Free-Range Kids Excerpt: When judgemental moms attack.
When judgemental moms attack.
In the book Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry, Lenore Skenazy makes a case that, statistically, our children are safer than they’ve ever been – and by parenting out of fear, we are robbing our kids of the childhood they deserve. Chapter 6, “Ignore the Blamers,” discusses how parents inadvertently feed each other’s fears. For more from Lenore Skenazy, read her Babble essay Parenting Without Fear.
“Can you believe she did that?
Melissa, my upstairs neighbor, is staring wide-eyed, the way you do when you want someone else to open their eyes equally wide and shake their head in disbelief, so the two of you can sit there bonding over your utter shock.
I am having trouble doing this.
“Well:it:it doesn’t seem so bad,” I venture, squinting apologetically.
“Lenore! I could have taken her baby and she would never have seen him again! She was crazy!”
Ah, the crazy wars again. Who’s crazy: People who trust other people, or people who don’t?
In this case, I have to say Melissa was officially crazy. Because the person she did not trust was:herself. Here’s the story.
She – Melissa – was waiting in the checkout line at Costco, the giant warehouse store, with her groceries and her daughters, aged two and five. The woman in front of her suddenly remembered she had to get something at the back of the store and asked Melissa if she’d mind watching her baby, who was in the shopping cart. Melissa said fine and off the woman, a stranger, sprinted.
She came back two minutes later and Melissa had kidnapped and killed her baby.
No, no! Come on. Obviously, that’s not what happened. She came back two minutes later, thanked Melissa and that was that. One mom helping another. But even if that’s how the other lady saw it, that’s not what Melissa saw. She saw a wildly irresponsible woman entrusting her precious little boy to a total stranger who could have easily turned out to be a psycho killer buying bulk paper towels and Goldfish crackers – John Wayne Gacy in a dress.
All of which is a pretty harsh assessment of that mom’s actions. First of all, the baby-mom did not choose just anyone. She chose another mom. One who probably would have had a pretty hard time yanking the boy out of his cart, abandoning her groceries (and place in line!), dragging him out of the store, dragging her own kids out of the store, remembering where she’d parked, unlocking the car, shoving everyone inside, strapping them into their car seats and then gunning across the border, all while ignoring her little girls shrieking, “Mommy! Why are you stealing that lady’s baby?” And, “We want our Goldfish!”
Oh, and second of all, no one else would have noticed this little drama and perhaps said, “Uh:stop”?
This eagerness to distrust each other, and even find glaring fault with each other, means that it’s hard for moms and dads to ever relax. If the only good parent is a parent who never leaves their kids’ side – not even to run to the back of the store for a can of tuna fish – then it’s very easy to spot the bad ones. They’re the ones who let their kids walk to school, or stay home alone for an hour. They’re the ones inside while their kids play in the yard. They’re the ones making their teenagers get themselves to their activities, or even jobs. Things that previous generations did without a moment’s hesitation – or tragic outcome – have become grist for the gossip mill.
“I let my eight- and ten-year-old sons bike the three blocks to a friend’s house,” a mom named Amy wrote to the Free-Range Kids blog. “But when they returned, their friend’s mom insisted on accompanying them back home through our very safe neighborhood, ‘just in case.’” The lady was sending Amy a message: Your mothering leaves something to be desired.
There’s no high like self-righteousness. Sometimes the message is even more direct. A woman named Jess wrote that now that she lets her fifth grade son walk the five blocks to school – with a friend – her neighbor won’t let her children go to Jess’ house to play anymore. To this neighbor, says Jess, “I am a bad mother. I try not to let it get to me, I think I am anything but. I love my children and like all mothers, and only want the best for them.” But Jess’ definition of “best” includes sometimes untying the apron strings. Other mothers find that tantamount to child abuse.
Blame and fear are like Mean Girls. They pal around together and make everyone else feel dumb and self-conscious, or at least like they’re going to end up eating alone in the lunchroom if they don’t suck up.
