TMI Show Ep 76: Make Our Kids Free Again?

Should we like our children like we like our livestock: free-range?

Older Americans, who grew up before electronic trackers/devices and helicopter parenting, remember childhoods with much more independence than many kids get today. In the 1970s and 1980s, when “The TMI Show”’s Manila Chan and Ted Rall came of age, it wasn’t uncommon for the under-18 set to take mass transit by themselves and disappear for hours between meals with little accountability. It was riskier. But it also made for bigger lives and bigger imaginations.

Joining us is a leading pioneer of today’s “free-range parenting” movement. Writer Lenore Skenazy is a writer and blogger famous for her 2008 article “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone.” In 2017, Skenazy co-founded the nonprofit Let Grow to make it “easy, normal, and legal to give kids the independence they need to grow into capable, confident and happy adults.” In 2018, Utah became the first state to pass the Free-Range Parenting bill, assuring parents that they can give their children some independence without it being mistaken for neglect, for which the Washington Post credited Skenazy's 2008 column as a contributing influence. Similar laws have since been enacted in Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and several other states have relaxed laws regarding some aspects of childhood independence.