<p>I was allowed to walk to school by myself at 5, and was looking after little siblings when my parents went out starting at about 8 or 9. They let me play outside, walk to the pool, climb trees, have plenty of unstructured play time. And my parents were very involved parents. They coached our chess clubs and softball teams, took us on walks and hikes, helped run our summer league swim and dive meets, knew who our teachers were and how we were doing in school. They just didn’t let their involvement get in the way of my learning how to do things or solve problems. They didn’t hover.</p>
<p>I agree with Z-mom that in some areas, there’s a problem with lack of basics like sidewalks and crosswalks, that makes it difficult for kids to get around on their own.</p>
<p>I was odd-mom out (in many other ways, too, I’m sure) because I didn’t have the TV on when son was young. The occasional Sesame Street or Mr Rogers, but that was it as a preschooler. I don’t recall exactly how that changed in early elementary school, but I do know that he watched pro wrestling at a friend’s house at about that time and had certainly never seen it at home! I just had the notion that we are designed to develop through interactions with people and things in the environment, and that the brain had its own timing and sequence. I have fond memories of our son playing with another very little boy with a water hose and some rocks in the driveway. It was endless fun all that summer.</p>
<p>I was an “involved” parent through the school years. Active in the parent organization, volunteering where needed, managing the travel team when no one else stepped up. I made a point of learning all I could about secondary school academics and the college app process (wish I had found CC at that time), because our district is not particularly strong and I had reason to believe that our son would benefit from a more rigorous course selection than the norm around here. This was all discussed with him, and he bought into the deal. He tells me that he is glad he did, and now that he is swimming with fish from much bigger ponds, actually wishes I had pushed harder. So maybe, I was “over involved” by some standards. But I think it would have been less desirable to let “the way most of us do things here” determine his choices.</p>
<p>Another thought: it is difficult to be less “attentive” when other parents are eager to judge and use that judgement to validate their own choices.</p>
<p>I don’t know if our son was quite as young as 9 the first time we let him ride the subway alone, but he wasn’t much older than that. Maybe 10 or 11. And we were certainly leaving him alone at home for short periods by around that age. Longer periods (i.e., >2 hours) by about 12-13. Of course Boston isn’t New York, but I assume if you live in NYC, you come to see their subway with as much nonchalance as we do ours.</p>
<p>Levels of protectiveness certainly vary widely, not only in degree but in the kinds of things you’re protective about. I’ve been on both sides of that–on the one hand, watching in horror as some good friends of ours let their toddler son climb around a very high jungle gym totally unsupervised; on the other, getting an earful from the mother of one of our son’s peers when we left him and some of his friends alone in the house to jam for a few hours one summer night when they were all 13 or 14.</p>
<p>Overprotectiveness is the kind of thing that’s always obvious when someone else is doing it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the very interesting comments. I am the only member of my immediate family who has ever been to New York City (on repeated business trips, eventually reaching all five boroughs, from 1985 to 1998). When we lived in suburban (= heavily urbanized) Taipei in 2001, after the subway line extended to our neighborhood, we took rides together as a family, and then occasionally let our oldest, then eight years old, take rides by himself that involved transfers in the main Taipei station. Nothing to it. The kids also walked a lot by themselves and occasionally took the bus on their own with the oldest in charge. The neighborhood we live in here in Minnesota is entirely safe–in a typical year it has no reported crime at all–and my kids walk or bike all over the place. My oldest commutes to the University of Minnesota by bus for the dual-enrollment classes he takes as a “high school senior,” and he has been baby-sitting the younger siblings since at least age twelve, which was the minimum age in our town for him to receive Red Cross baby-sitting training. (He was the only boy in the baby-sitting class.)</p>
<p>I also grew up in NYC and my mother didn’t drive so we walked or took public transportation everywhere. The thing people seem to forget is the 60s and 70s in NYC were terrible! The city was broke, drugs and crime were rampant and racial divisions were scary - so all this talk about how it was safer back then is false memories. You did what you had to do.</p>
<p>Now, we live in the country about 3 miles away from the suburban village outside of NY and my kids have to be driven everywhere and it definitely makes them less independent. Those kids who live in our village get around just fine by foot and play outside, ride their bikes, etc.</p>
