Maybe Everyone Isn't a Helicopter Parent

How is this kind of a story worthy of news? I love the moral of the story, and Lenore Skenazy is right on, but what the fuck! Is it that amazing that a 9 year old can understand what a train map is, what a bus map is and then successfully not fall off the face of the Earth?!

Here is a Daily Mail (British newspaper) article contrasting the area a great-grandfather, grandfather, mother, and son were allowed to roam unattended in their hometown growing up. When this type of anecdotal information is mapped out, it seems quite disturbing. There is something fundamentally wrong with saying "The newest generation is going to hell because of:

• overprotective parents
• internet (myspace / facebook)
• violent video games
• grunge music
  
• crack cocaine
• disco
• drugs
• free-love
• rock and roll
• women wearing pants
• the horseless carriage

I try my hardest to always temper over-excitement by saying "The kids are alright." I still have the urge to tell how I was allowed to walk to school 50 miles, over broken glass, naked, with my older brothers on my back. In all honesty though, I was allowed to pretty much ride my bike wherever I wanted to by the time I was in 4-5th grade (max of about 20 mile radius due to exhaustion).

There's someone close to me that doesn't do well with driving or directions by himself because, "What if I get lost?" Something tells me his parents didn't encourage experiences like Leonore Skenazy does.

Our media saturation of tragedies has skewed our understanding of reasonable risk. Individually my future children are no more likely to be abducted / molested than to be mauled by a opera singing, hairlipped, eskimo. I know that's not entirely true, but we have to understand that our world today is very nearly as safe as it was in the "good old days".


Well, on second thought, there may be good reason for at least a little paranoia...