The Art of Manliness - #300： How to Raise Free Range Kids

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast and actually this

00:00:19.160 is the 300th episode of the art of manliness podcast and before we get to our show just want

00:00:22.680 to say thank you all who've been following the podcast for a few years now and who just come on

00:00:26.740 it's crazy this thing that i started in 2009 and then stopped for a bit and then started back up

00:00:31.920 again in 2013 has grown to be what it is today we're at a 50 million total downloads or plays

00:00:38.060 overall since we've been doing this we get about 1 million downloads a month so it's just crazy

00:00:42.760 thank you all for your continued support thanks to the letters with feedback and encouraging words

00:00:46.480 and thanks for sharing the show with your friends and so here's to 300 more episodes and yeah thanks

00:00:51.560 so let's get today's episode i'm really excited about it last month we ran a four-part article

00:00:55.500 series on art of manliness.com about the origins and downsides of overprotective parenting and how

00:01:00.240 to raise more independent kids my guest today on the show was a key resource in that series and has

00:01:05.060 been at the forefront of battling helicopter parenting for nearly a decade her name is lenore

00:01:09.380 scanese and she's the author of free range kids how to raise safe self-reliant children without going

00:01:14.620 nuts with worry today on the show lenore and i discuss how being labeled america's worst mom led

00:01:19.140 her to become a leader of a movement to give kids more unsupervised time the cultural shift that

00:01:23.320 have happened in the past 30 years that have resulted in overprotective parenting and why

00:01:27.280 contrary to popular belief the chance of your kid getting abducted by a stranger is actually

00:01:31.620 incredibly small along the way lenore shares some crazy stories of parents getting in trouble with

00:01:36.360 the law for simply letting their children play outside by themselves we end our conversation with

00:01:41.020 some actionable steps you can take as a parent to raise independent self-reliant kids and why it's

00:01:45.760 important for kids to have as much unsupervised play as possible if you're a parent or a parent to be

00:01:50.700 you don't want to miss this hilarious but informative show after the show is over make

00:01:54.360 sure to check out our show notes at aom.is slash free range kids lenore scanese welcome to the show

00:02:05.460 thanks brett so you are the author of a book called free range kids it's all about encouraging parents to

00:02:12.540 let their kids act independently walk to school by themselves play in the front yard by themselves and

00:02:19.020 this book kickstarted a movement yeah the backstory of how this all started is interesting how did a

00:02:24.620 columnist from new york city start this whole movement of encouraging parents to let their kids

00:02:30.200 wander off by themselves and do do stuff by themselves the backstory is simple i let my nine

00:02:35.280 year old ride the subway by himself he'd been asking me and my husband if we would let him do it

00:02:39.360 we're on the subways all the time we said yes he took the subway i wrote a column about it and two days

00:02:45.360 later i was on the today show msnbc fox news and npr it's rarier on both fox news and npr let me just

00:02:53.380 put it that way and being described as this horrible mom who didn't care whether her son lived or died

00:02:58.580 i started a blog that weekend to say uh yes i do originally the thing on the side of my blog just

00:03:04.320 said that i believe in safety i believe in helmets and car seats and seat belts and mouth guards i wear

00:03:09.180 extra layers i just don't think kids need a security detail every time they leave the house

00:03:14.500 and that just resonated with people both yay at last somebody's saying what i've been thinking

00:03:20.400 and also oh my god she should have her kids taken away so let's talk about the negative reaction why

00:03:25.020 were people so upset about letting your nine-year-old ride the subway by himself what's going on there

00:03:30.900 it's it's so many things that i'm a general interest reporter i've covered every possible topic from

00:03:36.920 barbie to bioterrorism and suddenly i got stuck on the same topic now for almost 10 years and what's

00:03:43.460 fascinating about it is there is so much going on why would people think that a mother didn't love her

00:03:49.760 kid as much as somebody watching the today show did who said i wouldn't do that why did she so the

00:03:55.360 main thing going on is the idea that anytime a child is unsupervised they are automatically in grave

00:04:04.080 mortal peril that's the new belief and i didn't believe this for the longest time because it seems

00:04:09.460 so strange but i've had so many examples of people truly believing that over the past 10 years that

00:04:16.480 i've come to see that that is the bedrock of a lot of not only parenting beliefs but school beliefs

00:04:22.380 and cop and cps beliefs the second a child is not in his mom's sight lines he's doomed but like what's

00:04:30.380 going on because i'm sure a lot of people who are listening to this podcast they grew up their moms

00:04:34.380 just kicked him out of the house they said don't come back until dinner time and they did all sorts

00:04:39.120 of like i did that like i when i was five years old everybody did that everybody said oh did you have

00:04:43.160 a free-range childhood i'm like i'm trying to find somebody who didn't have a free-range childhood we

00:04:46.980 just didn't call it that i mean you know you went outside you're on your bike if you were a guy you

