More to say: We are team allowing greater physical freedom and responsibility. 3 kids makes hotel rooms difficult especially in foreign countries, so we get two, especially when you have giant teen boys. And the adults want some to themselves. When we travel, my husband and I usually take one night to go out and have a nice dinner (we are foodies who love adventurous meals that our picky kids won’t eat) and leave them back in their own room to order room service. Our kids love it! They eat in bed - which for a house that doesn’t allow eating outside of the kitchen or dining room….to eat and watch TV in bed (we also have one TV in our house so TV in bed is a double treat). We have done this in Scotland, London, a cruise, Disney, California, you name it. They have iPads or a phone to get a hold of us but never need to. I guess they got used to being alone in the pandemic when we were essential workers who had no other choice but to leave our 5th grader in charge in his siblings and a gaggle of neighbor kids. Our kids are very confident in traveling (my teenager takes the city bus in Indianapolis by himself since he was 13) and just being in charge of their physical spaces.
I am very behind on my podcast listening and wouldn’t normally comment so late but I love those Louise Bates Ames books and I feel like no one ever talks about them. I still remember reading “Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy?” when my now 24 year old was 3 and feeling like I was not crazy, it was just totally normal child development.
Listen, this weekend, I took my daughter and her bestie to a play. There was a long line for the bathroom and so I told both girls (12) to sit on a bench while I went to the bathroom. I could literally see them from the line. The woman in front of me said ‘I can’t believe you would let them do that. The world is so scary. Don’t you think they could be taken?’
What??!?! No! I don’t! I said ‘I feel ok about it.’ And she just went on and one about how she could never have kids these days and she’s Not trying to scare me but am I sure this is a safe place?
So after the show, I dropped them off at an ice cream parlor with cash and said ‘make sure you tip.’
They have to learn!!!! I’m not raising kids to be afraid.
Thinking about the parenting segment, I think back to when I was a kid (second grade or older - I only remember because of what house we lived in). My mom was a nightshift nurse and occasionally my dad would leave in the middle of the night and go take her and her colleagues doughnuts or other treats. He would leave a note on the floor telling me & my sister where he had gone and letting us know that if we woke up and were scared, we could go crawl in their bed and he would be home soon. This was the early 90s and I don't remember thinking anything of it, and we pretty much never woke up in the middle of the night. :-)
The "do you really think you care about my baby more than I do?" comment really hit home for me. My very well-meaning in-laws will comment about parenting choices and the part that always feels so demoralizing to me is that I put SO. MUCH. ENERGY. into those choices. I've weighed so many options and factors, I've considered what's best for me, for my kid, for our family as a whole, I've thought through what I want to prioritize and what I have to let go of, I've second-guessed all of it. And then you come in and act like there was an obvious answer the whole time. When you're in the thick of it...it just hits like a ton of bricks (and I am a person who feels pretty confident about my parenting and doesn't get too hung up on what others think about it).
I finally finished the episode. As always you two are keeping me sane during this presidency and the craziness that just won’t quit.
I loved the parenting discussion. I have 3 kids (10, 8 and almost 4) and I definitely lean toward free range. I’ll leave all three home for up to an hour or two. The can call me on the Alexa or my daughter’s gizmo watch. In the summer they run around the neighborhood and go up to the local market to buy treats or snacks and it’s been good for them.
I had a monitor that I could access on my phone and would go to the neighbors house while my youngest was sleeping. When we moved to our new state and neighborhood I definitely had a mom judge me because I was leaving my sleeping toddler at home to run up to the bus stop. When I told her I had the monitor on my phone and was aware of what was happening while I was gone the judgement was less but still there. I wasn’t waking the toddler just so I could get my kindergartener off the bus. If I had had choice I’d have let the kindergartener and 2nd grader get off the bus and walk home but the district required I meet the bus with one so young.
I will say the cruise ship makes me very nervous. They could leave the room or if you have a balcony accidentally get out on the balcony. Those ships are huge and it isn’t quick to get back to the room. My neighbors were a 3 min walk away but on a ship depending on where you go it could take 10 mins or so to get back.
All of that said my 4yr old was accepted into the public school early literacy program and is going to be riding the bus next year. I’m a nervous wreck about it. It’s starts with the lack of a car seat and moved through to older kids being mean. Thank goodness my oldest will still be on the bus otherwise I don’t know if I could do it and I know I’d hate driving them to school every day.
