Mom Lets Kid Find Own Way Home Via Subway
You may or may not have heard about this story yet, but it’s making its way through the media and blogosphere, and we wanted to get your thoughts. A New York City mom recently gave her 9-year-old some money, dropped him in the middle of Manhattan and told him to find his way home… And he did. But does that make it okay?
For weeks, Lenore Skenazy’s son had been begging her to leave him somewhere so he could try to find his own way home. So she did. She dropped him off at Bloomingdale’s with a subway map, MetroCard, $20 bill and several quarters 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.”
As you can imagine, plenty of people are outraged. In fact, many want to turn this mom in for child abuse, “as if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It’s not. It’s debilitating — for us and for them,” Skenazy writes.
“What if he didn’t come home?” people ask. “Don’t you remember the story of Carlie Brucia, the girl who was abducted a mile from her home in broad daylight?”
Of course Skenazy remembers the story, she says. And of COURSE she’d be devastated if her son hadn’t made it home.
BUT.
Would that just prove that no mom should ever let her child ride the subway alone? No. It would just be one more awful but extremely rare example of random violence, the kind that hyper parents cite as proof that every day in every way our children are more and more vulnerable.
[…]
The problem with this everything-is-dangerous outlook is that over-protectiveness is a danger in and of itself. A child who thinks he can’t do anything on his own eventually can’t.
So what do you think? Is she right — are we too overprotective? Or was this just a foolishly dangerous parenting move that had a lucky outcome?
April 30th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I agree with the mom. Her son was accustomed to using the subway and reading a map and knew what his mission was. He wanted to prove something to his mom, so he wasn’t inclined to fail or do something ridiculous. The mom was giving her son a chance to do something that kids in our town do everyday alone…ride public transit without the watchful eye of mom or dad.
I think every family is different and each child has different levels of maturity and ability. I wouldn’t necessarily leave a 9 year old from the sticks of Oklahoma in the middle of New York and tell him to find Times Square. But I would put that 9 year old on the back of horse and tell him to have fun roaming the canyons for awhile. Parent’s need to leave other parents alone to raise their kids how they believe is best. The state should stay out of it all unless there is physical evidence of abuse or neglect. Which in this case, there is not.
I commend this mom for allowing her son to accomplish a routine, daily task on his own. She was on the Today show and made a comment to the effect of “I wouldn’t send him skydiving or bungee jumping, those aren’t life skills”. Being able to find your way home from Bloomingdales probably is.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I entirely agree with the mom as well in that the overprotective-ness to a certain degree is completely debilitating. Not allowing your child to ever grow up and do things for themselves disables them in the future. One of my friends recently, 2 months away from her nineteenth birthday, finally figured out how to cash a check. It’s not that hard. You go to a bank and you ask the teller to cash it. However, her father had done all of her banking from day 1 and she never learned or knew that if you just simply took the check to it’s corresponding bank and asked a teller to cash it they could. She thought you had to use an ATM, and that she could go to any bank. Learning life skills is a requirement for all children and without them they have a higher risk at, honestly, failing in life.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I haven’t seen or heard about this story before, but I agree with the above comments and the mom in the story.
When my family and I lived in NYC my parent’s never let me go anywhere that was past going home to school and back.
So when I was leaving NYC at the age 14 and wanted to see my best friend for the last time, my parents finally let me use
the Subway for the first time on my own to get to my friends place. I was scared and yet felt really proud of myself for
being able to do that simple thing. I think these little things such as taking public transportaiton should be allowed for children
starting at a young age. However I think the mom should have given the 9 year old a cell phone for in case of an emergency.
I mean honestly she has alot more to worry about than loosing a cell versus if her kid running into a serious emergency.
Didn’t you hear about how an US grad student in Egypt got out of jail after being arrested due to his abilty to use a blackberry
to send a message to tweeter - a blogging site?