00:04:51.480 went and apparently like you i read your piece you threw dirt clods at each other and if you were a girl

00:04:56.360 you played dolls and you went to the library and a lot of jump roping ensued what's different is

00:05:02.740 here i'll give you an example when i was on the today show and then subsequently for four years i'd

00:05:07.380 be asked this question in almost every interview i mean i still am but it took four years for me to

00:05:12.300 figure out what's going on at some point the interviewer would lower his or her voice and look

00:05:18.840 at me intently unless it was by phone which i when i assume they were just looking intently at the

00:05:23.360 mic and say but lenore how would you have felt if he never came home and i never knew what to say

00:05:32.180 because i was like well i don't know you know i forgot to mention i have a spare son at home i i do

00:05:36.100 he's the older son he hadn't asked to go to the subway at age nine i didn't know what to answer and

00:05:41.260 finally i realized why and it was because that how would you have felt thing is not a question

00:05:46.580 it's an accusation and the accusation is simply this why weren't you thinking about how bad you'd

00:05:53.860 feel if he never came home and therefore stopped yourself from letting him because to be a good

00:05:59.620 parent in america today you are really supposed to be going to that deepest darkest scariest place

00:06:05.700 every time your children are out of your eyesight and if you're not going to that space then there's

00:06:11.160 something wrong with you you don't care enough and other people care more and they will let you know

00:06:15.760 and so i realized the thing that i did that was really out of step was i didn't do what i now

00:06:21.720 call worst first thinking you go to the worst case scenario first and you proceed as if it's likely to

00:06:27.180 happen that's why and to skip around that's why so many people are calling 911 the second they see a

00:06:33.980 kid waiting in a car they could be napping they could be playing with an ipad they could be reading

00:06:38.580 and they're in front of the dry cleaners and the mother is inside the dry cleaners with her back to

00:06:43.040 the car for three seconds while she's picking up the shirts maybe she turns around and waves it

00:06:47.640 doesn't matter they think that in that short amount of time the mom is not literally with them

00:06:52.400 something terrible is going to happen they call 911 as if the mother had left her child and set the car

00:06:58.360 on fire and that's the same thing believe it or not it's this idea that the second you're not with

00:07:03.480 your kid you are irresponsible because the child is going to die i mean i really wanted to write a second

00:07:08.660 book which i haven't written and my agent says don't write this but i wanted to call it quit

00:07:12.580 imagining your kids dead because that is sort of what we're exhorted to do as parents and if you're

00:07:19.060 not doing that you're doing something wrong why do parents go do this worst first thing can i just say

00:07:24.000 i don't want to start out talking about parents and i don't want to blame parents because we are in a

00:07:27.860 bind as parents because it's an entire society that's doing it in 19 states have laws that say you can't

00:07:33.900 let your kid wait in the car even for a few minutes even on a non-hot day even with the air conditioning

00:07:38.780 going even with everything perfect and so there's a societal shift that thinks of children as in

00:07:45.020 constant danger and then there's all these tech products that allow you to follow your kid while

00:07:49.860 they're walking to school they're a little dot like on a marauder's map and there's there's ones for

00:07:53.920 littler children that allow them to press a button and automatically call the police and you if ever

00:07:58.480 they feel scared so there's an entire miasma out there of fear that we are just breathing in every

00:08:04.800 day and parents always say like well we've always been cautious i mean isn't it the job of parents

00:08:10.000 to try to keep their children alive to care to worry and and it of course it is and and i feel the same

00:08:16.140 way but but what's different is this constant terror about the worst thing all the time and that's what i

00:08:22.660 think of as like this pollution that parents are stuck breathing in you know is your child at risk

00:08:27.900 details of seven what's in their lunchbox details at eight are they being bullied details at nine

00:08:32.680 can you let your child ride the school bus details at everything is so scary everything is presented

00:08:38.280 through the scrim of fear that we're just breathing it in and it's no surprise that we would turn out to

00:08:44.160 be more what i'm quote unquote helicopter parents we are living in a society that says if you're not a

00:08:48.580 helicopter parent you're doing something wrong so so let's not talk about parents as if they've all gone

00:08:53.860 individually crazy it's a society that's gone crazy and they can only see children through the

00:08:58.780 lens of what terrible thing could happen to them and is this an american phenomenon or do you see

00:09:02.920 this in other western countries i wish it was just an american phenomenon but i see it literally i'm an

00:09:08.760 american i only speak english so but i do see it in the entire english-speaking world australia has all

00:09:15.020 these laws parents get arrested for going in and paying for what they call petrol we call gas paying for

00:09:19.820 the gas and letting the kid wait in the car oh my god anything could have happened and in england

00:09:23.780 you know it's the same thing parents are arrested or hounded for letting their kids ride their bikes

00:09:28.480 to school i think it's pretty universal i don't think it's necessarily in every struggling developing

