Sep 29, 2026 · 34 min · 11 segments
Lenore Skenazy, President of Let Grow and founder of the Free-Range Kids movement, joins Michael Ramey to discuss a recent Virginia case involving a mother who was convicted of contributing to the…
Lenore SkenazyGuestMichael RameyHostBut there are mitigating circumstances here, right? I mean, it's different than the situation like where your son was nine, rode the New York subway.
But so there were other mitigating circumstances here, right? What were some of those? Right.
Well, I'd say the big mitigating circumstance is that she knew her son and knew her neighborhood and knew he was capable and responsible and thought that he was ready and had seen multiple times that he was ready.
You're allowed to use your lived experience when you're making these decisions.
And also five might sound young, but that just makes me sound old because at age five, I was walking to kindergarten.
uh back then and nobody uh you know came knocking at my mother's door to say you're under arrest for delinquency uh for you know contributing the delinquency of a minor Mrs. Skenazy because we've witnessed your child walking to school and if you witnessed me walking to school you would have witnessed a good girl who looks both ways before she crosses the street, who doesn't run into the middle of the street, who wouldn't get into a car with a stranger, and who got to the more major crossing.
Before I got to Ramona School, there's no major streets in all of Wilmette where I live.
And to just show you how different the norms have become, the American Academy of Pediatrics put out a white paper, maybe 10 years ago, that said children under age 10 and maybe including age 10 should never walk by themselves.
You know, you think, oh, the American Academy of Pediatrics, they must be very wise.
But there are mitigating circumstances here, right? I mean, it's different than the situation like where your son was nine, rode the New York subway.
But so there were other mitigating circumstances here, right? What were some of those? Right.
Well, I'd say the big mitigating circumstance is that she knew her son and knew her neighborhood and knew he was capable and responsible and thought that he was ready and had seen multiple times that he was ready.
You're allowed to use your lived experience when you're making these decisions.
And also five might sound young, but that just makes me sound old because at age five, I was walking to kindergarten.
uh back then and nobody uh you know came knocking at my mother's door to say you're under arrest for delinquency uh for you know contributing the delinquency of a minor Mrs. Skenazy because we've witnessed your child walking to school and if you witnessed me walking to school you would have witnessed a good girl who looks both ways before she crosses the street, who doesn't run into the middle of the street, who wouldn't get into a car with a stranger, and who got to the more major crossing.
Before I got to Ramona School, there's no major streets in all of Wilmette where I live.
And to just show you how different the norms have become, the American Academy of Pediatrics put out a white paper, maybe 10 years ago, that said children under age 10 and maybe including age 10 should never walk by themselves.
You know, you think, oh, the American Academy of Pediatrics, they must be very wise.
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