April 30th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I do NOT agree with this at all! Why couldn’t have the mother gone with her son to make sure that he was safe, staying by his side but being silent? She could have stayed just as protection, not leading him at all, being quite but like a protective guardian angle. I am 18 and a female and it wasn’t too long ago since I was a child and I have a younger brother whom I watch constantly though he doesn’t like it. But things like this take time, you just can’t release you child to the things of this world just because he will experience it someday anyways. My parents had always been considered “overly protective” by my friends and even by some of their parents but I was kept safe all this time and I’m not an inexperienced person. She says “over-protectiveness is a danger in and of itself. A child who thinks he can’t do anything on his own eventually can’t.” but I have done many things on my own now and am a respectable young lady. And she “trusted him to ask a stranger”?!? Her reactions outrage me! When I was in Jr. High School my friends and I had a minimum day and were able to walk to lunch before walking home. With me there were 2 girls and a boy. After lunch we were walking home when some older males (20’s to 30’s age) pulled up next to us and asked us to hop in if we wanted a ride. All, every single one, of my friends were like, “Yeah, it’s hot!” but I said “No!” the guys persisted to ask then got frustrated and left. What if I hadn’t been so “over-protected” and taught to think in a protective manner? Would we have been a few of the many children abducted? Those of you who are thinking “Well, gee, you don’t truly know that” are being ignorant people! WHY would older guys want to waste their time, and gas, not to mention they wouldn’t have had enough seats in their truck, to give us strange kids a ride home? This is because children are very vulnerable and gullible. It’s not like children to not trust people unless something has led them to believe them not to trust. This lady’s son was all alone AND still in elementary school. The least she could have done was sent an eager teenager searching for adventure with him. You can’t always let you children talk you into doing something that isn’t safe for them. I don’t mean to be rude people but look at how scary our society has gotten now days! There are just too many creepies out there! Please have some common sense and protect your children even if it is “over-protecting” it’s not like one day they will never get to go out and see the world, it’s just a few short years down the road. ~Laura from user name thedogwalkers and user name Laurie.is.here
April 30th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Being a nanny, I feel the best way for a child to learn is by doing it. Most families don’t use public transportation, be it germs, homeless, or whatever.
Do you really think you are being a responsible human being by sheltering these kids from everyday life? I start these kids, as soon as I am not worried about them being to small. When they learn to walk and start talking, it is time to start teaching. We take the subway and Metro around Los Angeles. With gas prices, it makes cents.
We have become a nation afraid of our own shawdow. Did you know that if you sit and worry about the worst happening, it will happen? But you never know when, and what have you done other than waste your life on fear.
Be brave, go on adventures, take a small child with you. Experience life to the fullest. Teach a child while they are young and you will never have to worry about them once they are grown.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
This is new york city! Do you think a pedophile wouldn’t have notiticed a young child riding a subway by himself? I think that was completely dangerous and irresponsible. I believe we have to be somewhat over-protective with the kind of world we live in today ANYTHING can happen. To me this sounds like a mom who could care less if her son came home. Also being worried about losing a cell phone whats more important the child or a material possesion? Obviously a child can’t be replaced as easy as a cellphone can. I just think that people who want to drop their kids in the middle of manhattan and find their own way home are not meant to be parents because accidents happen and thats one that could have been prevented.
May 1st, 2008 at 6:59 am
I am on the fence on this one. First of all I believe that children need to know how to read maps and know their way around, Just as I believe children need certain responsibilities at home. However in most states you cannot even be left alone at home until you are 12-13, let alone left alone out in a huge city to find their way home alone.
I also think she should have given him a cell phone. Because if he would have been abducted or lost, he probably would have a better chance of being found being found if he used it at all. most cell phones are set up that way.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:42 am
THAT WAS ENTIRELY DANGEROUS,,havent you heard of child abduction, child molestation, child killings, and rapes, what was she thinking, that was crazy and so stupid, and all of you who agree with the mother are crazy as well, and very extremely irresponsible. How could you leave your child by himself in public like that, and at a SUBWAY? SHe does NOT CARE about her child. Did she not think her son would get ABDUCTED, let alone by an insane mass murderer or anything like that?
