Schachter - No child left alone: getting the government out of parenting

2016 by Abby W. Schachter

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There Is a Tree That Stands, by Itsik Manger, translated by Leonard Wolf, from The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse, edited by Irving Howe, Ruth R. Wisse, and Khone Shmeruk, copyright 1987 by Irving Howe, Ruth Wisse, and Khone Shmeruk. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

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FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Schachter, Abby W., 1969 author.

Title: No child left alone: getting the government out of parenting / by Abby W. Schachter.

Description: New York: Encounter Books, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015044908 (print) | LCCN 2015041108 (ebook) | ISBN 9781594038624 (Ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Child welfareUnited States. | ChildrenGovernment policyUnited States. | Family policyUnited States. | ParentingUnited States. | ParentsUnited States.

Classification: LCC HV741 (print) | LCC HV741 .S347 2016 (ebook) | DDC 362.7/25610973dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044908

PRODUCED BY WILSTED & TAYLOR PUBLISHING SERVICES

To my parents,

Ruth and Leonard Wisse,

and to my husband,

Ben Schachter

Table of Contents

Contents

Lenore Skenazy

CAPTAIN MOMMY \kap-t n mm-ee\ n. idiom Mother who encounters and resists the excessive intrusion into family life, most often through the use of overly expansive definitions of the states role in protecting children. Example: Lenore Skenazy, founder of the Free-Range Kids movement, is the first Captain Mommy.

CAPTAIN DADDY \kap-t n dd-ee\ n. idiom Male version of a Captain Mommy.

ID LIKE TO LET my kids walk to school, but...

But what?

Youre the parent! Theyre your kids! You want to give them the freedom you lovedto walk, explore, stay home, go out, or even, once in a while, to get lost or goof up. To do things on their own.

But...

As Captain Mommy knows all too well, its no longer straightforward.

For the first five years after I founded the Free-Range Kids movement, parents who wanted to let their kids walk to school would end that sentence with, but I dont want them to get kidnapped. Fair enough... even though the chances of that happening are so outlandishly small, that if for some reason you actually WANTED your child to be kidnapped by a stranger, do you know how long youd have to keep him outside, unsupervised, for that to be statistically likely to happen?

About 750,000 years. (And after the first 100,000, you really couldnt even call him a kid anymore.) But thats for another book.

Suffice it to say that a few years ago, the Id like my kids to walk sentence started ending differently:... but I dont want to get arrested.

Fear of predators had been supplanted by fear of the police.

The stories, after all, were in the news: I let my nine-year-old play in the park and was thrown in jail for negligence. I let my kids eleven, nine, and five play in the playground across the street from me, and I was put on the states child-abuse registry. I let my two-year-old wait in the car while I ran in to get her life jacket and was charged with child endangerment. And yes, I get the irony.

Real stories.

The problem seemed to be twofold. First, the government is made up of human beings. Humans who watch TV, read Facebook, hear about childhood crimes and tragedies, and end up just as outraged as the rest of us. Problem Number Two is this: They feel that they can prevent all these sad tales from ever happening again if only they passed some more laws.

So they do. And now in 19 states, you cant let your kid wait in the car while you go run a short errand. In British Columbia, the Supreme Court ruled that it is illegal to let your child stay home alone as a latchkey kid until age 10, becausethe judge musedwhat if the house caught on fire? In Rhode Island, four legislators proposed a law that would make it a crime to let any child below 7th gradeage 12!off the school bus in the afternoon unless there was an adult waiting to walk the kid home.

That law was, mercifully, shelved, thanks to reality seeping in: Do we really think an 11-year-old cant walk a block home by herself? Do we really want parents quitting their jobs to stand out at the school bus stop every afternoon at three? While were at it, do we really have to think in terms of the least likely, most horrific possibilitya carjacking! a house fire! a kidnapping!every time we make any decision regarding what parents and kids should legally be allowed to do? If so, wouldnt that mean criminalizing any parent who drives her kid to the mall? After all, car rides can be deadly, too. Where does the obsession with safety stop?

Thats the overarching question our good Captain addresses here, and the one we all have to consider unless we want to pursue absolute safety, which requires constant surveillance, unfettered intervention, and a farewell to freedom for parents and for kids.

Which doesnt sound so great when you put it that way.

So start the charge, Captain. Its time for a revolution.

LENORE SKENAZY,

founder of the book, blog, and movement Free-Range Kids

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C. S. LEWIS

DO YOU WANT TO SEE government operating as if it can and should raise your kids for you? Try enrolling your child in state-licensed daycare. When our eldest daughter was 18 months old and started at the local preschool, the intrusion into our familys decisions started almost immediately with strict rules about which foods I could send from home and how I should prepare and portion fruits and vegetables. My husband and I would joke by singing Peel Me a Grape!