I appreciate the conversation on Trump. Don't like it, but here we are.
As to the parenting discussion, I have a bit of a different perspective. I'll preface this with saying I grew up with a free range mom in the 80s. As a result from the ages of 1-3 I set the bathroom on fire, ran my 3-4yr old brother over with a full sized, adult car (there are pictures from the ER with treadmarks across his chest), and went along with the same brother when he ran away from home and we made it all the way to our great grandma's house without anyone noticing just to name a few & while my mother was home. We were fed, clothed, loved, and not abused. However, we were not adequately supervised & it literally nearly killed both of us on more than one occasion.
Somehow I'm not a helicopter parent, but I just can't be that free range either. It feels like there is a lot of space in the middle to make reasoned choices based on the child, the age, and the moment. My children absolutely were allowed to run a few blocks over to the corner store at 8-10yrs old to buy a drink on their own & given other measures of freedom. But leaving a toddler alone in a stateroom on a cruise is another matter. Not only do other people have access to the stateroom (and even turndown service usually occurs when the occupants are at dinner), but also they could easily be 10 minutes away on the ship which doesn't sound like much but even an 18month old could wake up and wander out of the room before the parents could stop them. But that's a long time for a baby to be alone on a cruise ship. Or if there is an emergency and everyone is called to their muster stations & you have to push against the flow of thousands of people to reach your child. And the easy answer is that cruise ships do offer childcare which IMO is the better alternative in this situation. It's just not comparable to being across the street at home with a monitor.
Just coming here to say I can definitely be an anxious/overthinking/wants to solve for everything parent and I needed Sarah’s spice in my ears about risks and children. Regardless of individual decisions (I’m not sure if we’d leave our daughter with a baby monitor on vacation, we haven’t even tried a vacation it’s just seemed like too much lol), it is ridiculous that we should spend every moment fearing doing something wrong or being judged by others when we are all such good, conscientious, hard working parents. And I especially appreciate unpacking that we can’t control everything for our children and we cant force confidence by killing ourselves to do every little thing to attend to them.
Alright alright, hear me out for the outside of politics section 😅 I’m a former foster care social worker who now provides therapy for youth in foster care AND I worked at a hotel in my early twenties and I’m a new mom 🤣🤣. I leave our baby napping with the monitor if I’m within range to go back into our house quickly and easily. So I’ll chat with my neighbors, hang out outside. It gets a little weird when folks go out driving with a sleeping baby left at home because I think of “if you get in a wreck and are unconscious, who will know your baby is at home to get them.” It’s also illegal to leave them at home completely alone like that in most states (maybe all but 🤷🏼♀️).
Now for hotels and cruises! 1. Anyone who works at the hotel could go into your room while you’re not there because of key cards. And most hotels don’t have fancy ones where they can see who went into a room. Personally, I wouldn’t want that level of risk because I see the worst of the worst in my field of what can happen to children. But that is up to each individual parent.
2. The hotel I worked at had a policy against it, and people often broke the policy. We would realize they broke it because toddlers would wander out of their hotel rooms late at night looking for their parents. It was always stressful because we had to then call everyone who had a child that was the right age of the child that wandered and sometimes it well over an hour - and we would have to call the police. Most toddlers don’t know their parents’ names/can’t speak well enough to communicate them. You also run the risk of the hotel or cruise having an emergency where they don’t allow folks back into their rooms, in which case you wouldn’t want your baby in there without access to them.
Alright. I had to give my two cents 🤣 but I do agree that we’ve gotta ease up on kids in general. But maybe with some parameters 🤣
Oh the parenting yes Sarah. I have a 7 and 5 year old. Just this weekend we were downtown Austin, kids biking and we were walking. They were pretty far ahead but could see them. My 5 year old crashed and we calming kept walking closer to her.. She got up and back on the bike no tears. This lady walking past us asked my daughter if she was ok after she was back up on her bike. Then looked at us and asked if we were the parents. I nodded and she said oh well weren't you concerned that she fell? I just nodded and said she seems fine. And kept going. It made me want to scream.
We just moved to be in a more free range neighborhood and it's been the best 6 months just letting them go!
