Читать книгу Free-Range Kids - Lenore Skenazy - Страница 11

A Free-Ranger writes:

I'm a mom of a 13-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl and I'm ashamed of how paranoid I am. The news keeps you in constant fear of your child being abducted and raped and eaten, etc. I was a kid who took two buses to get to my Catholic School as early as age 7. And I did it all by myself. My friends and I wandered all over the city, and as long as we were home by dark, we could do whatever we wanted. Without cell phones! Now, here I am, with a teenager, and I get an upset tummy when I watch him walk with his friends to junior high each day. What's wrong with our society? What's wrong with me? Here I am, a formerly fearless adult who went everywhere I wanted as a kid, and I'm too paranoid to let my teenager walk to the store. I'm ashamed that I've allowed society to shape me into a worrier. Yes, there are predators. But they aren't everywhere and I need to get over myself. Fast. Before I raise a scaredy-cat son and paranoid daughter. We're gonna have a whole generation of skittish people if we don't give our kids some space, starting with mine. I'm gonna go kick them out of the house on this sunny afternoon and let them wander. (But they better answer their cell phones.)