“I’m sensitive to the damage a sheltered life can cause, and I do my best to foster independence where I can. For example, when I take my 5 year old to the supermarket, I let him roam about the store eating sample and searching the discount fruit bin for good deals while talking to employees and sometimes strangers.

This never fails to cause some well-meaning adult to inform me that I’ve lost my kid. “No,” I tell them. “he knows where to find me.” I usually receive disapproving looks. I wonder what they’d think of my mom, who’d let my brother and I wander off into the toy aisle while she grocery shopped in peace, tasking us with the responsibility to catch up with her at the checkout line when she was finished. They’d likely call the cops on her today.

It seems that no matter what I do to give my kids more freedom, I’m stymied by other adults. I used to walk my little one into preschool, open the locked, coded door for him, then kiss him goodbye. It was then up to him to hang his coat, fish his folder out of his backpack, wash his hands and make his way into class.

That is, it was up to him until a couple of months ago when one of his teachers got upset after finding him “wandering the hallway alone” and asked that I escort him into class. “Otherwise,” she said, “we could get into trouble.”

And so my 5 year old had even that small bit of freedom yanked from him. I’m annoyed, but I don’t blame the preschool. Everyone is terrified of being sued.”    keep reading…