<p>My older daughter started taking the train into the city and then the subway when she was 12 - she an actor and was busy taking classes and I couldn’t just drop everything and run into the city with her (it was bad enough when she was auditioning!). I didn’t just drop her off at the train station, I took her the first time, followed her from behind the next two times and then sent her on her way. The city is much safer today than any time in decades!</p>
<p>my kids started going to school on their own, usually via subway, in the 5th grade, usally with friends and always with a cheap cell in case they got in trouble. they never did. but we live in a relatively safe and affluent neighborhood. thats the difference. </p>
<p>it aint a matter of " it was safer (or not)" back in the good old days. sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t. The neighborhood you’re in makes all the difference in how protective you are in letting young kids travel alone here. you’re in forest hills gardens or riverdale on on park avenue, not so much worry. you’re in the south bronx, its a whole different ball orf wax. </p>
<p>just the other day a teenage girl got shot in the head on the way back from school in the bronx. she was hit by a stray bullet from a 16 yr old trying to kill someone as part of a gang inititation. sad, sad story.</p>
<p>The thing I remember about the 9 year old on the subway was that the mother didn’t trust him with a cell phone. She said he was likely to lose it. I still don’t buy that a kid who can’t be trusted with a cell phone can be trusted to navigate the subway system from Manhattan to Brooklyn. </p>
<p>We helicopter on some things, not on others. Helicoptering may only be a problem when parents are tightly wound about absolutely everything.</p>
<p>I would have characterized my parenting style as middle of the road, but talking to my college sophomore D lately, I’m not so sure. She wants to come home and stay home and I want very much for her not to. </p>
<p>The thing with helicoptering is that most of the time, decisions, like letting your kid take public transportation alone, are determined by the actual vulnerability of your child. Now that D is 19, I no longer have protective feelings of any kind that I can access. I’m having fantasies of shipping her off to a foreign country to fend for herself so she can learn some self reliance. (She is moping too much as a result of a privileged life.)</p>
<p>I rode my horse alone in Somalia when I was 9, I actually thought the 9 year old on the subway - with all the precautions she took - was fine. I rode buses alone in Washington DC starting at 11. I might well have started earlier, but we didn’t live there before then. I’ve made an effort to make sure my kids can be self-sufficient. It’s always a big day though when we suburbanites let our kids go into the big bad city alone. We started by leaving our kids at Games Workshop stores and Magic tournaments in the city when they were in middle school. We’d go to a museum and check in via cell phone. </p>
<p>My kids started walking to school by themselves in fourth grade. (It’s about three blocks away.) They still walk to the high school - a little over a mile.</p>
<p>When the kids were small, I was far from a helicopter mom with regard to physical safety. I wasn’t reckless, but if I believed that my child was capable of doing something–regardless of what others his age could or couldn’t do–then I let him. So I was that parent that people shook their heads at, because I would allow my 1 1/2 year old to climb the high sliding board ladder without me climbing right behind him. I was also that terrible mom who allowed my toddler to eat popcorn, and hot dogs that weren’t cut into quarters!</p>
<p>But it’s hard to resist the pressure to hover when others think you’re being irresponsible. I remember the first day I let my son walk home from middle school following his after-school club meeting. I used to pick him up, but then his sister joined an activity and had to be driven to another town at the same time. The first day he walked home, 3 mothers called to tell me that they saw him walking home alone, and to ask if he had arrived home safely. 2 of them told me they had offered him a ride, but he had refused. All were convinced I must not have known he was doing that, or I never would have let him. The middle school is only 3 blocks from my house! I was so surprised that people had a problem with a 12 year old walking 3 blocks in a safe suburb. The next meeting day, another mom called about it. So then I decided to ask a friend to pick him up for me, lest my reputation be forever damaged in the town. I was afraid no one would let their children visit our house again due to my “negligence”! Oh, and if it weren’t illegal and ill-thought of, I would have no problem leaving an older child in the car while I run into Wawa for a gallon of milk. </p>
