By Staff
Finally I am joined by another mother who believes we are much too worried about the safety of our children.
The fact she was named the "worst mother of the year' doesn't worry me. I think she is right on the money.
This so-called bad mom has written a book. I haven't read Ayelet Waldman's book, and actually only heard a snippet while going out for fast food at lunchtime, I related to what I did hear on NPR.
Apparently she allowed, at his request, her nine-year-old son to make his way home by himself on a subway, which I believe was in New York.
He had money, in case he resorted to a taxi.
According to the author, the odds are greater he would be hurt riding in a car to the corner to wait for the school bus, than left to fend for himself.
I know we live in a different world. Now we know every bad thing that is happening everywhere. We must though, I believe, get over this constant fear for our children.
When my first child went to kindergarten in the '70s, in a suburb of Chicago, he actually walked about six blocks by himself every day after lunch to school.
The only problem we ever had, after I had walked with him and shown him the way, was one day he left early so he could play on the swings and he forgot to tell me. That day when I had my back turned for a second, the three-year-old followed him the whole way a block behind.
I grabbed my newborn and was out on the street as soon as I discovered the two were gone – less than five minutes later.
Both were discovered fine. One happily swinging and the other almost to the school.
Sure it could have been tragic. They could have been kidnapped. But they weren't.
Later, at a school in St. Louis, he again walked that far.
Nowadays, I see parents parked at the end of their driveways letting their children wait in their car. Have we become that paranoid?
Training and instruction about strangers and safety needs to be given continually and advance with age.
I had always heard by 11 a child can be left alone for a short period of time.
At 11, I babysat for four young kids and was expected to clean the mother's house.
Babysitting for siblings should come in small doses, maybe one child at a time, but not before the older child can watch itself successfully.
Children don't become responsible adults one day on a certain birthday.
They need to be trusted, praised and learn that feeling of accomplishment of doing something alone. Maybe it is making dinner by themselves, something I did as a fifth grader.
Our televisions today are tuned to too many criminal shows, instead of the Leave it to Beaver and My Three Sons of the past, that we fear for their lives daily.
We don't need to do so at all times, it is bad enough when they learn to drive.
By the way, once while babysitting, my eldest saved his brother when he choked on candy, doing the Heimlich.
He said he learned it on TV.