How Pathetic That It's A News Story For An Eight-Year-Old To Walk To Elementary School
Throughout evolutionary history, young children have been given responsibility, including that of the care of younger siblings.
At 8, I walked or rode my bike to Bond Elementary School every day, which was probably a half mile from my parents' house. This is normal behavior.
But these days, in Portland, Maine, it's actually noteworthy -- worthy of a news report! -- that parents are letting their 8-year-old walk to school. Via WGME:
A family in Portland says they're taking on what's called a free range parenting style to give their daughter more independence growing up. While some say the style gives kids too much freedom, Sarah Cushman and Robert Levin say it's simply going back to how they grew up. Their daughter, eight year old Cedar Levin walks to her elementary school in Portland without them."She's eight and really well equipped she's pretty mature and is really into exploring the world," said Cushman.
Her daughter, Cedar doesn't walk to school completely alone but with a friend. Cushman feels this is a better way for her to explore the world than with her mom always by her side.
Hugely depressing for those of us who remember what it was like to have freedom as a kid.
Astra at April 23, 2015 6:04 AM
Given today's insane standards, how many of our parents would STILL be in jail for the way they let us grow up ??
(I did solo trips to NYC at 13. . . .and lived in SE Pennsylvania at the time. . . )
Keith Glass at April 23, 2015 7:13 AM
Like Amy, I also question the need for a news story, but for different reasons. If I was a parent, I wouldn't want it publicized that my eight-year old daughter walks to school on her own every day. AND they actually show her face on TV. I agree with the concept of "free-range parenting," but it's got to include some level of privacy.
Fayd at April 23, 2015 8:16 AM
Fayd, stranger abduction is extremely rare. A child is most likely to be kidnapped by someone they know, especially a non custodial relative.
Janet C at April 23, 2015 8:42 AM
Fayd, stranger abduction is extremely rare. A child is most likely to be kidnapped by someone they know, especially a non custodial relative.
Exactly. Same with molestation.
Most strangers have no interest in other people's children whatsoever.
Kevin at April 23, 2015 9:30 AM
A lot of this free range parenting comes not just from helicoptering, and from stranger danger, etc., but a lot of it is because of how we have let cars completely revamp our cities.
It's not just strangers people worry about when they drive their kids to schools, it's fast cars, and big cars, and SUVs and minivans filled with kids driven by harried parents, and cars with drivers talking on the phone and texting, ....
It's also about how cars have changed the neighborhoods in other ways.
Now it seems very much the norm that our children's friends are often not kids from down the block, but either kids from school who may live much further away than the local neighborhood, or the children of our friends, who we may work with or otherwise socialize with.
So it's no longer a matter of letting the kids wander down the block to their friends, truly, they have to be driven to where the friends are, and so few adults on the block can identify who the kids they see are, they don't them or their parents, and there are no kids playing in the streets either.
This is certainly not an attack on letting kids walk to schools, it's an attack on how we have let cars change everything.
The best places I have ever lived were in older neighborhoods which often had mixed zoning where in the middle of a residential area there would be a block or two of small businesses, groceries, etc., and where people could easily walk around in the local neighborhood.
Perhaps if you want to see free range parenting come back, accept steps that make it much easier for people to wander around their neighborhood on foot: mixed zoning, traffic calming, bike paths, walkways, etc.
jerry at April 23, 2015 10:36 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/04/23/how_pathetic_th.html#comment-5979532">comment from FaydThanks for pointing that out about the actual rarity of child kidnapping.
Amy Alkon at April 23, 2015 10:40 AM
"Perhaps if you want to see free range parenting come back, accept steps that make it much easier for people to wander around their neighborhood on foot: mixed zoning, traffic calming, bike paths, walkways, etc."
Sorry, not buying it. Those changes happened well before helicopter parenting came around. Also, from what I've seen, some of the places where you find the worst helicopter parenting are precisely those types of "walkable" neighborhoods. It's must more of a trendiness and "OMG-terrorists-are-everywhere!!!" thing, and very much an upper-class affliction. You notice that cops aren't picking up children walking unaccompanied and turning their parents in to CPS in poor neighborhoods.
