Thought of the Day 05.15.09

I was recently reading about a woman from New York who last year let her 9-year-old son ride the subway home by himself at his request. Apparently, people were universally horrified by this, but to be honest, I don’t understand why.

When I was six or seven, we played outside unsupervised, rode our bikes anywhere we wanted, and walked ourselves to school. So the idea that modern parents would consider a child of nine incapable of navigating his natural habitat astounds me. But I guess I’m just lucky.

See, one thing I have noticed in myself recently is the impulse to consult my own parents’ example with me. Whether this is my way of honoring my deceased mother in absentia or just a way of checking my intuitions against a non-contemporary standard, all I know is that I am grateful to my parents for having done a decent enough job with me that I feel comfortable trying to give my children about as much freedom and responsibility as I was given.