Yes to helping kids be more independent! I am a high school counselor and one of my biggest frustrations is dealing with parent questions when I should be working with the students. You wouldn't believe how many parents complete college or dual enrollment applications for their kids or take charge of them registering for classes. I think it contributes to anxiety because the kids aren't given the opportunity to take control.
We are lucky in that our elementary school has a "back path"'that leads from the back of their school into our neighborhood and we let our third grader walk home by herself. Kids in our neighborhood also ride bikes to each other's houses and play independently so I'm thankful for that norm!
THIS - my daughter acted like I was the devil for having her do all these tasks in high school (she is now a freshman in college). But I was the ONLY parent in her friend group that didn't write their college essays, stay on top of all her college deadlines, etc.
LOL maybe one day I'm sure I'm still trapped in teenage angst at this point in her mind. She went off for school to AZ (I'm in WI). I also work from home. I totally let her oversleep and be late for school last year while I sat right here working. The first couple times were met with, "Why didn't you wake me up!?" As I reminded her, because 1. you're 18. 2. Next year there will be no one to wake you up. I have no idea if she overslept for classes this year or not. She's about to be on the other end of Freshman year so I assume she has figured it out. I cannot fathom calling one of her professors right now and asking them to go stir her out of bed. It's both hilarious and gobsmacking at the same time.
I will never forget when my daughter was around 13, and was tired of staying at the school’s after care program until I picked her up later in the afternoon. She had discovered the joys of coffee shops, and there was one about a mile from school. We agreed that she could walk there after school and I would meet her. The day we put the plan into effect I got calls and texts from numerous moms (with thinly veiled judgment) making sure I knew that my daughter was walking along the street alone! I was both shamed and annoyed that they were questioning my parenting. But guess whose kid confidently negotiates her way around New York these days? The comment about not being able to “instill” independence is so true. We have to trust them.
More to say: We are team allowing greater physical freedom and responsibility. 3 kids makes hotel rooms difficult especially in foreign countries, so we get two, especially when you have giant teen boys. And the adults want some to themselves. When we travel, my husband and I usually take one night to go out and have a nice dinner (we are foodies who love adventurous meals that our picky kids won’t eat) and leave them back in their own room to order room service. Our kids love it! They eat in bed - which for a house that doesn’t allow eating outside of the kitchen or dining room….to eat and watch TV in bed (we also have one TV in our house so TV in bed is a double treat). We have done this in Scotland, London, a cruise, Disney, California, you name it. They have iPads or a phone to get a hold of us but never need to. I guess they got used to being alone in the pandemic when we were essential workers who had no other choice but to leave our 5th grader in charge in his siblings and a gaggle of neighbor kids. Our kids are very confident in traveling (my teenager takes the city bus in Indianapolis by himself since he was 13) and just being in charge of their physical spaces.
I am very behind on my podcast listening and wouldn’t normally comment so late but I love those Louise Bates Ames books and I feel like no one ever talks about them. I still remember reading “Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy?” when my now 24 year old was 3 and feeling like I was not crazy, it was just totally normal child development.
Listen, this weekend, I took my daughter and her bestie to a play. There was a long line for the bathroom and so I told both girls (12) to sit on a bench while I went to the bathroom. I could literally see them from the line. The woman in front of me said ‘I can’t believe you would let them do that. The world is so scary. Don’t you think they could be taken?’
What??!?! No! I don’t! I said ‘I feel ok about it.’ And she just went on and one about how she could never have kids these days and she’s Not trying to scare me but am I sure this is a safe place?
So after the show, I dropped them off at an ice cream parlor with cash and said ‘make sure you tip.’
They have to learn!!!! I’m not raising kids to be afraid.
Thinking about the parenting segment, I think back to when I was a kid (second grade or older - I only remember because of what house we lived in). My mom was a nightshift nurse and occasionally my dad would leave in the middle of the night and go take her and her colleagues doughnuts or other treats. He would leave a note on the floor telling me & my sister where he had gone and letting us know that if we woke up and were scared, we could go crawl in their bed and he would be home soon. This was the early 90s and I don't remember thinking anything of it, and we pretty much never woke up in the middle of the night. :-)
The "do you really think you care about my baby more than I do?" comment really hit home for me. My very well-meaning in-laws will comment about parenting choices and the part that always feels so demoralizing to me is that I put SO. MUCH. ENERGY. into those choices. I've weighed so many options and factors, I've considered what's best for me, for my kid, for our family as a whole, I've thought through what I want to prioritize and what I have to let go of, I've second-guessed all of it. And then you come in and act like there was an obvious answer the whole time. When you're in the thick of it...it just hits like a ton of bricks (and I am a person who feels pretty confident about my parenting and doesn't get too hung up on what others think about it).
