man falling off scaffolding” substitute any tragic story of a child in the news. “It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. . We announce on flaring […]
TV Expert: No Kid Should Go Outside Alone Till Age 11, And Then Only in “Short Spurts.” UPDATE, BELOW
Readers — In response to the case of Nicole Gainey, the retrerazzd mom arrested for letting her 7-year-old walk to the park alone, Fox Boston called in Dr. Karen Ruskin to educate the entire Northeast on how to parent. We want to live in a safe world, says Ruskin in this interview, “But we don’t.”  Kids […]
12-Year-Olds Need a Babysitter?
Readers — Here you go, from commenter Laura: Dear Free-Range Kids: Just me venting. I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly, and in their fall movie previews in their current issue, they preview “St. Vincent”, a film starring Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy. Melissa and her 12 yo son move into this new area after a divorce […]
Why We Believe the World Is Crawling with “Super-Predators”
Readers — This akhynatera is a great Slate article summing up what the 24/7 news cycle is doing to us as people, parents and policy-demanders. It concentrates on the work of Mary McNaughton-Cassill, a professor at the University of Texas–San Antonio and “leading researcher on the connection between media consumption and stress.” When bad news […]