May 1st, 2008 at 11:06 am
Mixed feelings. In general I agree with the mom’s philosophy. I rode bikes 5 miles or more to nearby villages in India, climbed a muddy steep hillside in the monsoons, was put on an international flight when I was 11, an intercity train in India at 12 (and was traumatized because I had to wait an hour at the station since my dad went to the wrong one.), all mostly unscathed. In Mumbai you will commonly see middle or lower middle class kids as young as 8 commuting regularly by public transportation. So it is a question of familiarity with and opportunity for trail and error in the environment.
On the other hand, my parents then put me in a boarding school (you know, protected space with plenty of adults around for supervision) where homosexual rape by older boys was fairly common and only a combination of luck, fighting back and then the advice and protection of an older classmate saved me.
Most child abuse takes place in the home; stranger abductions make the news but are in fact exceedingly rare. Does “morrisco” think pedophiles stay only in big cities? How many parents keep their kids away from public transportation or libraries but happily send them to choir at church?
Do we think that NYers won’t intervene if they see or hear a child in trouble?
The only thing I would have done differently (and perhaps the mom in question did do this) is to do a few test runs with the child, where I accompany the child but she/he is responsible for all the interactions and decision making. How else does any child ever learn to cross a road safely?
I don’t believe in the “give him a cell,phone” either. That is just an illusion of safety, as numerous ignorants in the mountains have learnt.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I’m on the fence. I think the mom had the right idea by giving her child the chance to learn by doing. But, on the other hand, personally, I wouldn’t have done it. At least not that young. Maybe it would have been better to have been with the child staying silent and letting him find his way home without helping, but would that help this young boy feel independant? Who knows? This mother is the only person who knows her child as well as she does, and she would be the best judge on if he would be able to handle himself. To ask for charges of child abuse, may be pusing it a little too far. That’s like Massachusetts wanting to pass laws on parenting saying you can’t spank your child!
On the account of the cell-phone, if this child was abducted (God forbid) what good would a cell phone really do him? Being scared, with a stranger, and being taken from his way home probably wouldn’t entice a young child to reach for a cell phone and call 911. Better yet, how would someone who is finding his way home for the first time know how to tell police where to find him? That stuff only happens in the movies.
I do believe however, that having an attitude of “everything is dangerous so make life safe enough that nothing will ever happen” is ridiculous. If you protect a child from absolutely everything, how will anything happen to or FOR them?
May 1st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Settle down folks. The mother obviously raised her child the right way (HER WAY). She knew what the boy was capable of. Geez, I used t ride my bike at 6am (still dark) from the 2nd grade til H.S. to and from school, a distance of 8 miles in big o’l Houston, TX downtown. I rode the bus everywhere by myself and sometimes with friends. 1st time I visited N.Y.C at 17, I used the subway right away. I had a single mom who worked 2 jobs, yet was always home to help with homework and put me to bed. I now have a 9 yo and a 3yo. girls. I am raising them to be strong, independent women as I was raised. My 3 yo already knows her full name, her parents’ full name and her grandparents’ full name. She knows her phone number and my cell number and her address. I am protective to an extent depending on my girls’ maturity. Being over protective can be just as harmful as not protecting them at all. Trust your children, after all, YOU thought them everything they know.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:07 am
To comment on something that caught my eye a couple of comments back, I don’t believe that society has gotten creepier so much as there is more attention drawn to the creepiness. There is also more information, education, and support available to the victims of rape, molestation, etc. This makes people more likely to come forward with the incidents and the incidents themselves aren’t treated as shameful, etc. as they were in the past. Which is partly why so many more incidences are recorded. And besides…now that you’re older, you probably take note more of the news on kidnapping, molestations, etc.
As for the article, I’m sort of on the fence but leaning more towards the mother’s side. People shouldn’t consider just the age of the child without acknowledging his level of maturity and his natural environment. Sure, 9 year olds are still pretty innocent, but nowadays they’re more knowledgeable (and sometimes more mature) than we think. I have a couple of cousins who are 9 and 11 and I’m not sure I’d let the 11 yr. old run errands too far from home, but I’d sure let the 9 yr. old.
