I think there is a fundamental difference between Urban parents and Suburban and even rural parents. I, for one, would probably never let my kid operate farm equipment at age 12 as a Rural farm family would think this to be as natural as I think walking home from school in a city known for it’s shitty murder rate and cutting edge drama’ surrounding homicide and drug trafficking.

What I do NOT agree with is how other parents will sit and tell me that I’m an asshole or a bad parent or not vigilante or negligent. I have gotten that–Although mostly from asshole family members. I have to constantly remind my mother that I traipsed all over Lowell/Chelmsford as a Latch key kid with a city at her fingertips at age 10. She remembers and realizes that I am correct.

Part of this is because I’ve been conditioned to be this way by outside sources. I used to live in a small Nebraska town and we lived one block from a Chinese restaurant. I was having a garage sale and couldn’t leave the house and so I sent my third-grader to pick up our lunch.

When my mom found out, you would’ve thought I’d sent her into the deepest pit of Hell, but in fact, my daughter was so dang proud of this act of independence that I can’t help but think it was a good experience for her. — It’s nothing compared to dropping a kid off in the middle of NYC and saying “See you when you get home,” but it was a small and more controlled experiment in independence.

I do agree that there are too many parents wiping their kids’ asses until they’re 12, but I still don’t believe I’d go to this extreme to teach my children independence. But I don’t judge Lenore Skenazy for doing so.

Different things work for different families.

-J