I recently ran across a blog named free range kids, and had a read. As I read article after article I found myself thinking that this woman and her followers were insane.
Letting a 9 year old ride the subway?
Leaving your kids in the car unattended, while your in the store?
Dropping you kids off at the park, and your not there?
It was just too much, of all the absurd, idiotic, irresponsible things to do. I could never imagine a parent being so lazy, so unaware of where their kids are.
Fear grabbed me, intense * What if * fear that has been beaten into me since the moment I took my first breath..
So my intent was to blast this woman with missing, kidnapped, exploited, abused, terrified children stories, that from what I have been told, happen all the time.
The problem is I could barely find any.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, you do hear stories on the news about a missing child in Florida, or California every once and awhile. So I went looking for missing children numbers through major sites, and found startling numbers of 1 to 2 million children a year go missing.
Something just seemed wrong with this picture. This would mean, if you went with the low number, that in 5 years 5 million kids are missing, and in 10 years 10 million kids are now gone.
Go with their higher numbers and it gets just downright absurd.
2 million kids a year go missing, in 5 years that's 10 million children, and in 10 years that's 20 million children.
At this point almost everyone would have to know someone, possibly even 2 someones that have a child missing. I don't know about you, but I have gone my whole 40 years and still have not met anyone with a missing child, or anyone that knew anyone with a missing child.
The REAL numbers of missing children are a whole lot lower. After doing a few days of research on this topic it finally comes out that the real number of missing children is 500 - 600 a year. Out of those numbers 90% of that 600 is a non custodial parent who has snatched them up, the other percent is kids that have run away. The average number of missing children due to a psychotic pedophile serial killer is right around 3 a year for the entire united states population of 534 million people. This comes straight from police numbers, and credible missing children numbers.Apparently all you have to do is look to find the actual stats, and they are all over the internet.
This also comes from critical thinking, and my own experience from when I was sixteen. I ran away at 16, because I had an overbearing, overprotective, in your face mother. As a teenager I was allowed to watch movies with a rating no higher then PG, could not go to the mall with my friends, and wasn't allowed to walk to school with friends, which was less then a half mile away.
Everything in my childhood was guarded, protected, not talked about, not allowed, or very prohibited.
It became too much to handle, too stifling, and at 16 I made the decision to run away. I wanted to see for myself if the world was as tragically horrible, and scary as I was constantly told. I wanted to be able TO LIVE.
So off to Virginia beach I went, with 2 school friends who felt the same way. So now we were missing, of our own accord. It was the best time of my life, I will NEVER regret doing it, and I would do it all over again if given a second chance.
And you know what? We never once ran into any serial killers, pedophiles, rapists, murderers, or satanic cults who wanted to sacrifice us. Now if there were any of those out there, anywhere in Virgina Beach, they surely would have come out to catch three 16 year old girls who obviously had no parents around, don't you think? And yet nothing happened, nothing but running into some of the most wonderful, and unforgettable people I have ever known. Here are a few of the people we ran into during our 3 month escapade in the big scary real world.
2 Canadian men who were having a last hoorah before the one got married. We met them on the beach. After talking with us, and us telling them we were on a no parent vacation, they had us pegged right away. They were worried and told us we should at least call our parents to let them know we were OK. After spending awhile trying to convince us to go home with no luck, they instead did something else. They gave us the key to their hotel room. Apparently they were leaving early, and had the room for 4 more days, and just gave it to us, under the strict promise we wouldn't charge anything to the room, and we didn't.
So 2 men, who should have scared the wits out of us, (because according to my mother people like that would kidnap us, and do horrible things to us forever, or until they killed us) turned out to be perfectly normal humans who were actually worried about us, and tried to help best way they could.
Calling the police would have done them no good, we just would have disappeared again, and they knew it, and offered the help they thought best. And it was wonderful, and perfect.
We also ran into older couples who would give us money or buy us meals, teenage boys who made us come to their house for dinner so they knew we had at least something to eat that day, and full grown men, who would offer words of wisdom with a bit of money. My all time favorite was the 40 year old guy, who offered us jobs in his little restaurant, doing dishes, and cleaning, and gave us a room to stay at in one of his on the beach motels. The only time we saw him was the four hours daily we cleaned up for him. He would make sure we ate that day, pay us in cash for our daily help, and tell us everyday to get to bed at a decent hour, and tell us to call our parents. We never went hungry, always had a warm place to sleep, and had the best time of our lives.
Smothering a child, being overprotective, and just in their face all the time is bad news. It seems to me from my own personal experience, that it would create a young adult that has no clue how to do anything for themselves in the real world. Everything I have learned about life, and I'm not kidding on this, has been learned by me, since I left home at 16. Its been a tough road, let me tell you. I had no idea how to travel on a bus, read a map, or even work a washing machine at 16. These things were all done for me. After all washers are dangerous, you can get your arm stuck in them, maps are for people who travel, and since mom took us EVERYWHERE, I never needed to learn how to read one.
Not only that, but mom always doing everything for me, made me afraid to do things on my own. I'm not talking about the slight scary feeling you get with something new, I'm talking about a head spinning, crippling fear that I wouldn't be able to do whatever it was by myself. I didn't learn to drive until I was 24, because I was scared to death to try. Cars from what mother had said are extremely dangerous, and children should never be left alone in one, much less touch anything in them.
I carry this fear with me now, even at 40. God forbid I have to drive a new part of town, or take a bus somewhere I haven't been. I get the same head spinning, sick to my stomach feeling that something bad will surely happen. I'll get lost, or take a wrong turn and have an accident. It has gotten better over the years though. If I'm with someone I'm fine, I can just look to them to get us there. If I'm alone its terrifying.
And that is sad that a 40 year old woman feels terror, all because while growing up her mother felt the need to smother and tell horror stories of a world that just doesn't exist. I don't want that for my little boy. I want him to be independent, strong, and fully capable of anything he puts his mind too.
I also realized that I am inadvertently a free range mom. As I sit here writing, something I love to do, my 3 year old boy is...wait for it....OMG.....
Playing outside by himself, in the front yard, ALONE, and while I can hear him, I CAN'T SEE HIM. (Something that never happened in my house growing up)
There's a lot of times he plays in the house in a different room then me too. Not your typical room either, nope my house is a non baby proofed house. No outlet covers, no cabinet locks, no hook and eye latches on doors to bathrooms, or laundry rooms, no baby gates, no padding on corners, or things that stick out.
So instead of ranting on about the insanity of letting your kids run free, I say Kudos, Hoorah to the mom that flies in the face of insanity and fear mongering, and finally tells the world she's had enough and refuses to smother her kids to a point of their mental breakdown.
May there never be another 40 year old human that needs to vomit because they may have gotten on the wrong bus.
You Lenore Skenazy, are an inspiration.
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