Mother of 'free range’ kids shares her story with Glenn

April 14, 2015

WRITER

Do you remember being a kid and running wild in the neighborhood? Not anymore! In fact, now you can get in trouble for something called “free range parenting.” A Maryland family found this out the hard way when their kids were taken into custody by the police after they were found at the park without adult supervision. On radio this morning, Glenn spoke with Lenore Skenazy, founder of FreeRangeKids.com, about this story and why and how parents should start letting their kids grow without constant supervision.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment:

GLENN: Lenore Skenazy, she is a woman who started freerangekids.com. And she -- I believe, Lenore, you're the one who coined this phrase.

LENORE: Yeah, I am. Hi.

GLENN: How are you?

LENORE: Very good. Kind of exhausted.

GLENN: You were a woman who was in trouble with the Department of Children and Families. When was it? Back in January?

LENORE: It was 2008. I have to say that I wasn't actually in trouble with the authorities. I was in trouble with the media because I let my 9-year-old ride the subway alone, which is something he had been asking to do. And my husband and I decided he was ready and so were we. So I wrote a column after he had taken the little trip. And I called it why I let my 9-year-old ride the subway alone here in New York City. Two days after the column appeared, I was on the Today Show, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, you name it. And being decried as America's worst mom because how dare you let your children do anything alone. So I started free-range kids, my blog that weekend to explain that I'm very -- I say I'm a nervous mom. I love car seats. Seat belts. Mouth guards. If you have a birth -- you know, a baby shower, the gifts I always bring, I'm so boring, predictable, I bring a fire extinguisher. I believe in safety. I just don't think our kids need a security detail every time they leave the house. And, apparently, that is controversial to this day.

GLENN: So tell me about the stranger danger myth. Because we were trying to figure this out. We were talking about this yesterday. And we were like, nothing is -- this is -- things have gotten better since we were kids, and none of us would consider doing it. And we all know that it's unreasonable that we should.

LENORE: Right. That we should let our kids go outside and play?

GLENN: Yes. Pat wouldn't let his daughter -- he like had a heart attack. She was like, dad, I want to go literally half a block down to the lake. He was like, no. No. No.

PAT: She's 15.

GLENN: She's 15. He let her do it. But he freaked out.

LENORE: Wow. Well, first of all, congratulations. I'm glad you let it happen.

PAT: Yeah. Thank you. Very proud.

LENORE: What I've noticed over the years is that once we let our kids do something on their own, provided they're not arrested by the police, let them walk to school, let them make dinner, let them ride their bike to the library and back, generally you end up so proud from just that one incident, seeing your kid being this competent blossoming young man and woman instead of little vulnerable baby that we are sort of encouraged to think of our kids as. That pride allows to you give them even more freedom. And that's always been the way it has been with human beings. You know, you see your human growing up. It's bittersweet. This is the little girl I carried. Not anymore. But, look, she's growing up.

So if you're asking how did we get to this point where all of us who played outside until the street lights came on won't let our kids do that until they're 29.

GLENN: Wait. Wait. You should do it at 29?

STU: Thirty-five.

LENORE: With an escort, of course. And by escort, I mean, police escort.

STU: Okay.

LENORE: The way we got to this point is that we've had really fear shoved down our throats for the last 20 or 30 years, ever since -- you know, there's a bunch of reasons. But the media discovered, first with the Etan Patz case and then with the very sad -- equally sad Adam Walsh case, that there's no story that grips viewers, that gets eyeballs, that gets ratings as that of a white middle class child who is abducted.

PAT: So, Lenore, how did you break free of that? Because it sounds like a frightening thing to let your 9-year-old ride the subway in New York.

GLENN: One, you stop listening to WOR TV, where it says, it's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your children are?

PAT: My gosh. No, he's on the subway.

Was it a white-knuckled thing? Were you scared the whole time he was away? Did you follow behind him at first? How did you let go like that?

LENORE: How did I let go? I think what makes me a little different is that I don't watch a lot of TV news. And I think that is very freeing. I think the reason our parents let us go -- you know, my mom let me walk to school as a kindergartener, not because she was some free-range nut who didn't care if I lived or died, but because back then -- this is how old I am. I'm probably older than you, Glenn. Back then, there was only a half hour of news at night. They just didn't spend it all talking about some horrible tragedy that happened 17 states away. And so if you're not sort of reading in every day the terrible sadness that the news is bound and determined to show you, it's a lot easier to let go. Some people say like, well, you know, you're living in a la-la land. Don't you watch the news? It's like, the news is not reality either. It's what horrible thing happened to .0001 sad percent of the population today. And if I made my decisions based on that, I could never let my kids do anything, including eat solid foods or walk down the stairs because kids die doing those things too.