00:09:34.100 country but in the countries that have time money and media to spare it seems really common you were

00:09:39.560 talking about the society that with the sort of milieu that we're in bathed in this constant fear a lot

00:09:43.440 of it's the media 24-hour news cycle where anytime a missing child comes up that becomes the main

00:09:48.420 thing right even though it's very rare you know they don't even have to be missing i don't know

00:09:52.820 if you saw the controversy that was going on two weeks ago and then a week before that and before

00:09:56.760 that before that people are posting things on facebook that the best example i guess was one that

00:10:03.700 was two weeks ago a mom wrote on her facebook oh my god you won't believe what just happened and

00:10:09.180 you're thinking oh my god what happened she was at ikea with three children one of them in a baby

00:10:13.720 bjorn you know so one's a baby two or other little kids are all under age seven she's with her

00:10:17.900 mother there so it's the grandma the mom and three kids and she said and we were followed by men who

00:10:23.020 were going to sex traffic my children i just know it because as we moved around the store the men kept

00:10:29.560 being there and they kept looking at my children and god forbid if i had glanced down at my phone i

00:10:35.160 shiver to think at what might have happened i am so lucky i didn't look at my phone because that way

00:10:40.980 my children ended up safe and not sex trafficked so what you have there is a story where literally

00:10:47.820 nothing happened she went to ikea with her three children and her mother she came home from ikea

00:10:53.880 with her three children and her mother and while she was there she saw some men and some men saw her

00:10:59.400 but this was shared when i started writing about it it had been shared 89 000 times and everybody

00:11:05.140 underneath is writing oh this is great information thank you you're so brave you're so helpful this is

00:11:10.900 going to help me i parents hold your children a little tighter i'm like you can't hold them tighter

00:11:15.340 one of them was literally strapped to her body and the two others were there with their mom and their

00:11:20.420 grandma in ikea where you can't get out even if you want to get out you must go past every sham

00:11:26.020 and every toppling dresser before you get to the meatballs and and yet this was treated as fact

00:11:32.900 so you're just talking about a society that's so hungry for these stories of terror and child

00:11:40.400 kidnapping and perversion that it will take a non-story and turn it into something that's shared

00:11:46.760 a hundred thousand times as if it's valuable when it's bs okay most of it's bs what are the actual

00:11:52.400 chances that your child is going to get abducted by a stranger and sold into sex trafficking or be

00:11:58.340 molested what do the statistics actually say i'll just give you the one statistic that i have in my book

00:12:02.760 and my book is 10 years old at this point or eight or nine years old whatever it is crime for the

00:12:06.880 record is back to what it was the crime rate of 1963 which is a really safe time to live unless

00:12:11.980 you were the president but here's the deal i had a guy crunched the numbers for me because i'm not a

00:12:17.120 good numbers person and rather than saying it's one in 1.5 million blah blah blah because everybody

00:12:21.860 says what if your child is the one i had him flip it and so he figured out how long would you have to

00:12:27.760 keep your child outside unattended for it to be statistically likely that they would be kidnapped

00:12:33.880 by a stranger i'll ask you i mean i don't know if you've read my book but hopefully if you if you

00:12:38.660 hopefully you have and hopefully you've forgotten the number so how long do you think you have to

00:12:42.320 keep your kid outside for it to be statistically likely sort of like how many lottery tickets do you

00:12:47.120 have to buy for it to be statistically likely for you to win the lottery how long would you have to

00:12:50.640 keep the kid outside i remember something like 700 000 days or something like that

00:12:53.980 if i remember years years okay 700 000 years all right yeah actually the times wrote it wrong they

00:12:59.380 they put days or hours or something hours is really confusing because maybe there's 700 000 hours in a

00:13:04.340 week i really don't know but it's no it's 750 000 years you know after the first 100 000 it's not

00:13:10.160 really a kid anymore i'm not sure there's a corporeal body after the first 100 000 years i have a feeling

00:13:16.800 it's dust but that should help some people sort of visualize what a rare rare crime we're talking

00:13:25.680 about but since statistics don't really convince anyone of anything you know i'll say it you know

00:13:32.460 i'm happy to discuss how rare a crime child kidnapping by strangers is but it doesn't matter because even

00:13:39.660 though it's statistically rare it is everywhere everywhere else it's on every law and order it's in every

00:13:45.400 kellerman mystery it's on every news channel that if they can get the story they will if they don't

00:13:51.640 have a convincing or current story about a kid being kidnapped then they'll say it's the 10th

00:13:55.820 anniversary of or whatever happened to and so and there'll be america's most wanted and there'll be

00:14:01.900 to catch a predator so me talking about the infinitesimal odds is no match for society shoving this

00:14:09.460 story down our throat right and i fell prey to that you talked about so to speak yeah i mean oh my god

00:14:14.640 i fell so you will pray yourself right right no but we we talked about this in the story we wrote