GOING FREE-RANGE TIPS:
FREE-RANGE BABYSTEP: When you’re about to remind a mom or dad about some extremely unlikely danger their child might face – a danger they are probably just as aware of as you are- hush.
FREE-RANGE BRAVE STEP: Volunteer to watch the kids who are waiting with your own kid for soccer to start, or school to open – whatever. Explain to the other parents that you’re offering them a little free time. If they say no thanks, ask them to watch your kid.
ONE GIANT LEAP FOR FREE-RANGE KIND: The next time you make a parenting decision that you’re worried other moms or dads will find too lax, don’t keep it a secret. Admit that you left your daughter home alone while you went grocery shopping. Admit you sent your young son out on an errand. Talk about these things so that other parents can open up, too. It could be they’ll jump on you. (There’s no high like self-righteousness.) But it’s also possible that they do the same things you do, and feel very guilty about it. Blamers thrive on shame. Take away their power. Do not be ashamed of making parenting choices based on who your kid is, rather than what the neighbors will say.
Excerpted from the book Free-Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy. © 2009 By Lenore Skenazy. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
I think there’s a difference between letting eight and ten year olds bike to each others houses and such and leaving an infant, even for a minute, even under the watchful eye of another mom…there are alot of psychos out there, and frankly, I wouldn’t do the latter. However, I wouldn’t really judge anyone else, either. People leave infants in daycare and I wouldn’t do that either, but I don’t judge those who do. I don’t get all the judging. No, really, I don’t. I haven’t experienced that in my circle. I interact with a variety of moms with a variety of styles and backgrounds and we just don’t rudely blurt our unsolicited opinions about childrearing to others…viva la difference.
I think the point is actually that there AREN’T a lot of “psychos” out there. It’s been proven that people are evolving to be less violent, more truthful and honest and generally more empathetic to those around them.
Trust your instincts. Or don’t… and never leave your house because getting in your car is the most danger you typically put your child in…
Lenore, saw you on the View and I love your blog. Keep spreading the word, I think your message is right on!
The odds of your child being swiped by a stranger are tiny. Your children are in MUCH more danger of being struck by lightening — several times in a row! I think it’s crazy that as a society, we’re all carefully trained to look at each other as potential “psychos”, even a mother accompanied by young children. I don’t think it’s an innocent matter, either — the more the media indoctrinates us to believe the myth that our children are unsafe, the more time kids spend indoors watching TV and playing video games. Letting your kids outside to play is free; there’s no profit for advertisers.If a child is kidnapped, 99 percent of the time it’s by a family member.
I’ll back up GP here: while I probably wouldn’t have left my baby in the checkout line (I’d either have taken the extra couple of minutes to get out of line and fetch what I had forgotten or just called hubby and asked him to grab it on his way home from work), but I wouldn’t really judge someone else for it, either. I’m assuming that there were other people around: the checkout clerk, other shoppers waiting in line–it’s not like Melissa could have made a mad dash for it with the other lady’s baby without anyone noticing. I’ve always told my daughter that if she ever gets separated from me in a public place (which is unlikely since I keep a deathgrip on her hand in crowded places) she should look for a police officer/security guard first and if one isn’t available to look for another MOM. I think, demographically speaking, our fellow mothers are probably the least likely to turn out to be serial killers. It is different now, though. My husband was just telling me the other day that when he was still pretty young (3rd grade or so), his parents let him and his younger brother ride their bikes several miles to school through the middle of Queens. My family moved around a lot when I was a kid, but we always lived in a quiet suburb, always on a cul-de-sac and I was allowed to walk around the neighborhood to friends’ houses at age 5 or so. Now WE live on the cul-de-sac in a quiet suburb and I don’t let my 5-year-old past our mailbox! There’s so much more media now to cover it when something awful does happen to a child, that even if those crimes against children aren’t necessarily more frequent than they used to be, it FEELS as if they are. Personally, I try to err on the side of caution without necessarily keeping my daughter in a complete bubble.