GLENN: I know you're a fan of Gavin de Becker. Gavin de Becker is the protection detail that we have for my family and company. And he's a remarkable guy. And he has been involved in the rescue of children who have been kidnapped before. And he says that a child is vastly more likely to have a heart attack than to be kidnapped.

LENORE: I know.

PAT: Wow. Jeez.

GLENN: And child heart attacks are so rare that no one ever considers the risk.

LENORE: It is so hard to keep risk in perspective when all you see are the very rare, very sad stories. And we also have something that I consider kind of babyish about our society today, which is that, we demand that if something isn't 100 percent safe, 100 percent of the time, it's dangerous. I mean, we really see no gradations. This is leading us to crazy things like in Spokane. They just decided -- Spokane, Washington, they decided to do away with swings on all the playgrounds. That's because there's no guarantee that every child who swings in America for the next ten years will never fall off or, you know, hurt themselves. And it's true. We can't guarantee that. But you also can't guarantee that a kid in her bedroom won't be stolen. I mean, once in a while, something terrible happens. And if you're basing all your everyday decisions on the very worst-case scenario, you will start acting crazy like Spokane is and getting rid of all the swings. So kids don't get to go on swings at the playground anymore.

GLENN: Beyond that, when I was at the -- what is it -- the north rim. Which is the Native American side? The north rim of the Grand Canyon. Or the south rim. I can't remember. Well, the one that is not the American side. I went there. And there are no guardrails.

LENORE: Wow.

GLENN: There are no fences. It's just cliff canyon.

LENORE: Wow. That's scary.

GLENN: It was bizarre. Because it's obviously dangerous.

LENORE: Right.

GLENN: And I was talking to the guide, and I said, there are no fences. There are no guardrails or anything. And he said, no, it's not America. And I said, holy cow. And he said, but if you look at the stats, there are problems on the American side of the canyon because they put a false sense of security, and so people are like -- they'll look over the fence. And they'll fall because they're cheating death. He said, here everybody stays away from the rim. You have to be a real dummy to approach the rim.

LENORE: How fascinating.

GLENN: Yeah. It's amazing.

LENORE: So when I spoke with the head of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They're the people that put the pictures of the missing kids on the milk cartons. Remember those? Made us think that kids are being snatched left and right and forgot to mention that most of them were taken in custody disputes or runaways.

But anyways, when I spoke to him, he too said that this stranger danger idea was a, quote, unquote, myth we are trying to explode. And he said something that reminds me of your Grand Canyon story which is that the safest kids are the ones who have sort of self-confidence and street smarts. And the way you get those is by doing some stuff -- again, it's called self-confidence. It's not parent-assisted confidence. So you sort of almost have to let people have some experiences in the real world, almost like get as close as they feel comfortable to the edge of that cliff without saying, you can stand here. And here's a guardrail. And here's an emergency number to call. And here's somebody watching you.

GLENN: Right.

LENORE: You must let kids have some independence if you want them to be sensible and safe. And so the idea that we're keeping kids safe by not allowing them on a sunny Sunday afternoon to play -- a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old together in their local park. And we think that that's too dangerous. If you ask me what's dangerous, it's not letting your kids play in the park.

GLENN: Lenore, hang on the phone. I want to ask you one more question. That is this, how do we handle when somebody calls 911 on our kids because they're half a block away playing by themselves. How do you not get the state involved? We'll go to that here in just a second.

LENORE: That's a great question.

GLENN: Lenore Skenazy, by the way, she speaks all over the country. And she's absolutely fantastic. If you'd like her to speak at your group, Lenorespeaks.com. Lenorespeaks.com. Or you can go to freerangekids.com.

[BREAK]

GLENN: We have Lenore Skenazy on the phone with us from Freerangekids.com talking about the story out of Silver Springs, Maryland, where these parents had their kids, ten and six, go to the park. They dropped them off at the park. It's half a block away from their house. The kids walk all the time. They're responsible kids. Somebody called 911 and said, there's no adult watching these kids. The police came, picked them up, took them to the Department of Family and Child Services, and they're now under threat of losing their kids again.

I think this is insane.

LENORE: Yes. Sorry.

GLENN: No. No.

LENORE: Listen. I think it's insane too.