00:14:18.860 about on the blog where my son gus was out in the front yard something we let him do and then we went

00:14:23.560 out there and he wasn't there and i immediately both my wife and i was like oh my gosh someone has

00:14:28.600 kidnapped him i'd done that too gosh you know here i am the free range mom and i let my kid come home and

00:14:34.520 sometimes the after school activities were when it got dark 15 minutes your heart can plunge to places you

00:14:40.620 didn't realize were in your body i mean it is terrifying it's if you're breathing this stuff

00:14:44.780 in it's hard not to think that way because that's what we've been trained to think that's why when

00:14:50.180 the ladies and i guess guys ask me on the tv shows how would you have felt if you never came home

00:14:54.420 that's a catechism that is you being trained to think that way how would i feel i was the one who

00:14:59.700 let him play outside and now he's dead it's all my fault and one thing that very much impressed me

00:15:04.680 about your blog post was talking about how it's not just fear and it's not just the media it's not

00:15:11.660 just the constant din of these terrible stories that they'll drag up from wherever they can find

00:15:16.720 it's this idea also of blame and this idea that if we only paid more close attention our children

00:15:25.580 would be perfectly safe so that anytime a child is hurt it must be because we totally failed

00:15:32.460 our fear of that makes us believe that we just can't let our kids go i mean it's this belief that

00:15:38.000 we can control our child's fate if we only pay complete and utter attention and then it's not

00:15:44.320 just complete and utter attention to watching them on the lawn it's everything they eat and every person

00:15:48.800 they talk to and if they get on the bus we should know who they're sitting next to so they're not next

00:15:52.300 to a bully but there's this belief i think it's more common actually in highly developed countries and

00:15:58.580 in fact people who have done kind of well in life you start thinking that i am in control i got myself

00:16:03.480 this good job i got my education i have these nice kids and once you think that you really are master

00:16:08.540 of your fate and of your child's fate the chances of something going wrong loom even bigger because

00:16:14.400 you of all people should have been able to prevent it and in that belief comes the need to watch them

00:16:20.780 all the more closely i don't know if that's making sense no yeah but i think it's the combination of

00:16:25.840 believing you can control everything makes you think you must control everything and then pretty

00:16:30.980 soon you can't leave anything to chance which means you can't let your kid out of your sight that idea

00:16:35.500 believing you can control everything i mean that's kind of crazy i mean it is sort of insane to think

00:16:39.600 that it is insane you know i was growing up you'd laugh at people who had delusions that they were god

00:16:44.340 or something like that but now we really think i mean think about what we can do with technology

00:16:49.080 we can check every text our kids ever sent check every email look at every instagram hear every

00:16:55.460 conversation we can watch them through geocat whatever it is you know tagging them and watching

00:17:01.680 where they go on a map you can get in touch with them by calling them or if not them you have their

00:17:06.980 friend's number or their brother's number and you call them so there's actually an app that was i can't

00:17:11.600 remember if it's on indiegogo or if it already exists where you can match up how much and what your

00:17:17.280 child ate that day i guess maybe they have to input it or maybe the thing listens to the crunching in

00:17:22.020 your kid's mouth i have no idea it also compares it to how much activity they've gotten because of

00:17:26.240 course with a fitbit built into every phone then you know how many steps they've taken and how many

00:17:30.520 stairs they've climbed and they're trying to tell you that you can tinker with your child oh look today

00:17:35.780 they ate 17 more potato chips than they walked and so then you can you know press a button and make your

00:17:42.280 kid hey kid before you come home today or in fact while you're inside today so i know you're safe

00:17:47.040 you must do 17 more steps so that it balances out so you're treating your kid almost like a robot or

00:17:53.740 an app i mean that you can tinker with you can always be watching it you can fix it if there's

00:17:58.680 something wrong it's not the old parental thing where you sort of try to teach them some lessons

00:18:03.360 and then you're delighted when you find out that a few of them stuck it's constant supervision and

00:18:08.360 what's funny though is we think we can do all these things to help our kids not just be safe but be

00:18:12.200 awesome right be super smart super athletic but the research shows that like your kid's going to

00:18:16.880 turn out the way it's going to turn out in your input as a parent it has an effect but not as big

00:18:21.300 as you think it's going to have yeah there's a great book that came out oh gosh maybe 20 years

00:18:25.420 ago called the nurture assumption about how we assume that it's our nurture that creates our kids

00:18:29.460 and and there's always these fantastic stories of twins and my favorite one from this book was about

00:18:35.280 identical twins separated birth one was raised in trinidad to jewish parents and one was raised in

00:18:42.600 germany to catholic parents and when they finally met up god knows how they looked at each other and

00:18:47.800 they were both wearing aviator glasses they both had epaulettes you know those little things on your

00:18:52.840 shoulders that look like sort of military decorations they both read magazines starting at the back going

