I was confronted with a truth this week I should’ve already known: The way we parent and treat our child is very different than most people can begin to understand or appreciate. It’s all around us.

• We were asked to leave the children’s museum because of our lack of helicopter parenting.
• A local playground won’t allow him and his friends to play while the moms watch from the grass.
• The library deems 10 the magic age to sit unaccompanied while a parent walks the aisles.
• The convenience store on the corner doesn’t allow in any aged minor without a guardian.

Why has it become second nature to hover over our children, directing their every move and battering their curiosities with our fears regarding safety or fun? When did this happen? Can we blame the connectivity of the modern world and the onslaught of fear-based news it’s brought us? Or perhaps it’s the poor expectations we have for children that they undoubtedly live up to?

I am what you could call a Free Range Parent. I let Zeb play in the cul-de-sac without my supervision. When we had friends on the block, they would run amok together. He’s gone to the convenience store on the corner with other 9 year old friends (before the above rule was posted). And he’s stayed home alone for short amounts of time. In fact, my only fears are bad drivers and the opinions of people who might call CPS. More of the latter, truthfully.

Why am I not afraid to do these things? Because I know the statistics. I know things are actually safer now than 20 or 30 years ago when kids spent their entire summers outside and unsupervised for most of the day. And I know that less than 1% of 1% of children in the U.S. are actually abducted, that almost all abuse or abduction is done by a family member, friend or acquaintance (i.e. there is statistically more danger in one’s own home than anywhere else) and that the incidences of such things happening are going down while our paranoia over such things is going up.

We’ve traded social vigilance for parental paranoia, a child’s confidence for overprotection, and a bubble in place of a community.

I wonder about the affects of teaching our children to distrust every person they encounter or assume every stranger is a potential threat. I wonder how the next generation will function in day-to-day life without the confidence that comes from navigating terrain without a constant guardian. Are we, in fact, raising a Nation of Wimps?

I don’t believe we shouldn’t protect our children. I strongly believe that in meeting my child’s emotional needs. But like Attachment Parenting explains, if my child’s needs are being met and he feels secure and loved, he will grow more secure and confident, building on a firm foundation as he ventures into the world on his own. With inner security and confidence, children can become secure and confident in the world around them, as well as with their own abilities to assimilate into that world. 

Being a Free Range parent is simply following that lead. We meet the need for freedom and autonomy as they become ready for it. We help them learn safety and common sense and then we allow them to experiment with their environments and test their own boundaries and abilities. We support their interest in becoming independent individuals, so that as adults they can become independent individuals.

The real challenge, however, comes when confronted with the absurdity of our societies expectations of child-rearing. How can I encourage Zeb’s autonomy when threatened with the expulsion of supposedly child-friendly and safe public areas? How can I support his desire for independent decision-making when I’m afraid the neighbors may call the police? At every turn he is talked down to, treated as a fragile being, incapable of thought or decision or spoken to with disdain. Without immediate adult supervision, he is seen as a vandal, a social case, a klutz, a thief or just untrustworthy. If we dared to treat another adult in this manner based on nothing but their age (or heaven forbid, their race or gender) it would never be tolerated. We are a prejudice generation and just like prejudices of the past, we refuse to see the harm in our actions.

Zeb often feels shock when he’s treated without trust. He’s accustomed to a reasonable amount of freedom and respect from the adults in our circle and becomes flustered or frustrated otherwise. The treatment has been so unsettling as to bring about anger or tears – ‘Why are they treating me like a baby? Why do I need my mom to watch me go down a slide? Why can a 10 year old peruse the library but a child one month shy of 10 years old can’t?’ I don’t have the answers for him, except to empathize and validate and try to find places that are compatible with the ways in which we believe all people should be treated.

Here is my real fear: How do these views shape the character of our kids? Who will our children grow up to be when they are either handled with kid gloves or else held in such low regard? What do these views – views that all say “you can’t be trusted” – do to our children in the long-term?