[Infowarrior] - OT: Stop worrying about your children!

[Richard Forno]

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/05/04/free_range_kids/print.html

Stop worrying about your children!

Kids today are just as safe as they were in the '70s, says "Free-Range  
Kids" author Lenore Skenazy, and what's really distressing is an  
alarmist culture that refuses to let them grow up.

By Katharine Mieszkowski

May. 04, 2009 |

Over the past year, syndicated columnist Lenore Skenazy, 49, has  
become something of a heretic. She's an American mother of two boys,  
now 11 and 13, who dares to suggest that today's kids aren't growing  
up in constant state of near peril.

Amid the cacophony of terrifying Amber Alerts and safety tips for  
every holiday, Skenazy is a chipper alternative, arguing that raising  
children in the United States now isn't more dangerous than it was  
when today's generation of parents were young. And back then, it was  
reasonably safe, too. So why does shooing the kids outside and telling  
them to have fun and be home by dark seem irresponsible to so many  
middle-class parents today?

Skenazy first instigated a kerfuffle about contemporary parenting  
mores when she and her husband allowed their then 9-year-old son Izzy  
to ride the subway alone in April 2008. After she wrote a column about  
Izzy's independent excursion, she and the little subway veteran made  
the rounds on TV morning shows and cable news, where Skenazy fielded  
heated questions about her common sense, if not her outright sanity.  
The tsk-tsking wasn't limited to the TV talking heads, either. This  
year, a train conductor on the Long Island Rail Road called the police  
after then 10-year-old Izzy took a train ride by himself. (For the  
record, it's entirely legal.)

In her new book, "Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We  
Had Without Going Nuts With Worry," Skenazy suggests that many  
American parents are in the grips of a national hysteria about child  
safety, which is fed by sensationalistic media coverage of child  
abductions, safety tips from alarmist parenting mags, and companies  
marketing products that promise to protect tykes from every possible  
danger. She by no means recommends that mom and dad chuck the car  
seats, but says that trying to fend off every possible risk, however  
remote, holds its own unfortunate, unintended consequences.

Salon spoke with Skenazy from her apartment in Manhattan, where she  
lives with her husband and sons.

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http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/05/04/free_range_kids/print.html