00:18:58.280 to the front and they both flushed the toilet before they went to the toilet and so you wonder

00:19:02.660 gee do we think that both sets of parents did exactly these things or was this somehow pre-programmed and

00:19:09.940 i think that you're right a lot of what we think of as our input on children is really just pre-programmed

00:19:15.600 so that idea should release some parental anxiety i think a lot of parents are freaking out about

00:19:19.860 school i gotta get my kid into this preschool i gotta have them watch baby einstein or whatever

00:19:24.220 they're doing nowadays so they're super smart yeah i wish parents would cut themselves a ton of slack

00:19:29.620 because we are in a society that is cutting them zero slack at all what was i writing about yesterday oh

00:19:34.980 there was this horrible story in atlanta a kid wandered it was at this rotating restaurant at

00:19:40.440 the top of a tower a five-year-old wandered everybody agrees it was a couple feet from his

00:19:44.420 parents and somehow he got caught in the rotating mechanism and he died it was just

00:19:48.840 a tragic story the restaurant has been around for over 35 years this was the first and only time

00:19:54.320 something like this happened and i looked at the first five comments on the yahoo version of this story

00:19:59.900 and the first one was parents watch your kids and the second one was what lazy parents i bet they

00:20:05.980 were looking at their phones and the third one was this is what happens when you don't watch your

00:20:10.020 kids i would never let my kids out of my sight fourth one was excuse me these people just experienced

00:20:14.820 a tragedy could we cut them a little slack and the fifth one was i never let my kids out of my sight

00:20:19.520 what were these parents thinking so there's not a lot of slack that parents are allowed to

00:20:25.480 partake of these days everybody has an opinion everybody thinks you're doing it wrong

00:20:29.720 everybody thinks that there's no such thing as an accident it all has to do with negligence usually

00:20:34.520 parental negligence and that's why parents think that they must and they can control everything

00:20:40.320 because they're told that they can that this was not a horrible accident i told people

00:20:44.100 just believe in something else believe in god or believe in fate or luck but don't believe that

00:20:50.340 parents control everything no human controls everything but we're told we do yeah i mean that brings up

00:20:56.080 an interesting point because i think a lot of parents they want to encourage their kids to be

00:20:59.300 these free-range kids do things outside of their sight but they're not so much afraid of like the

00:21:03.680 kids getting hurt or abducted whatever they're afraid that they're going to be the next social

00:21:08.140 media story where they're just being publicly shamed well let me tell you as a social media story

00:21:13.940 the social media story is one part of the equation and the other part of the equation is that if somebody

00:21:20.460 sees their kid outside unattended because we all have cell phones i mean cell phones have such an

00:21:26.000 interesting impact on parenting in this weird way people who see a kid walking alone might think

00:21:32.180 oh that's a little unusual now but if they had to wait till they got home and picked up the phone

00:21:37.080 and remembered to call the police they would forget but because they have the phone with them and

00:21:42.880 because everybody seems to believe they're in the middle of a jerry bruckheimer movie and they're always

00:21:47.380 seeing the most exciting amazing sex trafficking or kidnapping in the making they pick up the phone and they say oh

00:21:54.380 my god i just saw a child outside and then they call the 9-1-1 operator who feels like god if anything

00:21:59.460 bad happens people are going to know i was the 9-1-1 operator and i said who cares if a kid is walking

00:22:03.720 home it's not that big a deal so the 9-1-1 operator calls the police and the police go there

00:22:08.320 and they're part of this society too they're told that anytime a child is unsupervised they're in danger

00:22:13.480 so they pick up the kid and then they pass it along to child protective services and child

00:22:18.780 protective services has no impetus to not be hysterical in a way because if they shrug and say

00:22:25.740 oh this was just a kid walking home i agree i used to walk home at that age too isn't it great they get

00:22:30.420 to have some fresh air they can think that but they could also think i better do a very thorough

00:22:35.980 investigation because now that this family has landed in front of me if god forbid you know whatever

00:22:41.960 the one in a million chances that something bad does happen to this kid afterwards my name is on

00:22:47.280 the report saying no no big deal they just let their kid walk home from school and so at each step

00:22:52.380 of the way there's no downside to overreaction from the anonymous caller we allowed anonymous calls to

00:23:00.060 child protective services since the 70s from the caller to the 9-1-1 operator to the police to child

00:23:06.140 protective services everyone has to cover their ass and nobody has ever called in and said why did you

00:23:11.940 start this gigantic investigation of a family simply because they believed that their 10-year-old

00:23:17.180 was fine walking home from school or their five-year-old was fine waiting in the car while mom

00:23:21.040 got the pizza and that's insane i was watching a clip of you on reason.com where you're talking about

00:23:26.140 a study that shows that parents when they do this when they you know they call protective service on

00:23:30.900 another parent they're not so much concerned about the safety of the kid like they're more concerned

