I walked at least a mile home from school as early as 2nd grade. And when I was 9 my friends and I roamed for miles on our bikes. I definitely think parents have become over protective, but I would hesitate letting my 9 year old take the subway alone. A major factor in the decision would be their familiarity with the route. Mom lets son, 9, ride subway alone Columnist stirs controversy with experiment in childhood independence By Mike Celizic Thurs., April. 3, 2008 Once upon a time in New York City, it wasn’t a big deal if pre-teen kids rode the subways and buses alone. Today, as Lenore Skenazy has discovered, a kid who goes out without a nanny, a helmet and a security detail is a national news story, and his mother is a candidate for child-abuse charges. A columnist for The New York Sun, Skenazy recently left her 9-year-old son, Izzy, at Bloomingdale’s in midtown Manhattan with a Metrocard for the subway, a subway map, $20, and told him she’d see him when he got back home. She wrote a column about it and has been amazed at the chord she struck among New Yorkers who remember being kids in those more innocent times. “So many people – the ones who aren’t castigating me as crazy – are all regaling me about the first time they took the subway,” she told TODAY’s Ann Curry on Thursday in New York. “And for most people, it’s a great, happy memory. People love that independence.” Izzy, who is now 10, nodded in agreement and insisted it was no big deal. He had been nagging his mother for a long time to let him ride home alone, and finally she agreed to let him take the downtown Lexington Avenue subway and then transfer to a crosstown bus to get home from Bloomingdale’s. “I was like, ‘Finally!’ ” Izzy said of his reaction when his mom finally caved in to his nagging. “I think that it’s a really easy, simple thing to get home.” And that was Skenazy’s point in her column: The era is long past when Times Square was a fetid sump and taking a walk in Central Park after dark was tantamount to committing suicide. Recent federal statistics show New York to be one of the safest cities in the nation – right up there with Provo, Utah, in fact. “Times are back to 1963,” Skenzay said. “It’s safe. It’s a great time to be a kid in the city.” The problem is that people read about children who are abducted and murdered and fear takes over, she said. And she doesn’t think fear should rule our lives. As she wrote in her column about Izzy’s big adventure: “Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn me 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.” When she said goodbye to Izzy in the handbags department, Skenazy didn’t even leave him with a cell phone. Instead, she gave him a couple of quarters so he could call home on a pay phone if he got lost. Dr. Ruth Peters, a parenting expert and TODAY Show contributor, agreed that children should be allowed independent experiences, but felt there are better – and safer – ways to have them than the one Skenazy chose. “I’m not so much concerned that he’s going to be abducted, but there’s a lot of people who would rough him up,” she said. “There’s some bullies and things like that. He could have gotten the same experience in a safer manner.” “It’s safe to go on the subway,” Skenazy replied. “It’s safe to be a kid. It’s safe to ride your bike on the streets. We’re like brainwashed because of all the stories we hear that it isn’t safe. But those are the exceptions. That’s why they make it to the news. This is like, ‘Boy boils egg.’ He did something that any 9-year-old could do.” Addressing the same subject in her column, she had written: “These days, when a kid dies, the world - i.e., cable TV - blames the parents. It's simple as that. And yet, Trevor Butterworth, a spokesman for the research center STATS.org, said, ‘The statistics show that this is an incredibly rare event, and you can't protect people from very rare events. It would be like trying to create a shield against being struck by lightning.’ ” She said that people ask her how she would feel if one of those terrible and rare events happened to her son. “It would be horrible,” she said. “But you can’t live your life that way; you could slip in the shower.” “I don’t think this is just about the subway,” Peters countered. “I think it’s a difference of opinion of when is the child able to have independent activities. My thought on it is, it’s not just the child, it’s the other environment. If you can do something more safely, it’s just more appropriate.” Said Skenazy, “I just think about all the college kids who are still sending their essays home to be edited by their parents. I talked to one lady whose daughter sends her pictures when she’s trying on clothes: ‘Mom, what do you think of this? What do you think of that?’ At some point you have to let go and let them live their life.” Or ride the subway alone. © 2007 MSNBC Interactive URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23935873/
Ride on Izzy, ride on. I used to walk or ride my bike to school when I was in 1st grade. Everybody did it and our neighborhood would always have a flood of kids walking to and from school in the morning and afternoon. When I was in highschool though, I noticed that it tapered off to practically no kids. The parents all drive the kids to school even though it's in the same freaking neighborhood.
I did so much crap when I was a kid worse than that, like you said above, I would go miles into random places on my bike and get lost when I was like 9. My dad didn't give a nuts, if I was really in trouble I would just ask someone to call my dad for me. This isn't that bad, but since we have to be so politically correct she's getting mad crap for it.
It's not even a huge generational gap. My sister who is 14 years younger than me can't do ANYTHING alone. My parents didn't let her out of the neighborhood until her friends could drive. I think it says a lot about this kid's maturity that he wanted to get home on his own, though. So maybe some children can handle it at this age, but its all about knowing what the child can handle and be comfortable.
We are talking a 9 yr old in Manhattan --- not a 9 year old in the burbs Not sure what the "right age" is I think it partially depends upon the child (ie: I would be more likely to let a boy do this then a girl do this then a boy). I would not let my 12 or 13 yr old daughter ride the new york subway alone. Not because I'm overprotective but because it is the New York subway system (those who are o.k. with this have you ever ridden it?) Remove New York and Subway from the equation and I think most 9 year olds are capable of navigating around in areas they are familiar with.
My brother in law is only three years younger than me. He has friends (we are talking age 24+) who constantly call home to have remedial stuff taken care of by their parents. They also rely on their money all the time too. That just freaking weird to me. By the time I was 19 I was plain embarrased to ask my old man for anything. He had done so much for me it would be just plain rude to take advantage of it.
I don't know...honestly because I've never been to NYC and used the subways there. I don't know what it's like. But we give my 8 year old lots of independence. He's hella smarter than I am, anyway.
I have no personal sub-way stories (but I am not young or attractive) but my daughter (who is 23) has had enough run-ins with bums and drunks (even during the day) on the subway in NY that I would not want a 9 year old to have to deal with.
I've been to New York and ridden the subways plenty of times, a lot of them with my daughter when she was around 9. Even so, I'm not sure what my decision would be if we lived in NYC. That's why this is so interesting to me. It's right at the cusp of what I might or might not do. We did start letting her ride Amtrak alone at 15, I think, between my home in Baltimore and her mom's home in Stamford, CT. That was definitely nerve wracking at first.
Last summer, my older boy was 7. We let him fly to Little Rock to visit my wife's parents by himself. I was nervous dropping him off....I knew the flight attendants would take care of him. But you can't avoid being a little nervous about that. I think it ultimately was a great experience for him and for me and my wife. We all probably grew a little from it.
This is MUCH different then riding a New York Subway. There are no mentally ill homeless people on the air plane and there are flight attendents who know the situation. I would let a 7 yr old fly alone and certainly let a 15 yr old ride amtrak.
There are some weird people in the NYC subway... If I have kids, I won't let them ride the nYc subway alone.
When I have been in Seoul, I oftentimes saw kids who can't be older than 6 walking on major streets by themselves. I have also seen them on the subway.
Yeah we let my daughter fly alone from Montana to Stamford when she was around 8, but I wasn't too worried because it was a non-stop flight and the airline assisted her. The much more dangerous part of that trip was the drive from Helena to Bozeman in a snow storm to get her on the plane.