=) EvaGirl, I come from Houston, too. I lived almost inner city and was fine riding my bike around and taking the buses. Unlike you though, I was a little scared the first time I tried to take the subways in New York at 16. I was more afraid of the fast pace and getting pick-pocketed than anything. For that 9 yr. old kid, that was his environment. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have asked his mom (nor would she have let him) to leave him in downtown Houston to try to find his way home.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:01 am
I’AM HALF AND HALF ON THIS SUBJECT. HE NEEDS TO BE TAUGHT –BUT NOT ALONE . I PERSONALLY WOULD OF HAD SOMEONE HE KNOWS WELL, FOLLOW BEHIND WITHOUT THE CHILDS KNOWLEDGE. IF THE CHILD MADE IT HOME SAFELY, I WOULDN’T HAVE TOLD HIM HE WAS BEING SILENTLY
TAKEN CARE OF ,,IF HE STRUGGLED TO MUCH TO GET HOME SAFELY ,OR HAD MUCH TO MUCH CONTACT WITH STRANGERS ,THE CHILD WOULD HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT SOMEONE WAS THERE FOR HIM. THEN AND ONLY THEN WOULD I HAVE HAD HIM START OVER FROM THE BEGINING
SO THE CHILD COULD BE TAUGHT TO RECOGNIZE FAMILIAR THINGS OR USE CERTAIN MARKINGS THAT HE CAN READ ,AND DO MAKE SURE THE CHILD CAN READ,IF NOT YOU’LL HAVE TO USE MARKINGS ,COLORS SOUNDS,I MEAN THERE IS ALL KINDS OF THINGS AROUND US TO POINT OUT.
MAYBE THE MOM KNEW THE CHILD WAS PRETY SMART IN SOME AREAS, MAYBE SHE HAS BEEN TEACHING LITTLE THINGS. I WOULDNT OF HAD HIM ALONE ,THEY DONT HAVE TO KNOW SOMEONE IS IN THE BACKROUND MAKING SURE EVERYTHING IS OK.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:08 am
My mom lost us on the subway when my sister and I were 17 and 14, respectively. I remember being terrified. Oddly enough, we got on a Bloomingdale’s in the wrong direction, when my mom realized we were going the wrong direction, she got off the train but my sister and I had the doors close on us. We rode into Jamaica, Queens on the R train until they announce that the train was having technical difficulties. We got off at Roosevelt and 57th, I believe, and realized we were so out of place. However, someone was nice enough to help us get back to Manhattan without too much fuss. It was a terrifying experience, but enlightening. Children who grow up in NYC will eventually have to take the subway without their parents. I believe 9 is too young, but this child obviously was mature enough to ask his mother to let him do this. If he is a mature 9 year old, then the mother trusted it was a good decision. All I know, I would NEVER let my 9 year old do such a thing. I’d wait until the child was at least an early teen.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:04 pm
With out knowing the child well I do not believe that any adult has the right to say wheather or not the mother was right or wrong in her actions. If the child had lived in NYC his intire life, he had probably been on that subway more than 1000 times. I baby-sit a child that at 3 years old she told her mom that she wanted to go to McDonalds, and to distinguish the one with the play ground from the one with out, she told her mom exactually which roads to take to get there. She wanted to take lee wood to rodhey parham to markham rather than taking biscane to cantrell. She was only 3!! Every child matures at a different pace. If you hold a child back because of their age they will become very frustrated and perhaps wonder why you think they are not capable and perhaps begin to think that they are Not capable when they are. Being a parent Has ONE long term goal. Prepare your children to be sucsesful in THEIR lives. People like to pretend that adults are not at just as much risk as a child is. If someone wants to harm your child chances are a single mother is not going to have the capability to stoping a man. And if you hide away in fear you might as well kill yourself because you are not living. This mother had obviously done a well job in preparing her child for the task, b/c the child made it home and thats not something that every 9 year old could do. The only way I would consider this to be neglect was if the child had not been well prepared for the task. Yeah, the mother took a risk. As a very independent 20 year old lady, I’m very glad that my mother took risks and that I’m not a 20 year old still at home too scared to leave my mothers side.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