GLENN: I was going to say. But, A, how do we get to the place -- because everything you've said, Lenore, I agree with. So how do we get to the point to where we can -- how do we ease into it? And then how do we stop others from calling 911, or what do we do when the state shows up and says -- because this is what they said. They were responsible for child neglect.

LENORE: Yeah. Child neglect. Like all our parents who neglected us and all we could do was go outside and play. Wow, those horrible neglectful parents. Every single parent in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, I guess, was one of those. So this is a question that I've puzzled over on a daily basis. And I've come up with a couple of ways that I think we can try to fight back the criminalization of very decent parents.

One is, I have a bill of rights. It's one sentence long. And I'm trying to get people to introduce it to a town hall meeting, to a city council meeting, to a PTA meeting. Anywhere they can. It's simply this. It's the free-range kids bill of rights. Kids and parents bill of rights. And it is: That our children have a right to some unsupervised time, and we have the right to give it to them without being arrested. It's that simple.

STU: Radical.

LENORE: We all know that we loved unsupervised time when we were growing up. We all know that if you look at the FBI statistics, crime is down today. It's not just down because we're helicoptering kids. It's down against -- the murder rate is down. And arson and burglary and assault. So these are actually safer times than when most of us were growing up. So considering that crime is down and that we know that letting kids play outside is a time-honored thing that parents have done forever, we should be able to give that to our children without threat of arrest. I think CPS exists for a reason. And you're actually harming a kid and if it's obvious and indisputable and immediate, the harm that they're in, grab those kids away from those parents. But don't grab away kids who happen to be playing at a park near their house. There's just a world of difference between those two scenarios.

GLENN: What's the second idea?

LENORE: Second idea is something I started about a month ago. It's this free thing I put on my site. You can go to it directly. It's called freerangefriend.com. And all you do is you enter your ZIP code. If you want to, you can enter the ages or genders of your kids or not. But it allows you to find other free-range parents in your neighborhood. Because one reason that people are calling 911 when they see a kid outside, is that they never see any other kids outside. It's like seeing an escaped gazelle. I just saw this thing on the street. It was small. It had pigtails. I don't know what it is.

[laughter]

Then asking the officer to catch it with the net.

GLENN: Lenore, I have to break. I have a hard network break. But I want to give that. It's freerangefriends.com?

LENORE: Freerangefriend.com.

GLENN: Okay. Freerangefriend.com. Freerangekids.com. And if you would like Lenore to come speak at one of your events, she's absolutely tremendous as you've just heard. Lenorespeaks.com. Lenore, thank you so much. God bless.

LENORE: Oh, thank you, Glenn. Thank you for having me on.

Critical theory destroys truth and justice

Editor's note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Critical theory once stood out as the absurd progressive notion that it is. Now, its maxims are becoming an integral part of ordinary political discourse. The more you repeat a lie, the more you will believe it, and this is the very dangerous place in which we find ourselves today.

Take this critical theory maxim as an example: If we desire justice, we must sometimes champion what may appear superficially as injustice. It's a necessary evil, if you will, the necessity of “controlled injustice.”

By using truth through fabrication and controlled injustice for justice, we’ll save the republic. We’ll be acting in a noble way.

This definition of justice is defined by the “oppressed,” not the “oppressor.” It is the greatest happiness for the greatest number. To achieve this justice, however, we need to endorse acts on occasion that, while seemingly unjust, serve a higher purpose. It will ensure the stability and the unity of our republic, and this may manifest in ways that seem contradictory to our values. But these are the necessary shadows to cast light on “true justice.”

And isn’t that what we are all after, anyway?

Here’s another critical theory maxim: Sometimes we find the truth through fabrication. Our pursuit of truth sometimes requires a strategic use of falsehoods. The truth is a construct that has been shaped and tailored to promote the well-being of the collective.

We sometimes need to accept and propagate lies designed by "the system” — not the old system, but the system that we’re now using to replace the old to get more justice through injustice and more truth through fabrication.

We’re engaging in a higher form of honesty. When we fabricate, it’s for the right reason. We are reaching up to the heavens fighting for a higher sort of honesty. To fortify the truth, we occasionally must weave a tapestry of lies. Each thread, essential for the greater picture, will ultimately define our understanding and ensure our unity under this infallible wisdom.

The election is coming up. Does this maxim sound familiar? Many think it is imperative that we secure our republic through election control to maintain our republic. Sometimes, we might need to take actions that by traditional standards might be questionable.

The act of securing elections requires cheating. It's not mere deception. It is a noble act of safeguarding our way of life. We're on the verge of losing this democracy, and without deception, we will lose it.