I remember during the summer, being told I HAD to spend time out doors doing my own thing. Granted we lived in the sticks & played mostly in our back yard but a highway was less than a mile away. I want to be a “free range” mom and give my child freedom to walk to & from school with friends and other “scary” activities (when he’s older), but I have to admit to being nervous. We live in San Diego now & while it is a nice city, it is still a city…. Of course w/ the job market the way it is who knows where we’ll be in a couple of years. I’m trying to walk the boundry between safe & smothering: when do I allow him to walk somewhere on his own, do I put him in pre-school to give him a chance to interact w/ other kids (& risk bad caregivers) or keep him “safe” at home? I guess we have to all make the decisions as we go…
I admit that it’s easy to get caught up in the fear mongering, but I agree that kids need more freedom. All of the terror over Halloween is a prime example. People have stopped going to their neighbor’s houses, stopped accepting homemade treats, and taken most of the fun out of the holiday, all over fear of razor blades and poison in candy. However, there has never been an actual documented case of razor blades being hidden in candy by anyone other than the child themselves, playing a prank on parents or other kids, and the couple of famous incidents of halloween poisonings involved parents poisoning their own children’s candy: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/halloween.asp.I spent most of my childhood outside running around with a group of neighborhood children, and nothing bad ever happened to any of us. I’m all for making childhood safer, and fully support making kids wear bike helmets and teaching them how to deal with danger, but locking them inside and hovering over them is just not productive. I get the same gasps from new parents (and non-parents) when I let my 14 month old try things he hasn’t quite mastered and he falls down. I’m always right there if he’s ever in any actual danger, but what toddler doesn’t fall down from time to time? The only way he’s going to figure out how to do things is to try and fail a few times. He doesn’t even seem to notice, unless the tsking observer has a particularly dramatic reaction. Independence is an important skill to encourage in children. Without it, though your child may make it through childhood ok, they may not make a very effective adult.
I enjoyed this excerpt. I live in Chicago, and last week I walked to our neighborhood Starbucks. There were tables full of people outside, including moms with kids, but rather than ask any of them to watch my boys while I ran inside to get a coffee, I unloaded them both from the stroller and brought them in with me, even though doing so is such a pain. I’ve also thought of leaving them buckled in the stroller in front of the store, where I can see them thru the windows while I’m inside, but have never done this. Honestly, I’m more scared of another mom or some well-meaning citizen reporting them than I am of anyone taking them. I mean, really, how is anyone going to unbuckle my almost 3 y/o and my 18 m/o and take them while I’m watching from 40 feet away? And there’s no way anyone could push our stroller away with both of them in it without me being able to catch them. In one of the suburbs, though, a mom was actually arrested last winter and I think even had to (or almost did?) face trial because she left her sleeping toddler buckled in the carseat while she ran inside the school to get her older kid. Crazy!
Anyway, all that is to say that I’m way more concerned about being dragged thru legal hell because someone else thinks that I’m endangering my child than I am about the 1-in-a-million psycho. Which, in a way that reflects our society, is just as sad as being scared by the psychos.
Thank you for this very sane excerpt (and book, which I’m totally going to buy). I’m with the poster above in that I’m obviously scared in the abstract of all the terrible things that are statistically unlikely to happen, but on a day-to-day level am much more afraid of being reported/arrested because some busybody is judging my parenting.
One morning, I left my 7-month old in his car seat, for the first time ever. It was raining, he was recovering from a bronchial infection — I felt weird about even considering it, but all I needed to do was go to the ATM outside the Safeway — about 15 yards away and within direct eyeshot of my car. I looked over my shoulder every 3rd second as I completed the 2-minute transaction. And yet, I walked back to my car, a woman who had been standing by her own car ran up to me and yelled, “Really? You know that’s illegal, right?” She had been watching me the whole time — I think she wished I had been shopping for an hour inside the store so her tirade could have been that much more self-righteous.
