How We Criminalized Childhood

The Reason Interview goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, politicians, and visionaries who are making the 21st century more libertarian--or at least more interesting--by challenging old, worn-out ideas and orthodoxies.

Today's guest is Lenore Skenazy, a journalist and activist dubbed "the world's worst mom" for letting her nine-year-old son ride the New York subway alone back in 2008. Since then, she's become a regular contributor to Reason and the co-founder, with psychologists Peter Gray and Jonathan Haidt, of Let Grow, which pushes for laws and school programs to restore independence to kids.

She talks with Nick Gillespie about why kids today are more anxious and less free than they used to be, how fear and over-parenting took over American childhood, and why the free-range parenting movement is finally on the rise.

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0:00–Intro
1:14–Spend less time with your kids
4:57–Childhood safety myths
10:50–Parental fears of failure
17:05–Generational divides on parenting
20:18–Criminalizing childhood
26:16–Politics and parenting
29:09–Let Grow and local legislation
41:14–What do children actually want?
45:17–How Skenazy became the "World's Worst Mom"
48:12–Childhood autonomy in pop culture

Producer: Paul Alexander
Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser
Illustration: Adani Samat