Table of Contents
In memory of Genevieve MacDougall
All kids should have a Ms. Mac in their life
Acknowledgments
Since this book grew out of a column I wrote for the New York Sun, first thanks go to my editors at that late, great paper: Seth Lipsky, Amity Shlaes, and Katharine Herrup.
Amazing agent Mollie Glick saw the potential for a full-length book and shepherded it all the way through with bravado and encouragement. Let her be a role model to us all.
Beyond felicitously, I was snapped up by Jossey-Bass editor Alan Rinzler, who immediately felt like a long-lost cousin: same sense of humor, same outlook on life. We even look a little alike. He provided not only structure and wisdom but also laughs and chocolate. Hard to beat an editor like that.
The rest of the gang at Jossey-Bass/John Wiley & Sons provided the same exuberant support: Erin Beam, Paul Foster, Susan Geraghty, Carol Hartland, Debra Hunter, Michele Jones, Keira Kordowski, Mike Onorato, Erik Thrasher, Nana Twumasi, Karen Warner, Jennifer Wenzel, Carrie Wright, and everyone else there includingespecially! the sales staff.
For the speedy, meticulous research that made this book even possible, a huge thanks goes to Carey King. Time for her to write her own book now.
For inspiration, help, and kindness all around, more thanks go to Melanie Bradley, Trevor Butterworth, Dale Cendali, Gigi Cohen, Carl Honor, Hannah King, Barbie Levin, Hedi Levine, Marla Sherman, and all the folks who wrote to Free-Range Kids with their stories, suggestions, and support.
This book would not exist without my familyand not just because I send the younger members out on public transportation. Thanks and love to my boys, Morry and Izzy, and to my truly better half, Joe, who is in the living room with them right now, teaching them how to do the taxes. Its never too soon.
Introduction
Welcome toYikes!
In less time than it takes to unlock a babyproofed toilet seat (which, admittedly, can be an awfully long time when youre at a dinner party, and everyones wondering where you are, and you cannot get that lid up), we moms and dads have changed. Somehow, even those of us who looked forward to parenting without too much paranoia have become anxious about every possible weird, scary, awful thing that could ever, just maybe, God forbid!, happen to our kidsfrom death by toilet drowning to stranger abduction to electrical outlet cover ingestion. Yes, I just read that those little plastic things you stick in the outlets to prevent baby electrocution turn out to be potential choking hazards. Just try not to worry.
The list of potential threats just keeps growing, and of course we pay attention because we want to keep our kids safe. Thats our job, right? But its getting harder and harderand, for the record, pricier and pricier, and pickier and pickieras new safety doodads and dire warnings keep flying at us. And sometimes, like when you have to strap your kid into the stroller as if hes about to blast off to Pluto, its driving us nuts.
Now there are all sorts of reasons for being super protective, and for the most part, theyre totally legit. Maybe you yourself were hurt as a child. Maybe your parents just barely survived the Holocaust. Maybe youre African American and worried about the world treating your child like a criminal. Or maybe, like my friend Gigi, you are so addicted to anxiety that worrying actually feels good. Like going to the gym. No pain, no gain.
Or maybe you just watch too much Nancy Grace.
But its also possible you dont want to be that way anymore. Its possible you picked up this book because you have a sneaking suspicion that you dont have to be quite as worried about quite as much. After all, our moms sent us outside and said, Come home when the street lights turn on. Their moms sent them out on street-cars and buses. And their grandmas sent their sweet children out on slow, rusty steamers to the New World with only a couple of rubles and a hard salami.
Those were all responsible parents! Yet here in the nice, safe, scurvy-free twenty-first century, we worry about our kids riding their bikes to the library, or walking to school. We worry when we cant reach them on their cells. In fact, cell phonesthough I love them dearlyare a great example of how everything has gotten so mixed up. We give them to our kids because we dont want to worry. We say, Theyre for emergencies. And yet now, if you expected to hear from your daughter after her Mandarin lesson and you cant reach her immediately, you may well start to think: What happened?! Lost, dead, or white slavery? (Which, for our purposes, includes Hispanic, Asian American, African American, Native American, and Inuit slavery, too.)
So now the phonethe very device that was supposed to reassure youis making you freak out when you never would have freaked before. Back in the good ol 1990s, youd at least have waited for your kid to be a few minutes late before the heart-stopping scenarios kicked in. Now anxiety is on speed dial.
And so we worry all the time: Is he safe? Is she OK? Did he eat all his baby carrots? (Answer: no.) And what happens when we dont worry?
Were happy. So are our kids. When we go wild one day and decide to actually trust our children to go out alone and have some fun and get home safely, the way we did when we were kids, its quite a high. But as I learned in front of several million people, its also not without controversy. Heres what happened to me.
About a year ago, I let my nine-year-old ride the subway alone for the first time. I didnt do it because I was brave or reckless or seeking a book contract. (But look!) I did it because I know my son the way you know your kids. I knew he was ready, so I let him go. Then I wrote a column about it for the New York Sun. Big deal, right?
Well, the night the column ran, someone from the Today Show called me at home to ask, Did I really let my son take the subway by himself?
Yes.
Just abandoned him in the middle of the city and told him to find his way home?
Well, abandoned is kind of a strong word, but... yes, I did leave him at Bloomingdales.
In this day and age?
No, in Ladies Handbags.
Oh, she loved that. Would I be willing to come on the air and talk about it?
Sure, why not?
I had no idea what was about to hit me.
A day later, there across from me was Ann Curry looking outrageously pretty and slightly alarmed, because her next guest (the one right before George Clooney) just might be criminally insane. By way of introduction, she turned to the camera and asked, Is she an enlightened mom or a really bad one?
The shot widened to reveal... me. And my son Izzy. And some parenting expert perched on that famous couch right next to us, who, I soon learned, was there to TEACH US A LESSON.
I quickly told the story about how Izzy, the nine-year-old (who has since had the temerity to turn ten), had been begging me to let him try to find his way home on his own from someplace, anyplace, by subway.
I know that may sound a little scary, but its not. Here in New York, families are on the subway all the time. Its extremely, even statistically, safe. Whatever subterranean terror you see Will Smith battling in the movies goes home when the filming stopsprobably to New Jersey. Our citys murder rate is back to where it was in 1963. And, by the way, its probably down wherever you live, too. Nationally the violent crime rate has been plummetingby almost 50 percentsince it peaked in 1992.
