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How Much Would You Pay Someone to Not Watch Your Kids?
As a mom who started letting her own nine-year-old son take the city bus home by himself in fourth grade (and received quite a bit of flack for it from other parents), I've been a longtime fan of Lenore Skenazy, the blogger behind Free Range Kids who gained notoriety for doing the same. For years, Skenazy has encouraged NYC parents to let their kids get out and run around by themselves—and now she's suggesting parents pay for the privilege.
This week, Skenazy launched a series of unsupervised playdates for kids. For $350, she won't watch your kids as they romp around Ancient Playground in Central Park one Wednesday a week after school through November 7. How's that for a bargain? Can you hear the outraged cries from where you are?
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On her site, I Won't Supervise Your Kids, Skenazy explains, "The whole idea of this 'class' is for kids to have a chance to do what we did: Play, on their own. This is not only fun, it’s formative—especially when it’s a bunch of children of different ages." Boys and girls ages 8 to 18 are welcome to participate, and in addition to paying the $350 fee, parents are asked to sign a waiver absolving Skenazy of "everything."
Skenazy figures that since parents pay for classes, why shouldn't they pay for her program? After all, plunking down real cash money means you're making a commitment and guarantees that Skenazy and her cause will get lots of media attention in a way a free event never would, which she blatantly admits is the purpose of the fee.
Do we love the stunt factor here? Not really. It's distracting and potentially brings the wrong kind of attention to an important issue. But we wholeheartedly agree that it's a negative turn in our culture that letting kids play outdoors without an adult hovering over them is now considered bad parenting. Instead of worrying about whether our kids will be snatched by strangers (unlikely), we should be more concerned about the childhood obesity epidemic and the fact that kids are literally forgetting how to play! Plus we have to let them off the leash sometime... I'm just not sure I'd pay for it.
Places featured in this article:
Ancient Playground
