KAMLOOPS — ‘Free Range Parent’ Lenore Skenazy speaks in Kamloops tonight, January 26, 2017.
Skenazy gained notoriety after allowing her nine year old son to ride the subway alone in New York.
Google the phrase ‘America’s Worst Mom’ and you’ll come across the name Lenore Skenazy.
“Originally when I let my kid ride the subway by himself when he was nine, that’s what sort of brought me to prominence, I wrote a column about it, and people were saying, ‘why did you have your child if you don’t even care about him?’ I’m like,’I do care about him, but I trust him and I trust my city,’” said Skenazy.
Skenazy started the movement called ‘Free Range Kids’ which isn’t a particularly new concept, but one that may be difficult for the modern parent to accept.
“How did we change from parents who believed in kids and believed that they could handle their squabbles and deal with it if they fell down to parents who think that they must be there all the time or something terrible will happen to their child, or that they’re simply being neglectful and lazy.”
As part of the Unplug and Play Family Literacy Week, Skenazy has come to Kamloops to speak to parents about loosening their gripS, and worrying less.
Fiona Clare, Literacy Outreach Coordinator for Literacy in Kamloops explains, “we thought that tied in quite nicely with the whole Unplug and Play theme, and you know just seeing children outside playing and riding their bikes around, and going to the playground, and things like that.”
Meanwhile, Skenazy says kids are actually safer today than the days when parents gave their children more freedom and responsibilities.
“In Canada your crime rate today is back to what it was in 1969, so anybody who was growing up outside, you know, playing outside in the 70s, 80s, or 90s was actually less safe than the kids are today.”
With the rise of 24 hour news and social media, Skenazy says there are plenty of keyboard warriors scrutinizing every parent’s actions.
“When something terrible happens, there are people who empathize and it’s like ‘that poor mom’ … but there’s so many ‘i would have never done it that way,’ and it’s really, we don’t blame the victim anymore, we don’t say that woman was raped because she was wearing a short skirt, we’ve realized that nobody asked to be raped. but, we’re happy to blame the parent of a child that something terrible happens to, and that seems more recent.”
Skenazy is schedule to speak tonight, January 26th, at 6:30 p.m. at the Sandman Centre.
