Tag: magazine

Letting Our Kids Adventure

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I went to the park the other day. It couldn’t be a safer place in a Purell-dipped little suburban bubble. I let my 15-month-old son Jack walk across the grass all the way to the other side, maybe 25 yards away. The guy I was with asked why I’m letting him walk so far away. Wasn’t I concerned something bad could happen.

No. I wasn’t.

I mean, I didn’t LEAVE HIM ALONE at the park. I could see him, but I guess parents have to always be an arm’s length away? I reject that.

I want him to be able to exist with out me standing right behind him. I want him to be able to look up, look behind him or around him and not see me, and still know it’s okay. Because it is okay.

Remember “The World’s Worst Mom”? She let her 9-year-old ride the NYC subway alone.
A few years ago, CPS threatened to take away a 10 and 6-year-old because the parents dare let their kids walk home from the park.

A South Carolina mom who sent her 9-year-old to play in a popular park was arrested for not supervising her child. She was held overnight in jail, and her daughter spent 17 days as a ward of the state.

In the fall, an Austin, Tex., mom who let her 6-year-old play outside within view of the house was also visited by the cops and then child protective services. CPS interviewed her kids individually and even asked her 8-year-old daughter “if she had ever seen movies with people’s private parts,” the mom told me. “So my daughter, who didn’t know that things like that exist, does now. Thank you, CPS.

You get the idea.

“But Slater, there are way more abductions now than back in the day!”

No. Not really. We just hear about child abductions more because each abduction is national news. And for every 1,000 children abducted, only about 1 or 2 are abducted by strangers.
I’d rather risk it and let my kid learn FREEDOM with a good run in the grass.

Have you heard of the Abernathy boys? Thye lived in Oklahoma 100 years ago. They begged their dad to let them ride on horseback from Oklahoma to Santa Fe, New Mexico. His dad finally let them. The older brother was 9. Th youngest was 5.

They encountered sandstorms, hail, wolves, they got sick along the way but made it back alive and happy. The next year, they asked dad to ride from Oklahoma to meet Teddy Roosevelt’s ship that was landing in NYC harbor. 2.5 months and 1,000 miles later, the boys arrived and greeted the former President.

Then, the boys decided to kick it up a notch and ride a car. They dove, at the age of 14 and 9, New York to San Francisco by car. 62 days. In 1913.

Check out eh lessons they learned,

We learned to look a man in the eye and judge him by the grasp of his hand. Wealth and education aren’t as important as the way a man approaches life, and we came to appreciate a willingness to help. …

Geography came alive for us. Each trip was an expedition of discovery. I learned all the states, the cities, and the capitals. We saw everything from lead mines in operation, to oil wells being drilled. …

Through Teddy’s influence and our tours of Washington, we came to admire those who strive for good government. Bud later became a lawyer and served his community as both district attorney and county judge, a leaning surely traced in part to those early lessons.

We learned to endure hardship with patience, especially in those heartbreaking days toward the end of our coast-to-coast trip, when Sam Bass’ death and our trials in the desert seemed to test us more than we could bear.

I’m not ready to throw Jack on the back of a horse and let him ride to Denver, but we can let him run to the other side of the park. Bravery and independence; If our kids don’t learn this, if we crush their desire to be free, we’re robbing them of what they need to change the world.