TuscMoms.com

Would you let your 9 year old ride the subway in NYC alone?
This mom did.
And people are outraged. What do you think?

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23935873/

While I definitly see the mother's point (Ihave told you all about the college students I manage and their inability to do anything on their own) about letting her son become independent, I don't think I would be comfortable with letting my LO ride the subway alone at 9 years old. I don't however think she should be brought up for child abuse charges. That is just absurd. That would be like charging one of my parents for child abuse for letting us ride our bikes over to the neighbors to play and down the dirt road that ran behind our house. We were just being kids, and it probably was just as dangerous as riding the subway. BTW, our neighbor lived half a mile away. I think sometime people need to use common sense and stop throwing out charges against people when there is no real reason.

Yeah, but NYC subways are A LOT different from country roads, or even city roads around here. THere are nutcases all over the place in large cities (well, everywhere these days, I guess), and subway stations can be dark and creepy even for grown ups!
I remember walking to school in NY by myself when I was about 7, though, and NYC kids have got to be more streetsmart than others. But my schoolsdays there were in a whole different era, and things have changed.
I would never allow my LO to ride a subway alone, but I know I'm way way overprotective!

Sometimes I remember my carefree childhood and compare it to now and think how rotten the world has become that I am afraid to let my daughters play in our own yard while I am simply in the house doing something. I won't! I move my projects outdoors and watch them like hawks thinking the world has gone nuts. Then I hear story after story like this and start to re-think that maybe alot of the bad comes from dumb things to begin with. If 50% of the "bad news stories" had used some common sense then certain things would not have even happened or made the news. Things like being in a foreign country and leaving your girlfriends and being totally alone just to flirt with a guy - - leaving a child for a moment in a running car - - going hiking completely alone in the woods - - (you know where I am going with this). Call me an overprotective freak, but come on ya'll and use some basic common sense!!