Letting go
We didn’t have subway in my small hometown, in the Israeli desert, but the norm was the same. I always wonder about the level of independence that our parents gave us compare to what we are giving to our children. My mother claim that the world was very much different twenty years ago, but that cannot be true. I wonder if we are simply more aware for the dangers out there, or if the change in the general culture simply crippling our children:
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.”
Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.
Long story longer, and analyzed, to boot: 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.
I don’t think that I’ll be ready to let my girls ride the subway alone when they are 9 years old. But I don’t know if i’ll ever be ready….
Tags: Children, IndependenceRelated posts
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