I’ll Tell You What Lenore Skenazy Was Thinking …
by Lewis DerkinsMay 19th, 2008, 5:09 pm
… She wasn’t.
Luckily for Ms. Skenazy, this story had a happy ending. In the future, here’s an idea – act like a parent.
Since when does a child begging to do something for weeks entitle them to do it? I remember begging my mom to let me drive the car when I was six. Luckily she didn’t.
What Ms. Skenazy did is the equivalent of my mom letting me drive a Ferrari on the interstate. This is completely stupid, and it’s dangerous for her child. In her misguided attempt to teach a child self-confidence, what she really did is falsely embolden him to attempt things that could imperil him.
Now, I’m a firm believer in the old school ways of child rearing. Tough love, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, no whining child rearing. But I realize that there are limits.
I don’t advocate obsessing about every possible danger until you force your child into a bubble, but let’s be honest, I wouldn’t let my child do this on the DC Metro, let alone New York. If you want to see why you shouldn’t let a nine year old child do this in NYC, watch this, or this, or this, or this.
If you want to teach your child independence, have him describe what he would do if he were lost, let him decide the route you take to get home from the store, quiz him with different scenarios as you ride – like what if the train breaks down. All of that fosters a sense of independence without unnecessarily endangering your child.
The issue here isn’t whether your child is smart enough to find his way home – it’s whether he can dodge all of the deadly obstacles that a city like New York can throw his way – and I don’t care how smart your nine year old is, he isn’t going to fight off a sexual predator. For that matter, he’s not big enough to keep from getting knocked around accidentally – in front of a train.
You wouldn’t send your child dashing across the street without teaching him to look first, just to see if he can run fast enough to do it. But that’s essentially what Ms. Skenazy did.
Here’s another interesting way to look at this – suppose her son hadn’t made it home. Don’t suppose anything bad happened to him, but suppose a NYC transit policeman happened upon the kid sobbing in some station because he’s hopelessly lost in a bad area of town. We probably wouldn’t be talking about the empowering freedom Ms. Skenazy gave her child - we’d be talking about bringing her up on charges for child abuse.
The only reason that we aren’t having that conversation is that Ms. Skenazy’s son is resourceful and intelligent, but that doesn’t mean that this is a smart choice. It wasn’t. It was a lucky outcome. Ms. Skenazy
trusted [a] stranger not to think, “Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I’ll abduct this adorable child instead.”
Would Ms. Skenazy put that same trust in strangers and choose to walk down a dark alley alone at night? Probably not. This is a terrible idea, made even more terrible by the fact that Ms. Skenazy is a columnist who broadcasts a terrible idea to millions of other people – with children that may not be so lucky in the same situation.
A parent should strive to teach their child independence – not recklessness.
The Lenore Skenazy Saga
Related Posts
Recommended Reading
Posted in Mass Transit, Subways |
Glad to see you perpetuating untruths about the New York City subway system. You do no crime is at an all-time low? You do know that there hasn’t been an in-system abduction in years? You do know that this isn’t NYC circa 1982 anymore, right?
I know you live in DC, but perhaps a little research into the conditions of NYC’s subways would have been appropriate before leveling a baseless attack on Skenazy
Who says the kid would have to be abducted from the subway? She allowed him to find his own way home and trusted him to take the subway to do it - that doesn’t mean he had to.
Did you look at the links to YouTube? Do you think it’s appropriate for a nine year old child to be left alone in proximity to that type of behavior regardless of whether or not he gets abducted?
My attack on Skenazy isn’t baseless, she did something incredibly irresponsible. Whether it happened on the subway or not is irrelevant. As I pointed out, I wouldn’t let a child do this on the DC Metro, and regardless of how clean and safe NYC’s subway is, DC is far cleaner and safer.
I travel to NY several times a year, and I always ride the subway. One of our site’s contributors lives in NY and takes the subway. We all have friends who live in NY and ride the subway. We have plenty of experience to draw on that leads me to the conclusion that it isn’t the best place for a nine-year old.
Again, what discussion would we be having if her son’s story didn’t have a happy ending?
We bring people up on child abuse and neglect charges for leaving a kid in the car for 10 minutes while you run into a store. If her son got lost and wandered into a bad part of town, people would be clamoring for the same fate for Skenazy. The only reason people aren’t is because the story luckily had a happy ending.
Well, I do think that teaching your kid and trusting him to find his way home into the subway are the other parts of this story that you’re omitting. I don’t think Skenazy (who, disclaimer, I’ve met once but don’t know) would have done this if she didn’t feel her son could make it home alone.
I’ve seen those videos; I think they’re relatively isolated situations that don’t happen in between Bloomingdale’s and Chelsea on the West Side.
But I also think opinions on this are just a divide over how kids should be treated. I grew up in NYC and I ride the subways every day. I know people who grew up in NYC, never ride the subways and are mortified by this. That’s the way it goes.
That’s a fair observation. But, I would also say that it cuts against Skenazy too - before you offer something like this up as a triumphant story of a parent endowing her child with independence - and inspire others to follow your lead - she should explain some of those things she did so that people understand that it isn’t as simple as putting the metro card in the kid’s hand.
I also agree that you’re not likely to see the kind of conduct that is in the videos on the section of the subway he’s riding - but part of my point is that it’s easy to make a wrong decision and end up somewhere that you can.
I actually agree with Skenazy in as much as I believe that over-protectiveness can be as dangerous in some ways as no supervision.
But I wouldn’t characterize following your kid and observing or spying for the first run as over-protectiveness. Even if the kid knew you were following, you could refuse to help and this would still assure you of some relative level of safety.
Like all things in life this is really about balancing risks. I firmly believe children should be given room to fall on their face so that they can learn independence, but there’s a very fine line, and in my opinion, this was on the wrong side of it.
I don’t think Skenazy intended any harm, I just think she didn’t really consider it as fully as she probably should have.
I agree most people will be divided by the issue, but having the debate is the important part - you can’t just take something like this at face value from Skenazy. Other parents who might consider this should consider it fully before they attempt it, and I think that both sides of the debate - though I happen to disagree with the other side - are important to help flesh out where the dividing line between outrage and acceptable should fall.