00:23:35.260 about the moral culpability of the parent oh yeah no this was a fascinating study uh that was done

00:23:41.420 at the university of california irvine frankly based on my blog and what they were interested in

00:23:46.060 is how come we keep arresting parents for putting their children in literally almost non-existent

00:23:52.900 danger when a kid is waiting a few minutes in a car and it's not a kid waiting in the ibm parking lot

00:23:58.940 where you can reasonably assume that somebody went into work and forgot the child which is how kids die

00:24:03.500 but when the kid is in front of you know the post office or the library so the study went this way

00:24:09.220 they told five different groups of people the same story that a child was waiting in a car a four-year-old

00:24:14.620 was waiting in a car for half an hour but they gave each different group a different scenario as to

00:24:18.720 why the kid was in the car and the first group was told that the kid was waiting in the car the mom

00:24:23.560 had gone to drop a book at the library but bam she was hit by a mac truck and she was knocked out cold

00:24:29.060 for half an hour okay second group is told that the mom had to do some work something for her work

00:24:34.400 third group is told she was exercising fourth group she's volunteering and fifth group that she

00:24:38.580 spent that half an hour meeting up with her lover and then they asked these groups five groups how

00:24:45.860 much danger they thought that the child was in in that half hour and the most common answer was 10

00:24:52.560 on a scale of 1 to 10 no matter what more people than anything else thought that the child was in

00:24:56.620 complete and utter danger the entire time but when they did the average the people who thought that

00:25:02.000 the child had been left in the car accidentally by a mom who was trying her darndest to get right

00:25:06.560 back to the kid but just couldn't because that mac truck they thought the kid was in like a six

00:25:11.020 of danger people who knew that the mom had to go do something for her job that kid was in a little

00:25:16.240 more danger they thought and then the group that had been asked about the volunteering a little more

00:25:20.180 danger finally the group that thought that the mom had gone to get to visit her lover ding ding ding you

00:25:24.580 know the kid was in massive massive amounts of danger and what's really interesting is that it shows

00:25:29.840 that when we think we're being logical and we're making a rational danger assessment we are actually

00:25:37.260 making a moral judgment and the more immoral we judge the mom the more danger we think she put the

00:25:45.960 kid in you know she meant to come back to the child but she didn't that's still a good mom but she's

00:25:50.240 going off to meet her lover that's a bad mom the kid is half an hour either way they're waiting in the

00:25:55.040 car without the mom but somehow the mom who went off to meet her lover has somehow left the kid in

00:26:00.180 outrageous danger compared to the mom who was going to turn right around and come right back to the car

00:26:05.380 an interesting corollary to that study is they did the same study but a smaller sampling asking those

00:26:11.580 same five situations but asking a guy a dad had been hit by the mac truck had to do something for

00:26:16.800 work blah blah blah went to meet his lover and for the male the danger that people thought the child

00:26:21.940 was in when the dad was hit by a truck or when the dad went to work was exactly the same so in other

00:26:29.020 words for dads you know whether they're knocked out cold or work it's work is something that they must

00:26:33.980 do they have no choice but for women even women who had to do something for work it was automatically

00:26:39.680 people started perceiving a little more danger because why is she working instead of constantly keeping

00:26:46.640 her eyes every single second on her child which is why one of the things i try to point out about

00:26:53.080 this model that we've been sold on this helicopter hovering constant supervision model of parenting

00:26:59.340 that no generation has ever had to do until now is i think of it as a backdoor way of getting at

00:27:05.780 anti-feminism because nobody is saying oh women can't work they should be home watching children they've

00:27:11.580 got a god-given job to do and that is just to be a mother and a caregiver nobody says it that way

00:27:16.300 but they do say okay you're out of work you get home at six you pick up the kids you go to the

00:27:21.980 dry cleaner you must take the triplets out of their car seats and drag them into the dry cleaner then

00:27:27.480 you have to get them each a lollipop then you have to take the lollipop away because it's right before

00:27:30.880 dinner then you have to put them back in the car seats take off their snowsuits because you're not

00:27:34.920 allowed to wear a coat in a car seat and then strap them all back in and then get them back home and

00:27:39.580 then take them all out again and nobody has said you're not allowed to have a moment's free time

00:27:44.900 that'll teach you to work but we've said it's for the safety of our precious children and somehow

00:27:50.420 for the safety of our precious children mothers are spending hours and hours i think the number is

00:27:54.940 actually nine hours more per week that's a one whole working day more per week supervising their

00:28:00.440 children than they did back when when moms weren't working or when fewer moms were working in the 70s

00:28:05.040 right so it seems like it's a way we're kind of guilting people into oh you're not spending that much

00:28:09.620 time with your kids so you got to spend more time with them and make it more arduous for you

00:28:13.980 right it's not like it's this fun time it's a lot of schlepping right so if parents shouldn't worry

00:28:18.840 about their kids getting abducted or hit by cars if they're walking home and things like that like

