Free Range Kids

So, did you catch the story about the lady who let her 9 year old son find his way home on the subway in New York City? And did you read that crime in New York City is back to 1963 levels?

1963! That is awesome!!

Closer to home, I'm trying to adjust to the idea of free range kids.

Of course I vowed to do every single thing that my parents did completely differently, after all, that's what motherhood is all about. When I was in the 1st and 2nd grade in Chapel Hill, NC, I attended a swank private school 15 miles away called Durham Academy. Tuition was $400 dollars a year back in those prehistoric days though, when we drew our pictures on cave walls and hunted for food with clubs. Now I think $400 allows you to actually think about DA for about 5 minutes and maybe set foot on the property for another 5 minutes. But I digress.

I was not allowed to play with the neighborhood kids because they played stickball in the street. So unless a play date was authorized, rarely, I spent my time after school reading books and writing poems all alone. When I started 3rd grade, we moved to Blacksburg, VA, where my Dad was a professor. There were no swanky private schools, so I went to public school, rode the bus, and hung out with the gang on the street. There were many lessons to be learned--like don't go to a boy's birthday party wearing your Sunday best including high heel shoes--but we had a blast, riding up and down the streets and hanging out eating cookies at various kitchens.

My girls have completed one year of public school and are 1/2 way through their second. They have discovered a neighborhood gang (or rather, when the pool was open, the gang discovered them). They are now running around the neighborhood on bicycles and scooters, hanging out at several houses, and the phone rings constantly. They ask to have friends over every weekend to spend the night.

Well, it's hard to let them go even though it's only a few houses away. We bought them a new phone last weekend and they are required to carry it at all times. I can only hope and pray that they'll use decent common sense--more than I did. When I was 12 I suddenly decided to change lanes while riding my bike and almost got hit. This outraged man screamed obscenities at me and believe me, I deserved it! It was just one of those stupid, spur of the moment decisions. Thank God I grew up. Haven't had one of those for almost...mmm....two weeks or so now.

I had almost adjusted to a silent house when Roger announced that the kids would be WALKING HOME FROM SCHOOL two days a week. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays they go to a free Christian day care until 5:00 PM. This is helpful on so many levels--their dear little souls are being nourished, and Roger gets to nap a few more hours. For FREE. Did I mention it was FREE? Because I love the fact that it's FREE. And that they're being led closer to a walk with Jesus. For FREE.

Then Roger decides in response to constant pleading/nagging/begging that my 2nd grader and 5th grader can walk home from school on Mondays and Fridays. Let's see--You walk down Street A and cross a very busy street. I think there are crossing guards posted there. Then you walk down Street B for several blocks and then you walk down Street C for a block. That's it. They are in a group, and Madeleine has promised to watch out for her little sister.

"You're just sick of the CAR POOL LINE, aren't you?" I howled at my loving spouse.

No, he patiently explained while I chewed industriously on my fingernails. They wanted to, they would never be alone, they would gain an added measure of independence....yada yada yada.

So far, so good, I guess. But I can't embrace this Free Range Kids thing with a big old loving hug. Our subdivision is not gated and is 5 minutes away from two major highways. That's why I picked out the house--to make it easier to get to work. But it's also easy to be very far away from the neighborhood very quickly. They are responsible kids and have been warned 1,346,467 times about stranger danger, and never get into a car without a password, which unfortunately we cannot always remember ourselves, being so elderly and all. But....

I've done a lot of things that nobody in their right mind would call safe. I guess that I have to let them go, as soon as they give me Butterfly Kisses.