Comments on: Parenting in the age of Paranoia: A Small Manifesto

By: rdaudt

rdaudt — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:20:19 +0000

This is a beautiful piece of work and a wonderful act of love. Thank you so much for putting it together.

By: clarevl

clarevl — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:38:03 +0000

Here in the UK life has changed since the tragic disappearance of Madeleine McCann. I was always fairly liberal with my daughters desire to roam, schooling myself to let her go out of sight when I knew it was relatively safe… Now she can’t get that far before someone stops her or looks around madly for an adult responsible for this determined 3 year old. She is usually off to investigate the vegetable section of the store or the hedge outside of the fenced playground, that is a field away from a road – nothing radically challenging! I will continue to attempt a form of relaxed ‘casual’ parenting but as someone who grew up somewhere warm in the 1970s I suspect I am going to struggle in a pretty English village where our state school has league table success.

Oh and the stranger-danger thing drives me wild too…

By: onthesamewave

onthesamewave — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:58:49 +0000

As a single dad, thanks for this.

By: petewarden

petewarden — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:53:41 +0000

You’re not alone! Check out http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/ for some great resources around this issue. Keep a few copies of the book handy to throw at any adults who give you a hard time.

By: gmacginitie

gmacginitie — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:10:03 +0000

Thank you for a fine essay.

To restrict freedom “out of love and responsibility” is not out of love, but fear, and not out of responsibility, but of the need to control. To those who say “I only want what’s best for you” I say “the road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions” and “only God knows, or only I know, what’s best for me.”

— Gordon

By: Lisa Kenney

Lisa Kenney — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:53:07 +0000

I seem to always be somehow out of sync with the people around me, but this essay has given me hope that maybe that won’t always be. I don’t recognize childhood anymore. Like many of the characters in books I remember as a kid, I lived in a world where adults were rarely more than bit players during those hours when I was out of the house. We roamed our neighborhoods from morning until the streetlights came on with no supervision. We took public transportation into Boston when we were in elementary school and we were much more street savvy than the average teenage suburbanite I see now. We played with matches, made prank phone calls, sneaked peeks at what was hidden in sock drawers and we learned to think for ourselves.

When I listen to women my age who have children, I’m astonished at how structured their childrens’ lives are and how involved they are in the minutia of everything their children do.

Yes, I can see how a mother who would like her daughter to learn about the world would have enormous pressures when every mother I know drives her child to school and schedules every moment of every day.

You do my heart good.