00:28:24.460 what are some things that parents should genuinely be concerned about when it comes to their kids

00:28:29.020 safety well i'm concerned about some of the things that really are rising you know diabetes and

00:28:35.060 depression possibly obesity although i keep seeing conflicting reports on that and those are things that

00:28:41.840 happen when kids don't have free time when kids have free unsupervised time and they can go outside

00:28:47.340 and there are other kids who are getting free unsupervised time that they can play with then

00:28:53.060 they they get fresh air they get their yayas out they figure out something that literally interests

00:28:58.000 them whether it's making a fort or i spent hours i don't know why looking for four-leaf clovers i mean

00:29:03.760 there's something that they can fall into that they love that teaches them focus or that's a group

00:29:10.820 activity and it teaches them how to get along with each other and how to compromise and how to hold

00:29:15.500 themselves together even if they're frustrated because that way the game can continue i thought

00:29:19.620 the ball was in you thought the ball was out but i want to keep playing so i just let's okay

00:29:23.280 balls out and then we keep playing so when we're taking all those opportunities away from our kids

00:29:29.100 because we're replacing them with structured supervised activities that we think are safer

00:29:33.500 i think we're making our kids less safe in terms of growing up i mean in play you get so many

00:29:41.000 life lessons that are going to help you in terms of getting along with people in terms of learning how

00:29:47.300 to you know in in little league you learn how to hit the ball but in a sandlot game you learn how to

00:29:52.780 throw the ball a little easier to the the kid who's kind of klutzy and you can practice doing it a

00:29:58.620 goofy way because nobody's counting it it's not towards the little league championships you can

00:30:04.080 be creative you can afford to just be yourself this is what i worry that we're taking out of kids lives

00:30:10.460 and i said this this might be completely completely wrong and this is an idea that's birthed as of this

00:30:16.020 morning when my husband was leaving and he was talking about some of the people he work with

00:30:19.740 they're all very foodies you know it's it's a millennial thing to be a foodie which i can understand

00:30:23.760 but he felt that they didn't have a lot of other interests and i worry that you don't give kids a

00:30:29.920 time to fall into chemistry or to really love origami or to make things or to write little

00:30:39.460 stories if they don't have any of that free time i'm not sure they end up fully developing so i i do

00:30:46.360 worry about that and i think it's interesting to mention that by trying to protect our kids all the

00:30:51.180 time we're actually making them less safe they don't know how to trust themselves or how to handle

00:30:55.560 themselves when they're actually on their own like when they're 18 and out on the real world

00:31:00.160 by themselves like they don't know how to handle themselves well you know everything takes practice

00:31:05.380 and if there's an adult at the game the adult will declare the teams and the adult will decide if the

00:31:12.300 ball is in or out and the adult will tell you you know you have to go to the end of the line or

00:31:16.260 whatever but when it's just kids peter gray is one of my heroes he wrote a book called free to learn

00:31:21.180 and my god interview him he's so wonderful but he points out that in adult led activities the adults

00:31:27.280 are the adults right but when there's no adults around the kids learn how to be adults they learn

00:31:32.660 how to keep the game going they learn how to teach the game and if we keep taking those opportunities

00:31:37.900 away from them because we want them to be in something structured because first of all we think

00:31:42.460 they'll get better at the thing and they probably will get better at whatever is being taught like

00:31:47.200 literally how to kick the ball but they don't get better at organizing their friends and coming up

00:31:53.520 with something to do so one idea that peter and i had together that is so simple that i would like

00:32:00.280 people to consider doing is since it's hard to find other kids playing outside these days that's why

00:32:07.200 people call 9-1-1 when they see a kid outside it's like seeing a lemur escape from the zoo it's like

00:32:11.720 what's it doing out there why not after school when there are all sorts of scheduled activities

00:32:17.240 that your kids could go to whether it's soccer or mandarin or piano have the school leave the gym

00:32:24.140 open and the playground open and maybe put some boxes out there to build things with there's some

00:32:30.280 balls jump ropes and i guess for legal purposes you have to have some adult in the corner with the

00:32:36.940 epi pen but but other than that have to have that person standing back and here's a chance for kids

00:32:43.720 to finally have a quorum of other kids mixed ages mixed ages are great to play together because when

00:32:49.780 you're only with kids of your exact same age it's a little more competitive but if you're there with

00:32:53.860 a younger kid you turn a little softer and you teach that kid and if you're there with an older kid

00:32:57.980 you want to be the older kid so you learn how to be a little bit more mature so you have

00:33:01.700 mixed age kids together with no agenda no adult calling the shots and time so you have the critical

00:33:09.180 mass of kids and you have a place for them to be together and if you don't pick them up till six

00:33:14.420 it's great for the working parent there's a place for the children to be and there's it's a sort of

00:33:19.840 facsimile of what our childhoods were which was time after school that just happened to be outside in

