Who Will Think of the Children? Reason's Lenore Skenazy, That's Who.
Beloved Reason readers, I ask you: Are your children bothering you right now? Are they interfering with your ability to donate to our Webathon? We are in the final stretch—one day left to make it to $200,000—and we would hate for you to feel like you need to keep an eye on those little (or not so little) buggers every second of every day. So send 'em outside to play (winter? what's that?) so that you can concentrate on figuring out just how much you're going to donate to the cause.
Feeling a little guilty about letting the spawn fend for themselves? Don't! For justification—and common sense analysis of modern helicopter parenting hysteria—look no further than the shiny new Reason writer Facebook and Twitter just can't get enough of: Lenore Skenazy! The proprietress of Free-Range Kids, she jumped over to Reason this summer to share thrills, chills, and parenting skills with our liberty-minded readers.
You may remember her from such daily nutpunch highlights as:
- Mom Jailed Because She Let Her 9-Year-Old Daughter Play in the Park Unsupervised—The mom, Debra Harrell, a low-income black woman, did something totally innocent, that you or I might do: Let her kid play in a safe park outdoors, during the summer, while she worked.
- Another Mom Thrown in Jail for Letting Kids Play at Park
- Mom Arrested for Letting Kid Play in Lego Store While She Shopped
- Kindergartener Pulls Down Pants, Forced to Sign 'Sexual Misconduct' Confession
- Student Suspended for Slicing Apple During Healthy Snacks Presentation
- Bureaucrats Bulldoze Beloved Playground for Special Needs Kids
Not to mention Lenore's sound Reason TV advice to chill out on Halloween:
And hey, here's an idea: All that money you save by giving your kids a chance to mess around, be bored, and just be kids, instead of schlepping them from one expensive Gymboree birthday parties, travel soccer game, and intensive Mandarin lesson to another—why don't you donate some of it to Reason?