Lenore Skenazy is the president of Let Grow and the founder of the “Free-Range Kids” movement.
When Karyann Parkinson’s 5-year-old son, Sam, asked if he could walk about a half mile to their neighborhood pond to collect goose feathers, she didn’t have a hard time saying yes. It was June. They’d walked the route before, including that morning. Her son is mature, and their surroundings are part of what the homeowners association describes as a “secure, multi-generational gated community.” The risks were low, and yet Karyann is fast becoming famous for what came next.
After Sam left the house, a resident saw him and alerted the community’s security. A guard took him back home and questioned his mother about her parenting decisions. When Karyann refused to concede that she’d done anything wrong, the guard summoned a policeman. When Karyann refused to engage, the officer summoned Child Protective Services. Soon after, three cops, two CPS workers and the security guard were on the scene. Karyann later told me that one of their cruisers blocked the driveway — something she assumed was to prevent her, then eight months pregnant with her fifth child, from becoming a flight risk.
After the incident, Karyann’s husband, Dallin, sent an email to the nonprofit I lead, Let Grow, whose mission is to make childhood independence easy, normal and legal. He explained what had happened and asked for advice. I hopped on a Zoom call with the couple and would like to say my jaw dropped as I listened to their tale — but it didn’t. I’d heard many like it before.
While everyone wants kids to grow up healthy and happy, people have different ideas about how to achieve that. Until the past generation or so, a sunny upbringing usually included a fair amount of free, unsupervised time. One book I cherish from 1981, “Your Six-Year-Old: Loving and Defiant,” provides a checklist of the things a neurotypical child was expected to be able to do upon entering first grade. “Can he count eight to ten pennies correctly?” and “Can he tell left hand from right?” Perhaps the most salient query: “Can he travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to store, school, playground, or to a friend’s home?”
Compare that with a survey released this year by the Institute for Family Studies, which asked nearly 24,000 parents at what age they’d let their kids do things on their own. Eleven percent of 14-year-olds aren’t able to leave the house unsupervised. Fifty-five percent can’t go beyond their block. In other words, today’s high school freshmen have a fraction of the freedom that used to be given to first-graders. It’s little wonder they’re so anxious.
This new, limited idea of what kids are capable of explains why a 5-year-old walking around his neighborhood at lunchtime can look like a baby crawling along I-95 at midnight. Thanks to Karyann’s transgression — trusting her son — she was placed on Virginia’s child abuse and neglect registry for seven years. In court, she was found guilty of “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” — a Class 1 misdemeanor — and given a six-month suspended jail sentence.
When I wrote about Karyann’s case last week for Reason, the story went viral. The media, usually able to find a yin to any yang, couldn’t seem to summon any argument against her judgment. Blur the logos on Fox and CNN, and you couldn’t tell which was which as they interviewed her. Every anchor seemed appalled at what she had endured.
That was a relief to me especially. Nearly 20 years ago, I was in the dock after I let my 9-year-old ride the subway alone. I didn’t get into any legal trouble, but after I wrote about it for a New York paper, I quickly found myself on most of the major networks defending myself. Some folks supported my decision. Many didn’t. The psychologist summoned to comment on my case on the “Today” show, for instance, chided me for not giving my son “the same experience in a safer manner.”
Yet over the years, parents started to contact me when they got penalized for giving their kids the same freedom they’d grown up with. That included Brittany Patterson of Fannin County, Georgia, who was arrested when her son, 10, walked to town without telling her. Mallerie Shirley received similar treatment when she was investigated after her son, 6, rode his scooter unsupervised in Atlanta. Danielle and Alexander Meitiv were likewise investigated for letting their kids, 6 and 10, walk home from a park in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Those stories and others have thankfully given the public pause. They’ve helped move 13 states to pass “reasonable childhood independence” laws, which clarify that “neglect” happens only when kids are put in serious, obvious danger, not any time their parents take their eyes off them. Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) and Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-Virginia) are seeking to enshrine that protection nationwide with their Promoting Childhood Independence and Resilience Act.
When Karyann let her son collect feathers, she wasn’t ignoring danger. She was ignoring cultural norms that are keeping kids indoors, and parents in fear. For the sake of our families and our collective mental health: Let kids roam.
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