The baby monitor neurotics need to watch Finding Nemo and learn the lesson Marlin does.
I finally finished the episode. As always you two are keeping me sane during this presidency and the craziness that just won’t quit.
I loved the parenting discussion. I have 3 kids (10, 8 and almost 4) and I definitely lean toward free range. I’ll leave all three home for up to an hour or two. The can call me on the Alexa or my daughter’s gizmo watch. In the summer they run around the neighborhood and go up to the local market to buy treats or snacks and it’s been good for them.
I had a monitor that I could access on my phone and would go to the neighbors house while my youngest was sleeping. When we moved to our new state and neighborhood I definitely had a mom judge me because I was leaving my sleeping toddler at home to run up to the bus stop. When I told her I had the monitor on my phone and was aware of what was happening while I was gone the judgement was less but still there. I wasn’t waking the toddler just so I could get my kindergartener off the bus. If I had had choice I’d have let the kindergartener and 2nd grader get off the bus and walk home but the district required I meet the bus with one so young.
I will say the cruise ship makes me very nervous. They could leave the room or if you have a balcony accidentally get out on the balcony. Those ships are huge and it isn’t quick to get back to the room. My neighbors were a 3 min walk away but on a ship depending on where you go it could take 10 mins or so to get back.
All of that said my 4yr old was accepted into the public school early literacy program and is going to be riding the bus next year. I’m a nervous wreck about it. It’s starts with the lack of a car seat and moved through to older kids being mean. Thank goodness my oldest will still be on the bus otherwise I don’t know if I could do it and I know I’d hate driving them to school every day.
I appreciate the conversation on Trump. Don't like it, but here we are.
As to the parenting discussion, I have a bit of a different perspective. I'll preface this with saying I grew up with a free range mom in the 80s. As a result from the ages of 1-3 I set the bathroom on fire, ran my 3-4yr old brother over with a full sized, adult car (there are pictures from the ER with treadmarks across his chest), and went along with the same brother when he ran away from home and we made it all the way to our great grandma's house without anyone noticing just to name a few & while my mother was home. We were fed, clothed, loved, and not abused. However, we were not adequately supervised & it literally nearly killed both of us on more than one occasion.
Somehow I'm not a helicopter parent, but I just can't be that free range either. It feels like there is a lot of space in the middle to make reasoned choices based on the child, the age, and the moment. My children absolutely were allowed to run a few blocks over to the corner store at 8-10yrs old to buy a drink on their own & given other measures of freedom. But leaving a toddler alone in a stateroom on a cruise is another matter. Not only do other people have access to the stateroom (and even turndown service usually occurs when the occupants are at dinner), but also they could easily be 10 minutes away on the ship which doesn't sound like much but even an 18month old could wake up and wander out of the room before the parents could stop them. But that's a long time for a baby to be alone on a cruise ship. Or if there is an emergency and everyone is called to their muster stations & you have to push against the flow of thousands of people to reach your child. And the easy answer is that cruise ships do offer childcare which IMO is the better alternative in this situation. It's just not comparable to being across the street at home with a monitor.
Just coming here to say I can definitely be an anxious/overthinking/wants to solve for everything parent and I needed Sarah’s spice in my ears about risks and children. Regardless of individual decisions (I’m not sure if we’d leave our daughter with a baby monitor on vacation, we haven’t even tried a vacation it’s just seemed like too much lol), it is ridiculous that we should spend every moment fearing doing something wrong or being judged by others when we are all such good, conscientious, hard working parents. And I especially appreciate unpacking that we can’t control everything for our children and we cant force confidence by killing ourselves to do every little thing to attend to them.
I need a “Give. Me. A. Break.” shirt 😆 One of my favorite Sarah catch phrases.
