when i was 12 i flew to denmark w/ my ten y/o sister. we spent the summer running all over the city by ourselves, and the last day i was there i took the bus down to the harbor, boarded a hydrofoil, and went to sweden. got off, bought by grandma some swedish duty-free coffee, and went back home. the next day we flew back to o'hare alone. the stewardess wlked us through customs and then left us alone to wait for our parents...for four hours. this was before cell phones, no one had a way to contact us or them. apparently there was a massive pile up on the interstate and traffic was really backed up. they were frantic when they finally arrived.
Ha. Wow. My parents wouldn't let me go to the movies with my friends without a parent until I was 14.
Here is a story from my hometown dealing with the same thing, sort of: http://www.kait8.com/global/story.asp?s=8109813 JONESBORO, AR (KAIT) -- A five year old boy slips past teachers on Monday and gets out of the Kindergarten Center in Jonesboro and starts walking home. Only when a couple spots the boy walking and reports it to the school and to the police is it realized that the boy wasn't on the bus. Kindergarten Center Principal Bryan Russell says the school has van riders and bus riders that congregate in different areas and instead of going with the bus group, and 5-year-old Zane Smith had gotten in with the daycare group. "He said he wanted to ride the cool buses, which to me means the vans that take the kids to daycare. They have to go into the library so I supposed he got mixed up with them and he just left," said Zane's mom Kristen Phelps. "When the daycare kids went one direction to load he simply went another and he went out the front gate and down the sidewalk and we knew nothing about it," said Russell. Russell says a teacher's aide told him on Wednesday morning that she had stopped Smith and he had told her he was walking home that day. She directed him to the library where he could wait for someone to walk him home, but the small boy had already made up his mind that he was walking home. Zane walked almost two miles towards his house. He stopped at the St. John Baptist Church on North Church Street where a couple spotted him walking and called police and the school. His mother takes Zane to school sometimes, but he always rides the bus home from school so she was terrified when she was told he wasn't on the bus and had been found walking home. "Has he been run over? Has he been abducted? Why is my child walking home? He rides the bus," said Phelps. There are 275 bus riders at the Kindergarten Center and five teachers on duty inside the cafeteria where they wait for the buses to come. This precaution is one that has been working. "We spend so much time thinking of every possible safety we can take and in this instance it just wasn't enough," said Russell. After this, lessons have been learned by everyone involved. "Hopefully it will help us think through and find that gap that Zane was able to find and fill it," said Russell. As for Zane, his mom said she has told him how dangerous walking home from school can be and how important it is for him to get on the bus so he can get home safely. "He thought it was cool what he had done. He thought it was cool and I tried to explain to him that he didn't need to walk and everything that could happen to him," said Phelps. This incident has sparked some changes for the Kindergarten Center. The van drivers are now checking their roll of riders inside the library where they gather to make sure there aren't any kids there that shouldn't be. The vans are also now in a different location. They are now picking kids up from the back where the buses come up.
Kids don't even walk to elementary school in my neighborhood anymore. When I was kid there would be tons of them. I don't see a single on these days. Now there is a giant line of cars in front of the school and the parents take them there even if they live right across the street. If for some crazy reason they did walk to school they would probably make them wear a helmet.
That sucks. Whenever I'm at home on a school day, I see kids walking home from the nearby elementary school all the time. We have kids playing in the streets just like we were when we were kids.
lol. When I was 12 I flew to Germany with my 11 year old sister. We had a connecting flight in NY, IIRC. We were met by my grandparents.
My mother is the most over-protective person I know or have heard of and it's not even remotely close. Seriously, I was not allowed to go anywhere after school till I was 19. And at that (this) point I hate my life so much and yet am so used to not doing anything at all that now I don't even want to go out. I am content with things being the way they are. Whenever I tried to rebel (like ask for a permission to go to one of my few friends' birthday party) she would imply hurting herself or going away and knowing her and given the past experiences, it wouldn't have surprised me one bit if she carried through on these threats had I gone somewhere. Then she would call me an ungrateful dick and blah blah blah. In result I have no friends, no social skills and my only hobby is video games. My life is pathetic. It's great.
eMat, if this isn't a joke it's pretty serious. You need to see a mental health professional asap and if you're not out of your mom's house already it would be a good idea to start working on that right away.
I took bus alone when I was 7 years old. Having said that, I wouldnt let my son take subway along in NYC or L.A through south central. It's different world now compared with that I grew up in.
Who needs friends and social life when you have Clutchfans? All joking aside, you really need find some help for both you and your mother. That's pretty messed up.
I see lots of great examples of good independence given to children. I did not see one (even flying to Denmark at 12) that compares to a 9 year old alone on the subways in New York
*nice* we agree on something. As to the topic, I'd agree kids they are a-changin. When I started teaching college, 10 years ago, I never saw parents. Now, they are calling a lot, and I even have parents wanting to attend their childrens' first advising meetings! That is, help them sign up for courses. I try to find a way to gently say that part of college is figuring this stuff out for yourself. The flipside is that college is a much larger investment than every before, so parents want to ensure return on investment.
I teach college and I've had that same problem. Including some who slipped into the first advising meeting with me - the people in charge were trying to keep the parents out but a few sneak in anyway, and we have to be polite. Of course, the parents ask all the questions. I try to address everything to the students, who aren't used to speaking for themselves, and the kids in these situations don't even end up lasting very long in college. The thing is: it's college. You are technically supposed to operate as an adult now. You need to take that seriously and prove yourself. Don't you want to show that you can make your own choices, have things in your own hands, so you don't end up some loser who never grows up and lives off their parents forever? And if the parents feel like it's an investment, I thought that was why you were supposed to quit paying their tuition if they screwed up too much. Let them work for it. If they can't handle school without being babysat through it, they need to get out and work or something until they can.
growing up and living in a big city that operates on public transpo and a TON of walking like NYC makes a huge difference. Kids are already used to the idea in general. And there are a ton of people everywhere. To me, it's more dangerous now than it used to be out in suburbs. It's harder in the less crowded places cause you don't have a bunch of neighborhood kids out together (partially a result of everyone being overprotective). So now in more privacy, people are more susceptible. But I definitely voted that a bunch of pansies are currently being raised. I don't have a kid.. but when I do, I really hope I raise him/her in the non-pansy fashion.
I don't expect a mother in Midland Texas will allow her son to travel the NY Sub on his own. I won't be surprise if a mother from NY allowed her son to travel via subway. Voted we're raising pansy. Not saying it's a bad thing, but just the way our world is going. viva evolution of the lamb!
