Let Your Nine-Year Old Ride The New York Subway Alone?
[another guest post by See-Dubya]
I don’t know about this, but that may be because I have well-ingrained prejudices against the New York subway. Hey, I saw Death Wish. You’re sitting there reading your paper and Jim Croce and Andrew Dice Clay pull switchblades on you. But maybe she’s right, and times have really changed. I hope so.
Whether or not you go along with her particular choice, though, it’s an interesting article and probably grounds for a great discussion. I certainly agree with this principle:
Justice Department data actually show the number of children abducted by strangers has been going down over the years. So why not let your kids get home from school by themselves?
“Parents are in the grip of anxiety and when you’re anxious, you’re totally warped,” the author of “A Nation of Wimps,” Hara Estroff Marano, said. We become so bent out of shape over something as simple as letting your children out of sight on the playground that it starts seeming on par with letting them play on the railroad tracks at night. In the rain. In dark non-reflective coats.
The problem with this everything-is-dangerous outlook is that over-protectiveness is a danger in and of itself. A child who thinks he can’t do anything on his own eventually can’t.
I used to walk or bike to school, baseball practice, and the like when I was nine. I also went fishing, camping, canoeing, horseback riding, and hunting with my dad (although I didn’t get my own shotgun till I was eleven.) And I remember thinking that, gee, compared to what my friends were allowed to do, my life was pretty boring and suburban. Now I’m wishing that my kids will have a chance to do a tenth of what I did. I want them to be confident and competent. But it’s going to be hard to instill those virtues in the age of the Thudguard.
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I think the question is, is a nine year old ready to do this alone. I saw this mother’s interview today, and I didn’t think that she was ready.
Why do Democrats and Liberals want to congregate in mass numbers in cesspools often referred to as cities?
I’m from a small town, maybe 12,000. Showing my age, 45+ yrs ago I walked to school from K-4th grade and we were always told don’t take the short cut by the railroad tracks because bums hang out there. And we didn’t! We survived.
But. My older brother and I used to ride our bikes to Lake Erie to take swimming lessons one summer. One day he didn’t go and I rode by myself. When I was leaving the park a guy tried to lure me into his car and I got scared and high-tailed it home and told my parents. The police were called and we eventually found out I wasn’t the only victim of this guy.
Anyway, then, now, small town, big city, parents need to teach their children and learn to let them fly.
The comment about the number of kids being abducted over the years decreasing could easily be explained by parents being more careful (not by things getting safer). It sounds a lot like the argument about prison populations being at all-time highs even though the crime rate is decreasing. Crime is decreasing because more criminals are in jail.
Also, I can’t believe this line:
“No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn’t want to lose it.”
She doesn’t trust him with a cell phone, but somehow he’ll get home ok?
I wouldnd’t do it today, even in a place like Salt Lake City where I live. But 70+ years ago when we were all living in Wimbledon, my mother let this then 9 year old walk to Southfields, and take the tube to Londontown and wander around all day in the museums and art galleries and parks. I’m not sure that she was happy but I knew that the Bobbies were my friends, and there was one on every corner. There were even Bobbies on foot in the suburbs, like Wimbledon all night long. Our first night there, mother had to get up and feed her youngest. Shortly after turning on the kitchen light, there was a knock at the door. She looked out to see a Bobby. She opened the door and he said “Ma’am, I saw the light and I know you are new here. Is there anything that I can do?”
A lot has changed and I wouldn’t, even in London, want my nine and ten year olds, wandering around alone. But those were great days.
If you knew how many registered (not counting the unregistered ones) sex offenders there are around the USA you’d think very long and hard about letting a child go out alone. The courts are too soft on them. Frontier justice had some merits. I love the Bronson clip. Jodi Foster did well too.
On my 10th birthday I gave myself a present. I spent the day riding the subways for the sole purpose of riding every line, the S shuttles exempted since I was not riding out to Broad Channel just for that S train of the time.
It probably was a stupid thing to do.
First question…what is a 9 year old male doing looking at hand bags? Just curious…perhaps looking for something sweet to go with that Spring ensemble…
As for a nine year old alone on the MTA Subway? Well, I wouldn’t encourage it. Although, I think it’s pretty safe if you can overlook the passed out homeless in the AM. I ride the Subway downtown every day. I see kids on it traveling by themselves all the time to get down to Claremont on Broad, or the Millennium High School…Nine seems a little young, but there are quite a few folks like myself who would step in if something didn’t look right.
They are actually pretty safe in Manhattan. Queens, Brooklyn, and Da Bronx…not so much..
Cheers
IC
i rode the bus and subway by myself in the 4th grade as well, in Philly…way before it had a death-by-violence quota of >1/day. but today, i don’t think the typical child is mature enough to recognize threats.
I rode the bus from 6 years old and up, but that was with a bunch of country kids just like me. The bus driver had carte blanc to whup our butts from our parents if we got out of hand. The town we went to school in just went over 1,000 people a couple of years ago.
Those were the days.
I think the same thing every few days.