Alright alright, hear me out for the outside of politics section 😅 I’m a former foster care social worker who now provides therapy for youth in foster care AND I worked at a hotel in my early twenties and I’m a new mom 🤣🤣. I leave our baby napping with the monitor if I’m within range to go back into our house quickly and easily. So I’ll chat with my neighbors, hang out outside. It gets a little weird when folks go out driving with a sleeping baby left at home because I think of “if you get in a wreck and are unconscious, who will know your baby is at home to get them.” It’s also illegal to leave them at home completely alone like that in most states (maybe all but 🤷🏼♀️).
Now for hotels and cruises! 1. Anyone who works at the hotel could go into your room while you’re not there because of key cards. And most hotels don’t have fancy ones where they can see who went into a room. Personally, I wouldn’t want that level of risk because I see the worst of the worst in my field of what can happen to children. But that is up to each individual parent.
2. The hotel I worked at had a policy against it, and people often broke the policy. We would realize they broke it because toddlers would wander out of their hotel rooms late at night looking for their parents. It was always stressful because we had to then call everyone who had a child that was the right age of the child that wandered and sometimes it well over an hour - and we would have to call the police. Most toddlers don’t know their parents’ names/can’t speak well enough to communicate them. You also run the risk of the hotel or cruise having an emergency where they don’t allow folks back into their rooms, in which case you wouldn’t want your baby in there without access to them.
Alright. I had to give my two cents 🤣 but I do agree that we’ve gotta ease up on kids in general. But maybe with some parameters 🤣
I am never quite sure where to leave a comment like this because it spans the conversation of multiple episodes ...but I found this very interesting :
https://open.substack.com/pub/kristindumez/p/in-defense-of-alarmism?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1vlr3.
I plan to go read the whole article she quoted.
Oh the parenting yes Sarah. I have a 7 and 5 year old. Just this weekend we were downtown Austin, kids biking and we were walking. They were pretty far ahead but could see them. My 5 year old crashed and we calming kept walking closer to her.. She got up and back on the bike no tears. This lady walking past us asked my daughter if she was ok after she was back up on her bike. Then looked at us and asked if we were the parents. I nodded and she said oh well weren't you concerned that she fell? I just nodded and said she seems fine. And kept going. It made me want to scream.
We just moved to be in a more free range neighborhood and it's been the best 6 months just letting them go!
Yes to helping kids be more independent! I am a high school counselor and one of my biggest frustrations is dealing with parent questions when I should be working with the students. You wouldn't believe how many parents complete college or dual enrollment applications for their kids or take charge of them registering for classes. I think it contributes to anxiety because the kids aren't given the opportunity to take control.
We are lucky in that our elementary school has a "back path"'that leads from the back of their school into our neighborhood and we let our third grader walk home by herself. Kids in our neighborhood also ride bikes to each other's houses and play independently so I'm thankful for that norm!
THIS - my daughter acted like I was the devil for having her do all these tasks in high school (she is now a freshman in college). But I was the ONLY parent in her friend group that didn't write their college essays, stay on top of all her college deadlines, etc.
I'm sure she is much stronger for it!
LOL maybe one day I'm sure I'm still trapped in teenage angst at this point in her mind. She went off for school to AZ (I'm in WI). I also work from home. I totally let her oversleep and be late for school last year while I sat right here working. The first couple times were met with, "Why didn't you wake me up!?" As I reminded her, because 1. you're 18. 2. Next year there will be no one to wake you up. I have no idea if she overslept for classes this year or not. She's about to be on the other end of Freshman year so I assume she has figured it out. I cannot fathom calling one of her professors right now and asking them to go stir her out of bed. It's both hilarious and gobsmacking at the same time.
The whole section on edge issues made me nod and say, "yep."
I will never forget when my daughter was around 13, and was tired of staying at the school’s after care program until I picked her up later in the afternoon. She had discovered the joys of coffee shops, and there was one about a mile from school. We agreed that she could walk there after school and I would meet her. The day we put the plan into effect I got calls and texts from numerous moms (with thinly veiled judgment) making sure I knew that my daughter was walking along the street alone! I was both shamed and annoyed that they were questioning my parenting. But guess whose kid confidently negotiates her way around New York these days? The comment about not being able to “instill” independence is so true. We have to trust them.