To ensure it doesn't fall into the hands of those we know will destroy it, we may have to make a few fabrications. We're fabricating stories to be able to control or secure the republic through our elections. By using truth through fabrication and controlled injustice for justice, we'll save the republic. Therefore, we'll be acting in a noble way. Stealing an election from those who wish to harm our society is truly an act of valor and an essential measure to protect our values and ensure the continuation of our just society.

If we desire justice, we must sometimes champion what may appear superficially as injustice.

I know it's a paradox of honor through dishonor. But in this context, by embracing the dishonor, we achieve the highest form of honor, ensuring the stability and the continuation of our great republic.

Let this be heard, far and wide, as a great call to patriotic action. As we advance, let each of us, citizens of this great and honorable republic, consider these principles. Not as abstract or paradoxical but as practical guides to daily life. Embrace the necessity of controlled injustice, the utility of lies, the duty to secure our electoral process, and the honor and apparent dishonor. These are not merely strategies for survival. They are prerequisites for our prosperity.

We all have to remember that justice is what our leaders define, that truth is what our party tells us. Our republic stands strong on the values of injustice for justice, honor through dishonor, and the fabrication of truths. To deviate from this path is to jeopardize the very fabric of our society. Strength through unity; unity through strength.

We've heard this nonsense for so long. But now, this nonsense is becoming an instituted reality, and we are entering perilous times. Don't be fooled by the narratives you will hear during the march to November. Never let someone convince you that the ends justify the means, that a little bit of injustice is needed to achieve a broader, collective vision of justice, that truth sometimes requires fabricated lies and narratives. If we do, justice will cease to be justice, truth will cease to be truth, and our republic will be lost.

Top 5 MOST EVIL taxes the government extorts from you

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"In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." -Ben Franklin

The injustice of taxation has been a core issue for Americans since the very beginning of our country, and it's a problem we have yet to resolve. This belief was recently reignited in many Americans earlier this month on tax day when the numbers were crunched and it was discovered that the government was somehow owed even more hard-earned money. As Glenn recently discussed on his show, it's getting to be impossible for most Americans to afford to live comfortably, inflation is rising, and our politicians keep getting richer.

The taxpayer's burden is heavier than ever.

The government is not above some real low blows either. While taxes are a necessary evil, some taxes stretch the definition of "necessary" and emphasize the "evil." Here are the top five most despicable taxes that are designed to line the IRS coffers at your expense:

Income Tax

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"It would be a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their income." -Ben Franklin

On February 24th, 2024 we hit a very unfortunate milestone, the 101st anniversary of the 16th Amendment, which authorized federal income tax. Where does the government get the right to steal directly out of your paycheck?

Death Taxes

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"Now my advice for those who die, Declare the pennies on your eyes" -George Harrison

Not even in death can you escape the cold pursuit of the tax collector. It's not good enough that you have to pay taxes on everything you buy and every penny you make your entire life. Now the feds want a nice slice, based on the entire value of your estate, that can be as much as 40 percent. Then the state government gets to stick their slimy fingers all over whatever remains before your family is left with the crumbs. It's practically grave-robbery.

Payroll

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"The power to tax is the power to destroy." -John Marshall

What's that? The nice chunk of your paycheck the government nabs before you can even get it to the bank wasn't enough? What if the government taxed your employer just for paying you? In essence, you make less than what your agreed pay rate is and it costs your employer more! Absolutely abominable.

Social Security

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"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much." -Ronald Reagan

Everyone knows the collapse of Social Security is imminent. It has limped along for years, only sustained by a torrent of tax dollars and the desperate actions of politicians. For decades, people have unwillingly forked over money into the system they will never see again.

FICA

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"What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue." -Thomas Paine

FICA is the payroll equivalent of Social Security. Your employer has to match however much you pay. It means it costs your employer even more to pay you—again, you'll NEVER see that money. At this point, are you even working for yourself, or are you just here to generate money for the government to frivolously throw away?

5 DISTURBING ways World War III will be different from previous wars

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Has World War III begun?

Over the weekend, Iran launched an unprecedented attack against Israel involving over 300 missiles and drones. This marked the first direct attack on Israel originating from Iranian territory. Fortunately, according to an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, 99 percent of missiles and drones were successfully neutralized by Israeli defense systems. Iran claimed that the operation against Israel had concluded and that no further offensive was planned, although the possibility of another attack is still present.

This has left many people, including Glenn, wondering the same thing: did we just witness the start of World War III?