I said, “Yes, I know,” got into my car, and drove away. I felt like saying something much more Jerry Springer-esque, like, “Bitch, you don’t know my life!”
Hando.
I do that all the time…if the car is locked, you have the keys, and you’re just getting cash, WTF?
Insane. Is it really illegal? I didn’t know.
I think leaving the baby at the front of the store in line is a very weird example. I would never do that. Not because I thought the other mom would steal my kid, but because that’s an inconvenience to someone else. The woman had her hands full with a toddler and an kindergartner. And what if the baby just happened to start screaming the second the mom walked away. What’s the poor woman going to do?
As for the rest of the free-range stuff, I’m all for it!
I love it and try to be this kind of parent, though it difficult when you see the media reports all of the time. I let my 2 1/2 yro and 1 yro play in the back yard that’s fenced in with no serious dangers like a pool, without me a few minutes at a time. Sometime I just have to run and get the phone or pee, you know? And depending upon the store and my place in line, I would consider asking the mom next to me to watch them while I ran for milk… really. And I’ve done the ATM thing too. I hope my children will be self-reliant and will be able to ride their bikes to the playground and a friend’s house while being street-smart… and while keeping my teaching in mind. I think we are doing them a disservice by coddling them so much… by all means, but responsible, but giving your child freedoms will help them and you in the end. Can you imagine sending them to college and still having to do everything for them because they haven’t done for themselves? Or how about them moving back in because that’s where they feel most comfortable living in this mean world?
The article is about being judgmental of other mothers. This is something I think is just awful in our parenting culture. Note in the responses here how nobody is really thinking about what could have been going on with that mother in the checkout line that day. She could have been totally exhausted and running on fumes. For people to pretend they themselves as mothers are perfect is absurd. And that’s what being judgmental is really saying – “why can’t you be a perfect mother like me?” I can guarantee the woman who was so outraged at this other mother begging her for help so she could make her stressful trip to Costco shorter and easier, makes bad decisions too in other ways. Like for one thing, raising a child with no compassion for others. As for women helping other women even if they are strangers, if that never happens where you live then I feel sorry for you. Here in NYC people are really cool about that. Strangers will keep an eye on your stroller (and even the baby) if you are dying to use the restroom and have to squeeze into a cafe bathroom that can barely fit a person much less a stroller. Strangers help carry strollers up subway steps. Remember it takes a village.
Life would be so much better if when I stopped at the park on the way to the grocery store, and it was busy and there were lots of moms who were going to be there until the sun goes down if I could just say
“Hey, can you watch my kids while I go to the store”
I *almost* told one mom to leave her kid with me instead of driving him to the store and then back after someone (Daddy?) called her to say she needed something. Who needed the tantrums… sadly I didn’t because I wouldn’t leave her in charge of my kids cuz she never gets off the phone and I’m always helping her kid out.
(Although in retrospect, having heard what Melissa said I’m sure the mom would have chosen someone less insane to watch her baby
)
A friend of mine was just confessing that she doesn’t know what to do this winter about her kids getting to the bus stop since she will have a new baby. She would just let them walk the two blocks but she is afraid her next door neighbor will stop letting the kids play together.
I always really like these articles. When my son started walking, I began letting him play in the backyard by himself, to learn to be a bit more independent… And I admit, I was kinda paranoid – paranoid that a neighbor would see and call the cops. Isn’t that lame? When I was a teenager and was in our family’s car parked in front of Walmart with my 2 year old nephew in the back seat, I got tired of sitting there. So I got out of the car and walked a few feet to the soda machine, then walked back to the car. A cop came up to me and informed me that what I had just done was illegal, because someone could have been watching me, waiting for me to exit the car, and then easily jumped in the car and driven away… in the middle of a Saturday… directly in front of the main entrance of the busiest business in town. Because I’m sure he saw that kind of thing happen all the time. Our parents and courts and law enforcement are absolutely pathetic and laughably stupid.