Sounds like you and I had simuliar childhood freedoms, but no more.
I’ve always made a point of teaching my kids to be independent. They went on sleepovers and camping trips at very young ages, rode their bikes around the neighborhood, walked to the grocery store, etc.
It’s amazing to me how many of their classmates had never spent a night away from their parents – in 6th grade!
And people in our neighborhood are ridiculous! We’re an upper middle-class neighborhood with almost no crime of any kind. But these people DRIVE their kids to the bus stop a couple of blocks away and sit there in their cars (with the engines running) and wait for the bus! It’s insane! In the amount of time they sat there, they could have driven their kids to school and back at least twice. How much you want to bet these are the same people moaning about global warming?
My daughter attends ballet school downtown and frequently walks to the library or a cafe on her breaks. There are girls her age (16) who aren’t allowed to leave the building, even in groups.
My youngest are in high school now and are able to navigate their way around downtown Denver with friends, ride bikes for miles, go on overseas school trips to places like Costa Rica and France.
You do your kids no favors being a helicopter parent.
I agree with the woman. It’s no mistake that adults can’t suck it up and act like adults and no mistake they are addicted to the nanny state–they’ve been coddled by overbearing parents.
Today’s overprotected child is tomorrow’s home loan bailout.
#7 hadsil said:
Did that include the ‘Taking of Pelham 123?’ (I believe that was the #6 Line.)
What doesn’t kill you only makes for good stories today.
I miss bottle rockets.
Watching “John Adams” on HBO, I was struck with the same kind of thought. Jon Adam’s son was going away at the age of 14. I look at my son and wonder, what in the world is he going to do with himself.
Those days seem so far away when we would be away all day…
I don’t remember a lot at age nine, but at the time, I was living in England (Westgate, County Kent). I could ride my bike just about anywhere, when I wasn’t in school. The only “trouble” I got into, was riding home at night from a friend’s house, and a Bobby escorting me home, for not having a light on the bike. Times were much different then. Growing up, kids roamed the areas on their bikes, with no problems. And, we didn’t have cell phones either. That was true there in England and here in the States.
@graysonret
Heh, Britain must have been really different then. These days, you don’t want to be out at night (>8 p.m.), especially in the town center. This is true even of places like Oxford. Too many rowdy kids who are too drunk to know what’s good for them. I wouldn’t let my 10 year old out into the streets at such times.
I agree, pgtips. I keep in touch with the news there, and, quite frankly, it isn’t a place that I would be excited about, visiting, like years ago. Small pubs are gone, too many immigrants changing everything, Speech laws and behavior laws are ridiculous. I’m going to Scotland in a year or 2, and I hope the visit will be pleasant. Smile a lot, say “yes”, “no”, “thank you” and “where is…?”, and keep the mouth shut.
When a taxi-driver gets 24 weeks jailtime for calling a Welsh woman, “English”, you know to be quiet. Lots of drunk kids at night, I see. No place to raise a child, because the schools stink. At 9 years old, there, I was learning English, French and Latin. Now, they barely speak English on graduation.
maybe she was looking for a lawsuit when her son got abducted or mugged.
A little off-topic…
Despite the titles, these aren’t about kids being safe, per se, but they’re full of things kids today probably don’t learn or do because they’re too busy playing video games or being shuttled off to another organized activity.
Dangerous Book for Boys
Daring Book for Girls
I agree with the author on the point of children being over-protected these days. Parents who pay attention to their kids do seem to obsess over every skinned knee like their child is about to bleed to death.
The street in Illinois where I grew up was nice. There were lots of kids and it had a cul-de-sac so it was pretty safe. The neighborhood kids would play in the streets until it got too dark and our parents called us home (games like tag and kick the can and ghosts in the graveyard.) We would ride around trhe neighborhoos and walk to the park on our own. And I’m not talking about a bygone era, I was born in ‘82.
When I was in junior high a family moved in next door with three little children (youngest still in diapers, oldest about 6) and the second that 6-year-old would wander out of her mom’s sight the mom would step out onto the porch and start shrieking, “Betsy!” She panicked. And Betsy was a nervous girl, I have to think there’s a connection.
However, although I do think parents are too over-protective, I still think that riding the subway alone at 9 is a bit much. Just because she wants to teach her child strength and independence does not mean the subway is the only option. The was no subway in Springfield, but I never took the bus home alone and I didn’t end up a wimp. I think there has to be some middle ground.
Sooner or later, you have to let the kids fly. Since I turned pro wanderer when I was 8, I’m probably the wrong person to ask (after all, very-good pros are always the worst coaches).
That line took my breath away too. Reminds me of the line in Flightplan when the woman loses her daughter on the plane and a passenger looking on snarks, “At least she didn’t lose her BlackBerry.”
I think children should be taught to be independent. By degrees. Not nine years old throw-you-on-a-dangerous-subway-in-a-big-city. That’s just stupid. She sounds really impatient with mothering to me – wants to rush the process. And she’s incredibly lucky.
