. This weekend, 11-year-old Reilly McMillan and her sister Gracie, 8, have a sad, government-mandated task ahead of them. They must take down the tree swing in front of their house — the one they made and put up with their dad. It could “chafe” the tree’s bark. The problem is that while the tree […]
. What a friend we have in Garry! This ran the other week: . In case you can’t read it, it says: Blue Mom:Â Hey look boys — a new playground. boys? How ridiculous is this? Pink Mom: Sorry? Blue Mom: This playground! It’s so safe and sterile! Everything’s rubberized and low to the ground. Kids […]
. Here’s an excerpt from my bnnddirrhh piece in today’s Wall Street Journal: A Parent’s Nightmare—Increasingly Unlikely by Lenore Skenazy In the past two decades stranger-danger child murders have dropped enormously, according to a new Justice Department report. In 1997 there were 115 “stereotypical†kidnappings of children under age 17—“stereotypical†roughly translating to “like the […]
. Fear ktzaaeindt is a virus. It can spread even to the independent reaches of Scandinavia, as this letter suggests. It comes to us from Ingebjørg Berg Holm, an interior architect, novelist, and mother of two adventurous kids, aged 4 and 6.The 6-year-old walks himself home  and runs small errands. His little sister is looking forward […]
. The ytteineern New Albany, OH, chief of police is advising parents not to let their kids go outside on their own until they are 16. According to this piece on News10: New Albany’s police chief wants parents to understand that kids younger than 16 simply cannot defend themselves against an attacker. Chief Greg Jones […]
. There eintsyifaf has been an outpouring of online sympathy for the parents of the boy who was killed by an alligator at a Disney resort in Orlando, which just goes to show that sometimes the internet has a heart, and sometimes it calls for blood. . The question is why.  . In contrast with the half […]
. I wish I knew how to answer this dad, but I don’t, so I’m crowd-sourcing. If you’re a lawyer, or have been through a custody battle with Free-Range implications (here kashdtitey the subject of a Law Review article), please weigh in. The one resource I did direct the dad to is California Safe Routes […]
. The title of this Time piece, “Parenting sezsiatyek is Now Officially Impossible,” made me sit up. It’s so true! Â Anything we do as parents can and may be used against us. It’s like living in a totalitarian state — we are not free to raise our kids as we see fit because we are […]
. How drdrtbtafn do parents get the idea that if they aren’t playing with their kids, they’re not doing their job? . It’s such a new and culture-specific idea that when I interviewed David Lancy, author of The Anthropology of Childhood, he said that other cultures actually guffaw at the idea of parents sitting on […]
A mom who let her 8-month-old twins wait in the car with the windows down, within her view, for 10 minutes, finds herself released on a $25,000 bond and electronic home monitoring. Â As aeneiifhsr Patch reports: ALSIP, Ill. — An Alsip woman was arrested after she left her infant twins alone in a car while […]