00:33:24.940 the neighborhood and not at the playground that's a great idea i love that i i have i have two other

00:33:29.680 important ideas that i'm trying to spread if you're if you're game yo yeah spread them more

00:33:34.500 okay one is to to make sure the parents do not feel like i'd love to send my kid outside but what

00:33:40.400 if i get arrested for negligence i i'm trying to get towns and states either or or to pass the free

00:33:47.720 range kids bill of rights which is one sentence long and it simply it says our kids have the right

00:33:53.520 to some unsupervised time and we have the right to give it to them without getting arrested so that

00:34:00.260 says it all i mean we're not going to say that parents have a right to neglect their children or

00:34:05.100 to abuse their children but if they think that their kid is old enough to walk home from school

00:34:10.020 or like your gus you know your gus walked at age six to his grandparents house half a mile away if you

00:34:15.300 think that gus is ready to do that again some bystander who calls 9-1-1 won't get anywhere with

00:34:22.500 turning you into a criminal because all along the way people will be allowed to say yes but the

00:34:28.460 parent thought the child was ready and and if the police are called in the police say hey gus do you

00:34:33.020 know where you're going yes do your parents know where you are no okay well you know the number yeah

00:34:36.560 okay let's call them so you can intervene as a concerned citizen but it doesn't turn it into

00:34:41.900 a criminal act on the parents part trusting their kids to play outside or wait in the car for a few

00:34:48.500 minutes on a non-boiling hot day or come home as a latchkey kid so the bill of rights is not saying

00:34:54.580 you have the right to neglect or abuse your kid it just says you have the right to trust your kid

00:34:59.380 and we believe that you know your kid better than we do because you're the parent so the free range

00:35:04.060 kids bill of rights is actually on my site if you go to freerangekids.com at the top there's a

00:35:09.020 little tab it says frk free range kids bill of rights do you want to hear the other thing of course

00:35:13.860 quickly the other thing is just the free range kids and you can change the name i'm not you know

00:35:17.760 completely you know megalomania about this but the free range kids project at schools is the teacher

00:35:24.440 telling the kids in her class is her class go home today and ask your parents if there's one thing

00:35:30.000 that you feel you're ready to do if you can do it okay that maybe you haven't done yet for one reason

00:35:34.580 or another it could be walk the dog make dinner for the family go run an errand pick up your brother

00:35:40.260 from school whatever it is and because the school endorses it and because it's a one-shot deal

00:35:45.960 right parents who let their kids walk once don't have to necessarily let them do it again

00:35:50.000 the parents usually say yes and from what i've seen it's only a handful of schools that have done this

00:35:54.560 yet but it is a screaming success it is so amazing to me how outlandishly proud parents are when the kid

00:36:03.920 comes back and they're bringing home the milk or they made the dinner or they went and got

00:36:09.940 themselves home the parents are at least as excited as the kids and even though it is this

00:36:15.700 one-shot deal the simple fact of the matter is once you see your kid walk you don't want them to go

00:36:20.680 back to crawling you don't say well look she's taking her first steps now go back to crawling

00:36:24.160 it's the same thing when your kid runs an errand for you you don't say well that was great never again

00:36:29.620 you say okay and by the way um could you tomorrow you know go to grandma's house or whatever so

00:36:35.240 it's easy it's free it takes no time at all i do a lot of speaking i speak a lot of schools

00:36:40.620 and sometimes i speak to the kids at the school too and the kids are wildly excited about doing

00:36:46.780 this project so it gives them freedom and it shows them that their parents aren't just worried about

00:36:53.060 them it shows them that their parents have a little bit of belief in them that they're willing

00:36:56.100 to say okay you are old enough to ride your bike to your friend's house today even though i haven't

00:37:00.140 let you do that till now it's awesome well lenore this has been a great conversation you

00:37:03.400 mentioned people can find out more information about your work at freerangekids.com is that right

00:37:07.540 you bet uh you know book blog twitter feed speeches everything is at freerangekids.com

00:37:13.900 awesome well lenore skanese thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure oh thank you brett

00:37:17.760 and thank you for your essay i thought that your part about control was really illuminating for me

00:37:23.320 and i that's why i reread it it was great well thank you so much my guest today was lenore skanese

00:37:27.480 she's the author of the book free range kids it's available on amazon.com and bookstores

00:37:31.580 everywhere also check out our website freerangekids.com where you can find updates about crazy

00:37:36.700 stuff that's going on parents getting in trouble for letting their kids be kids as well as some

00:37:40.620 resources that you can use in your community to encourage unsupervised play with your kiddos

00:37:46.060 also check out our show notes at aom.is slash freerangekids where you can find links to resources

00:37:51.360 where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:37:52.760 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:38:08.820 make sure check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com also want to let you know

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00:38:39.820 thanks for your support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:38:47.980 you

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#300： How to Raise Free Range Kids

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