I also rode the bus and biked all over the place starting at 7 or 8. Nothing has changed since that time except for the media hype about abductions that has scared parents into believing they were common place. Check the numbers and while they state it has gone down in the last few years, it was actually steady for 20 years previously.
I took my daughter to a DS clinic yesterday and started talking about growing up with the nurse who was my age. We both seemed to have similar childhoods like many of you where we’d be outside all summer playing baseball and riding bikes into town (a rinky dink town by NYC standards) going to the DQ, etc. Then I was telling her how my folks let go drive at 16 with a bunch of other kids up to Alpine Valley, WI, for concerts which was 4 hours away and to Rosemont Horizon which was 2 all the time and how I can’t fathom letting my 3 year old do the same in 13 years.
It’s a different time unfortunately and I don’t think a 9 y/o needs to be on a subway by his or herself.
We didn’t have bike helmets, child safety seats (my mom had something when I was two to keep me out of the way), and all the safety gadgets that are on my cabinets.
I make it to Tokyo a couple time a year for business, and I find it interesting to see young school children riding the subways and trains alone. Different country, different place…
I get the same impression with my kids. Seems like parenthood is big inconvenience to them. Not sure where I went wrong in raising them. But on the other hand, they are so over protective my grandchildren aren’t even allowed to spend time at a friends house out of fear the kids father is a pervert.
Although they (our children) are very independent. Sometimes my wife says we made them too independent so much so that they don’t need us. All of our daughters seemed to have married mommas boys though. What a bunch of pansies.
Drives me crazy.
When I was growing up on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, if a kid brought a gun to school (as many did in the fall) it meant they were going hunting on the way home. I couldn’t because I rode the bus and the district had some kind of rule about guns on buses. But as soon as I got off the bus, grab my 410 and hit the fields.
And then we have the mother in my area who took the four year old along to commit the armed robbery at a convenience store.
My mother didn’t drive so we HAD to either walk or ride our bikes. We went to the little corner store for Mom which was about a mile away. We walked to McClellan Air Force Base for the 15 cent Saturday morning cartoons and Randolph Scott movies, which was a little further, and we’d walk to the Coronet to see first runs which was further still. Then we moved several times around Northern California but continued to ride bikes everywhere. I didn’t have children but know for a fact that I wouldn’t mimic my neighbors and drive their kids not even a block to wait for the school bus! There are criminals everywhere but where I live now is actually heaven in most regards, especially crime. Neighbors leave their garage doors up so frequently we’re embarrassed to call them, although we invariably end up telling them if the door remains up after dusk. I will say this area is very similar to a rural area in California we lived for a couple of years. The only people we see riding bikes here are sports or fitness enthusiasts. Kids don’t ride their bikes to school anymore.
When I was 9 or 10, I left the house in the morning and was back for dinner. I didn’t adults to tell me how to spend the day or what transportation I used. Today’s kids are driven everywhere, demand that they be entertained, often complaining about how bored they are and in a crisis are helpless since they have never learned to be self reliant. I was riding the NYC subway last week with my daughter and felt safer there than when I ride the BART in the Bay Area. For what it’s worth, we were panhandled twice the whole time we were there. I get panhandled at least 4 times from the BART station to my office (2 blocks) everyday, mostly by the same people who’ve been bumming for change for years. It is the parent’s responsibility to raise their kids to become self reliant, most don’t.
In Berlin, kids as young as kindergarteners often ride the public buses and subways on their own. A couple of years ago, after showing the way to our 6 and 8 year old, they would ride the bus 3km to school. Sometimes after school, they would ride another klick furter to the “village” center to shop at Woolworth, then ride back home. On nice days, they would ride their bikes.
Like that term “helicopter parent” in that the first few runs, I would hover out of sight and unknown to them to ensure they made it ok. The following Spring, there was a neighborhood boy that was murdered by a local teenager. Most parents, like us, tightened the reins, but after a few weeks, things went back to normal.
Now that we live in OKC, we tried riding bikes to school but gave up due to a lack of sidewalks and rural roads w/o shoulders and traffic running 45 mph. The schools don’t even have bike racks. Since we have a creek nearby, the boys love to tramp the woods and explore the creek. Again, I hovered a time or two and they did ok and let them go on their own. However, they are bound by the buddy system and they take a cell phone with them just in case.
Compared to my experience, I was a free spirit. Spending the summer before Kindergarten, I wandered all over Fairfield, AL in ‘67. In retrospect, not a good idea under Jim Crow.
Even in the big city of Detroit, as a 3rd/4th grader I’d walk to the grocery store blocks away or to the pond by the railroad tracks looking for whatever I could find. Sometimes alone, other times with a friend or two. From there, we’d even jump on a passing slow train for block or two and jump off by the library and vice versa.
I’d cringe to think of the boys doing the same nowadays, so I can’t even regale them with those stories, lest they get any ideas.
Jees the things we took for granted then. I bycled for 10s of miles alone before high school. Carried my first rifle on the bus and no one took notice. Even took a Greyhound 100 miles out alone with the rifle, alone. Walked home at 0300 from a parttime job alone.