I haven’t read “Free-Range Kids” by Lenore Skenazy, but this excerpt on Babble is enough to get the basic premise of the book. We are all over-parenting and we are not even aware of it because over-parenting has become the norm. It’s true; this has in fact been frustrating me ever since our daughter Annika was born. New York City is now much safer than it used to be several decades ago, but it appears that the safer the city becomes, the less freedom kids have. Shouldn’t it be the opposite?

In Japan, by the time I was in kindergarten, I was going out to play outside with my friends without any adult supervision. My wife Roxanne grew up right here in the East Village, New York, and she had freedom that no kids in New York have today, even though the East Village has become far safer than it was when she was a little girl. My daughter will probably have an adult escort everywhere she goes probably for another 10 years. We don’t really have a choice in the matter. If I let my daughter go out and play on her own, I’m sure someone will call the social services in no time. As a compromise, I often go out on a walk with her and simply follow wherever she goes. I observe if she stops at traffic lights, and would not intervene unless she is in real danger.

I believe this paradox of safety and fear extends beyond parenting. As the world becomes safer, we become more fearful. As ironic as it may seem, it makes sense. We do not build courage by hiding behind walls. The world today is too safe and stable. We expect our lives to be predictable and controllable. We have all sorts of insurance to protect ourselves from unexpected events. Most of the jobs these days are for large corporations who protect us from economic and seasonal fluctuations, and pay out fixed salaries. In the end, all this security makes us weaker as humans.

The more courage we have, the more sense of freedom we can enjoy. We are not letting our kids have the opportunities to build courage on their own, because we are more concerned about our own fear. And, we think we are doing it for our kids. No. The truth of the matter is that we are doing it to protect our own feelings and reputations. We hate to worry about anything, so we deprive our kids of their freedom just to make ourselves feel better, and we hypocritically call it “love”.

As the author of the book points out, we feed each other’s fears, making this situation even worse. It’s like prisoners who are guarding themselves. I believe that most parents know deep down that they are giving into their own fears and sacrificing their kids’ freedom, but they want to keep it that way because they can’t deal with their own fears otherwise. They try to make sure that other parents also conform to their own standard of weakness. This is why they love to point out “irresponsible” things other parents do. I’m glad that someone is brave enough to stand up against this.