'America's Worst Mom?'

When I wrote a column in this paper last week, "Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Take The Subway Alone," I figured I'd get some emails — pro and con.

Two days later I was on the "Today Show," MSNBC, Fox News, and all manner of talk radio with a new title under my smiling face: "America's Worst Mom?"

Yes, that's all it took for me to learn just what a hot-button issue this is — whether good parents ever let their kids out of their sight. But even as the stations (and Web sites and Web logs) were having a field day with the story, people kept pulling me aside to say that they had been allowed to get around by themselves as kids, and boy were they glad.

They relished those memories — and thanked their parents! — and then in the next breath they admitted: They would never let their kids do the same.

Why not? Has the world really become so much more dangerous in just one generation?

No, not in the way that most parents are fearing. Locally, our murder rate is back where it was in 1963, when a kid could take a ride on the subway and it wouldn't make the "Today Show." Of 182 American cities with a population of more than 100,000, New York City ranks no. 136 in crime — right down there with Boise, Idaho.

Nationally, Justice Department statistics show that the number of kids getting abducted by strangers actually holds pretty steady over the years. In 2006, that number was 115, and 40% of them were killed.

The killing of any child is a horrible tragedy. It makes my stomach plunge to even think about it. But when the number is about 50 kids killed in a country of 300 million, it's also a very random, rare event. Far more people die from falling off the bed or other furniture. So for safety's sake, should we all start sleeping on the floor?

Well, upon reading that, I'm sure some people will. I'm also sure that pretty soon you'll see some "expert" on TV talking about the hidden dangers of furniture. Behind her, a huge photo of a bed will be captioned: "WORTH THE RISK?"

Everything has its 15 minutes of fear. We get so rattled by it all, we can't think straight.

Now, of course life is risky. That's why we always end up dead. Some things are even particularly risky, like driving, which kills more than 10 times the number of kids abducted and murdered every year. Still, we drive. And, if you're like me, you always use seat belts and car seats. Safety first! I'm all about safety! I'm just not about paranoia.

It's crazy to limit our lives based on wildy remote dangers. And yet, this past week, as I morphed into the poster mom for sane or insane parenting, depending on your point of view, I started hearing stories that strike me as completely bizarre.

One lawyer in an upscale suburb of New York, for instance, "lets" his 11-year-old walk one block to her best friend's house — but she has to call the minute she arrives safely, as if she's been dodging sniper fire.

A mom in Atlanta proudly said that she doesn't let her daughter walk down the block to the mailbox, because there's just too much "opportunity" for her to be snatched and killed. She's keeping her kid prisoner, but to her, I'm the nutty mom.

People who want me arrested for child abuse were sure that my son had dodged crowds of drug dealers, bullies, flashers, and psychopaths on that afternoon subway ride home by himself.

All of which might have happened, if we lived in Grand Theft Auto-ville. But we don't. See the stats, above.

Not that statistics and facts make any difference. Somehow, a whole lot of parents have become convinced that nothing outside the home is safe. At the same time, many also have become convinced that their children are helpless to fend for themselves. They write their kids off as "dreamers," when they've never given them a real chance to wake up and develop some self-sufficiency.

These parents have lost confidence in everything: Their neighborhood. Their kids. And their own ability to teach their children how to get by in the world. As a result, they batten down the hatches.

And then there are those who don't.

I'm relieved to report that plenty of emails — hundreds — poured in with exactly the opposite viewpoint. There were more of these, in fact, than the naysayers. Parents from as far away as Japan wrote, "Bravo!" "Thank you!" And, "Good for your son!"

I loved hearing what these parents (and grandparents and friends and relatives) let their young ones do, but they still face a phalanx of disapproval.

Another suburban dad wrote to say he let his eight-year-old ride her bike two blocks away and afterward, "my wife let me know how vehemently she disagreed. In addition, all the parents in the neighborhood also thought I was crazy."

This dad is an emergency room doctor so he knows better than most what terrible things can happen out of the blue. And yet, as he put it so well, "I choose, to the best of my ability, to allow my children the same freedoms that I had as a child." We all want our kids to be safe. But they deserve a life, too. Despite what you hear on the news, these things are not mutually exclusive. And I'm not America's Worst Mom.

Ms. Skenazy, lskenazy@yahoo.com, is now founder of Free Range Kids, www.freerangekids.wordpress.com.