<p>Unless we’re talking about true neglect, negilgence, or illegal behavior, it really bothers me when people judge other parents. Parents know their own children and their capabilties better than we do. What people see is a snapshot in time. The moms on the playground had no way of knowing that in the days prior to that moment, I had followed behind S on the slide hundreds of times and he hadn’t wobbled once. Similarly, I’ve needed to hover over my special needs child more than other parents with kids of the same age. People have made rude comments like “Shouldn’t she be able to do that by herself?” Live and let live. </p>
<p>However, I was and still am, a hoverer when it comes to their moral safety.</p>
<p>In our experience, NYC private schools in Manhatten in the 1990’s allowed students in
5th grade to come/go on their own – that was age 10 for most. If you couldn’t walk, and had no limo, that pretty much meant you were taking a bus or subway on your own…</p>
<p>This is so true. I get so tired of the parent bashing.</p>
<p>I tend to be a little more “hands off” on certain things. Someone I know is still horrified that D flew by herself to see grandparents at age 8. Part of the problem is that if you let your child have a little independence you had better be prepared to take a lot of criticism from other parents.</p>
<p>On the other hand, one of the most “helicopter parents” I know has children who are now teens and are very self confident and independent. You never know.</p>
<p>Wow, I didn’t know you could get a pilot’s license at 8! JK</p>
<p>I agree about always finding something to bash if you want. This “news” story has strung together stories from all around the country and different situations and tries to make it into a phenomenon.</p>
Wow…now that’s funny. I was sitting here assuming that you were talking about a three-mile walk down busy state highways or something. That’s absurd.</p>
<p>Our son was walking by himself to and from his elementary school (at his own insistence, IIRC) by the time he was 8 or so. And that was more like six blocks in a city neighborhood. He had to cross one very busy thoroughfare, but by the time we let him go by himself, he was quite experienced at waiting for the lights and doing it carefully.</p>
<p>I’ve taught elementary school at private schools and at public. In wealthy suburban neighborhoods and in urban. What I noticed is amazing. There is a huge, huge difference in the parenting style among those schools. The “worst” helicopter parenting award goes to those parents whose kids attend private school in a super wealthy town, about an hour away from NYC. Take a subway on their own? Ha! Those kids wouldn’t ever take a subway. Those kids are oh-so-pampered. What will they be like at they get older? They are learning how to boss around “the help” (their nannies, their grandparents, their drivers, and their mothers) very early on. I hope those helicopter parents at least read the subtitle: “Why Mom and Dad need to cut the strings” and learn how to say, “No!” to their children.</p>
<p>You don’t have to be wealthy to learn how to boss around the “help.” In fact, some people with far less more somehow feel so much more entitled to treat people badly. You’re either raised to respect people or you’re not and very often money has less to do with that than you think. When parents are going to teachers in front of kids complaining about B’s instead of A’s and homework that is cutting into sports practices etc, I think lack of respect. When parents go after coaches in front of kids who are more than likely in it for the sport and the kids than they are for the paycheck, I think what selfishness. Does this mean I never dislike or distrust a teacher? No. But I think we model behavior and when families sit around the dinner table and just trash a teacher or a coach, you are teaching your kid to not respect what they do or ithe efforts they put into their jobs. Even when I wanted to take a teacher out to the woodshed (and believe me, there were a few), I never ever told my kids I thought they couldn’t teach. People do it to all kinds of people they deem less worthy - waitresses, busdrivers and all over the food chain that it is the human race. But don’t blame this on solely on money. You either treat people the way you want to be treated or you don’t. Money has nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>It’s a capital crime in my household to be rude to the people who are providing services to us.</p>
<p>My children have heard ad nauseum: you can be as rude as you want to be with your boss: provided you understand the consequence. However, be rude to the cleaning lady, the gardener, janitor, secretary, personal assistant, driver etc, and YOU DIE! (no, we don’t have all these people serving us personally: I am mixing household services and services we get in the office)</p>
<p>I took my children to many impoverished countries for family trips. There are a lot of people begging on the street in these places. One of the things I tried to reach the kids was “how to be giving and generous while we help those in need keep their dignity”. It’s a fine balance. Give, but give in a way that allows them to keep their dignity. </p>
<p>Once, I took my nephew on one of these trips. There was an old lady who was collecting left over food by the tourists in a restaurant. He started to laugh. He got a third degree that day: he still talks about how he has never seen me so mad at him.</p>