Teens and Freedom: How Much Is Too Much?

[riyasimla22]

In April, a New York newspaper columnist sparked a firestorm of criticism after revealing that she had allowed her 9-year-old son to travel alone across Manhattan. The next month, the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes repeated a segment from the previous November bemoaning the difficulties employers face in their attempts to accommodate today's over-coddled and over-protected young people.

And thus the mainstream media bookended the dilemma faced by most modern American parents: Are we giving our children too much freedom, or not enough?

'Free Range' Parents Push Freedom
In the April 1, 2008 edition of the New York Sun, columnist Lenore Skenazy described the circumstances surrounding her son's solo voyage on New York's public transit system:

[F]or weeks my boy had been begging for me to please email data him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.

No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn't want to lose it. And no, I didn't trail him, like a mommy private eye. I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn't do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, "Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I'll abduct this adorable child instead."

Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.
Skenazy, who later wrote that she expected the column to generate "a few e-mails pro and con" instead found herself at the center of a heated public debate over parental responsibility. She and her son, Izzy, were quizzed on NBC, MSNBC, and Fox News. Talk radio hosts and bloggers around the world debated the child-rearing issues raised by the column, and evaluated Skenazy's fitness as a parent.
The reaction of Canadian blogger Kelly Graham-Scherer was among the softer of the many negative responses the column generated. Skenazy, Graham-Scherer wrote, "gambled with her son's safety" in the name of provocative journalism:

I think all writers who document their experiences for public consumption run the risk of falling prey to the desire to give people something truly gripping to read. I think Ms. Skenazy ... is a savvy journalist who carefully considered how she could make a compelling statement that would focus a lot of media attention on the subject, spark controversy and ensure that her views would reach a large audience.
Citing statistics that document not only declining overall crime rates but also the relative rarity of children being abducted or abused by strangers, Skenazy and her supporters used the attention garnered by her column to advocate for a parenting philosophy that favors freedom over fear. Skenazy summarized this mindset in an introductory entry on the "Free Range Kids" blog she founded:
We are not daredevils. We believe in life jackets and bike helmets and air bags. But we also believe in independence. Children, like chickens, deserve a life outside the cage. The overprotected life is stunting and stifling, not to mention boring for all concerned.
So here's to Free Range Kids, raised by Free Range Parents willing to take some heat.