Cousin Dave at April 23, 2015 11:10 AM
> It's must more of a trendiness and "OMG-terrorists-are-everywhere!!!" thing,
I think that's very true
> and very much an upper-class affliction.
Sigh. I've seen it far too much in middle class families and neighborhoods to think it's an upper-class affliction.
I certainly didn't say that stranger danger and zero tolerance has no little part in this. It clearly does, and I have railed here in the past against both.
I do note that when I was a kid walking to school, the vast majority of kids walked or biked and the few people who drove, drove in small cars or station wagons.
Now when I pick up kids, it's literally a 1/4 mile line of huge SUVs and minivans. My little 4 door is the huge stand out.
Oh well, I think the changes to the street environment itself sadly creates, if not justifies the lack of walking, biking and looking down on free range parenting, and if you want to see it come back, do what you can to make neighborhoods more walkable.
(Of course, I can expect no sympathy on a blog where people cannot even admit to driving to work in pirates)
jerry at April 23, 2015 12:19 PM
So, today, I would have been called a "free-range kid." But back then, it was known as "normal."
Patrick at April 23, 2015 1:11 PM
My neighborhood is plenty walkable and I used to see kids everywhere playing outside, walking, riding bikes by themselves last spring and summer. I haven't yet this year. Only hovered over children trying to ride bikes in little circles on their driveways while parents are hovering. Of course, we also started getting regular patrols from cars marked as DHS and/or CPS driving around and trying to talk to unsupervised children. I now no longer see unsupervised children. I wouldn't be surprised to see CPS showing up at my door to complain that I allow my toddlers to play in my fenced backyard by themselves while I stay inside to keep an eye on the baby. That whole side of my house is mostly all windows so it's not like I can't keep an eye on them anyway.
The whole problem is we had a generation of kids raised to fear kidnappers and molestors in every shadow and behind every bush. Now they are grown and have their own kids and they are acting on that paranoia and passing the fear onto their kids.
BunnyGirl at April 23, 2015 1:33 PM
Wait... CPS is patrolling your neighborhood? Why? Did something happen? I've never heard of anything like that! I thought they only came around if they were investigating something specific?
...but DHS, I believe, because we actually had a DHS contractor poking around where we live. Different topic, however...
ahw at April 23, 2015 1:42 PM
Ugh! Why do people even bother having kids? They're miserable little shits who ruin your life anyway, but now it's even worse because you have to live under a microscope! I've never experienced babyrabies, but even if I did, I don't think any amount of them would convince me to put up with this shit.
Pirate Jo at April 23, 2015 2:57 PM
I'm not aware of any incidents in the area, but they started patrolling in March right before spring break. I didn't know they could go out just looking for problems either. My next door neighbor is a detective and he told us a 7-month-old baby was murdered a couple months ago in our town, but that was the first I'd heard of it (I don't watch the local news generally) and it wasn't in my neighborhood.
BunnyGirl at April 23, 2015 5:44 PM
"You notice that cops aren't picking up children walking unaccompanied and turning their parents in to CPS in poor neighborhoods."
***
Yeah they are, remember the McDonalds worker who was letting her kid play in the park while she worked?
Its everywhere
NicoleK at April 24, 2015 12:01 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/04/23/how_pathetic_th.html#comment-5981261">comment from NicoleKNo data behind this, but I just don't think poor people are going to turn people in like those who have the luxury to worry that children aren't swaddled every moment till they're 25.
Amy Alkon at April 24, 2015 5:36 AM
"Yeah they are, remember the McDonalds worker who was letting her kid play in the park while she worked?"
You're right. I forgot about that. Still, kids run around loose in the hood all the time. I think it's rather telling that the kid who was picked up had a mother who was working. Why that particular kid? Was the fact that his mother was working the reason he was picked up? I wonder.
And I get Jerry's point about the SUVs. I have heard this explanation, though: Current laws about children in car seats makes it almost impossible to carry them in a smaller vehicle. In some states, it's quite possible that if you have four children, all four have to be in individual car seats, and none of those seats can be in a front seat or in the center position of a bench seat. So you must have a vehicle with three rows of seats.
Cousin Dave at April 24, 2015 8:16 AM
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