Glenn recently had a World War II Air Force Veteran as a guest on his TV special, who told stories of the horrors he and his brothers-in-arms faced in the skies over war-torn Europe. This was a timely reminder of the terrors of war and a warning that our future, if it leads to another world war, is a dark one.

But, if Glenn's coverage of the Iranian attack revealed one thing, it's that World War III will look nothing like the world wars of the twentieth century. Long gone are the days of John "Lucky" Luckadoo and his "Bloody Hundredth" bravely flying their B-17s into battle. Over the weekend, we saw hundreds of autonomous drones and missiles clashing with extreme speed and precision over several different fronts (including space) simultaneously. This ain't your grandfather's war.

From EMP strikes to cyber attacks, here are FIVE ways the face of war has changed:

EMP attacks

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The entire modern world, on every level, is completely dependent on electricity. From your home refrigerator to international trade, the world would come to a grinding halt without power. And as Glenn has pointed out, it wouldn't even be that hard to pull off. All it would take is 3 strategically placed, high-altitude nuclear detonations and the entire continental U.S. would be without power for months if not years. This would cause mass panic across the country, which would be devastating enough on its own, but the chaos could be a perfect opportunity for a U.S. land invasion.

Nuclear strikes

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Nuclear war is nothing new. Many of us grew up during the Cold War, built fallout shelters, and learned to duck and cover. But times have changed. The Berlin Wall fell and so did the preparedness of the average American to weather a nuclear attack. As technology has advanced, more of our adversaries than ever have U.S. cities within their crosshairs, and as Glenn has pointed out, these adversaries are not exactly shy about that fact. Unfortunately, the possibility of an atomic apocalypse is as real as ever.

Immigration warfare

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The strategy of strangling an opposing nation's economy to gain the upper hand is a wartime tactic as old as time. That's why the Border Crisis is so alarming. What better way to damage an opponent's economy than by overburdening it with millions of undocumented immigrants? As Glenn has covered, these immigrants are not making the trek unaided. There is a wide selection of organizations that facilitate this growing disaster. These organizations are receiving backing from around the globe, such as the WEF, the UN, and U.S. Democrats! Americans are already feeling the effects of the border crisis. Imagine how this tactic could be exploited in war.

Cyber shutdowns

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Cyber attacks will be a major tactic in future wars. We've already experienced relatively minor cyber strikes from Russia, China, and North Korea, and it is a very real possibility that one of our adversaries inflicts a larger attack with devastating consequences on the United States. In fact, the WEF has already predicted a "catastrophic" cyber attack is imminent, and Glenn suggests that it is time to start preparing ourselves. A cyber attack could be every bit as devastating as an EMP, and in a world run by computers, nothing is safe.

Biological assault

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Don't trust the "experts." That was the takeaway many of us had from the pandemic, but something less talked about is the revelation that China has manufactured viruses that are capable of spreading across the globe. We now know that the lab leak hypothesis is true and that the Wuhan lab manufactured the virus that infected the entire world. That was only ONE virus from ONE lab. Imagine what else the enemies of America might be cooking up.

The government is WAGING WAR against these 3 basic needs

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The government has launched a full-on assault against our basic needs, and people are starting to take notice.

As long-time followers of Glenn are probably aware, our right to food, water, and power is under siege. The government no longer cares about our general welfare. Instead, our money lines the pockets of our politicians, funds overseas wars, or goes towards some woke-ESG-climate-Great Reset bullcrap. And when they do care, it's not in a way that benefits the American people.

From cracking down on meat production to blocking affordable power, this is how the government is attacking your basic needs:

Food

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Glenn had Rep. Thomas Massie on his show where he sounded the alarm about the attack on our food. The government has been waging war against our food since the thirties when Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. They started by setting strict limits on how many crops a farmer could grow in a season and punishing anyone who grew more—even if it was intended for personal use, not for sale on the market. This sort of autocratic behavior has continued into the modern day and has only gotten more draconian. Today, not only are you forced to buy meat that a USDA-approved facility has processed, but the elites want meat in general off the menu. Cow farts are too dangerous to the environment, so the WEF wants you to eat climate-friendly alternatives—like bugs.

Water

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As Glenn discussed during a recent Glenn TV special, the government has been encroaching on our water for years. It all started when Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, which gave the government the ability to regulate large bodies of water. As the name suggests, the act was primarily intended to keep large waterways clear of pollution, but over time it has allowed the feds to assume more and more control over the country's water supply. Most recently, the Biden administration attempted to expand the reach of the Clean Water Act to include even more water and was only stopped by the Supreme Court.

Electricity