No parent has the right to judge another parents method of raising their child.Yes,we may agree or disagree and the methods may not always be in the best interest of either the parent or child , however unless you are personally involved there is no reason for you to judge.I agree with the previous post that it isn’t that society has gotten creepier it’s that we pay more attention to the creepiness. As for any pedophiles-they would have noticed that young child ages ago-with or without his mother present. That is why we model for our children how to navigate the world , why we teach them to pay attention to their instincts and to find someone who can help , a police officer,mother or father or even a clerk…not allowing your child to develop self reliance is the greatest form of neglect and abuse. Each parent has their own way- I respect that , hopefully they will respect my methods as well.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Hmmm… Just think in 5 short years this kid will be starting out behind the wheel of a car. Some people think 14 is not old enough to strike out driving. My dad drove a pick up for the first time when he was 10… I think essentially parents need to decide what thier own children are capable of. We are a society moving back to public transit as gas prices rise… we have three perfectly good vehicles and we have started going to farmers market, the mall etc. by public transit. Saturday is the family’s new “NO CAR” day. We feel it is going to be a useful skill for the kids as they get older. Yes, mine are only four, but I know they will be able to get anywhere on a bus by age 9 because we will have taught them. Also, in another context, I work for the airlines. sometimes we travel as often as twice a week across country. I would feel comfortable letting my 5 year old fly next week as an unaccompanied minor as he’s done it so often.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
I dont agree with this, I agree with what TheDogWalkers said. The mom could have gone with her son and kept quiet and let him make his own decisions. My parents used to see if I was able to get home and they would drive around and then ask me to point them in the correct direction to go home. This was in the car and they never left me or let me get out of the car to walk home, they would just turn the wrong way if I pointed the wrong way. I think that is a much safer way to see if a child can get home. Stay by the child’s side or at least close to it!
May 7th, 2008 at 2:35 am
I’m a bit on the fence. I come from a small town where almost nothing happens, and yet in the mid 80s a third grader was snatched as she walked to school by herself. This is a town that has less than 15,000 in it today, back in the 80s there was significantly less people than that. And yet a family believed their 8 year old was capable of going to school on her own, in this town and she was taken.
I’m all for giving kids more responsibility and allowing them to learn right from wrong and how to do things for themselves, but I would never allow any of the kids I nannied for to find their way home - even in my tiny home town. It’s just not practical. Yes, we all have this “scared of life” mentalities now a days, but these mentalities would be insignificant if not for the basis behind them. We are scared because, unfortunately, things happen.
I feel that while I commend this mother for having the galls to let her child find some independence and to be able to do things on his own - sticking a 9 year old in down town NYC and having him “find his way home” is irresponsible. I’m 21 and I have a hard enough time finding my way around a city like Boston that I know by heart. Living in LA now, I’m even more confused. It makes more sense to be with your son the first few times, letting him make all the decisions, so that you know he can do it if he ever truly had to. It just frightens me that this woman may make it a common practice of hers to have her son “find his way home”.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:54 am
I understand what the mother was saying.. But 9 is way too young. She should have waited until he was at least 11 or 12. And spied on him without him knowing. Or had a friend follow him or something.
May 11th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Have problem to get home at 17 …. is this ok???
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Trusting your kids to learn is one thing. But I don’t trust everyone else. You never know what kind of wierdo’s are out there, and I think this mom was very nieve about it. Sure she had perfect trust in her child to get home I’m sure he could have done it a million times. It’s just not very safe anymore specially at that age because they can be easily taken advantage of. There is a great level of nastyness that humans are capable of, just because it doesn’t happen in “our world” doesn’t mean it’s not there and doesn’t exist.