# Mother lets 9 year old ride NYC subway. People go insane. Are we crazy about kid safety these days?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 23, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188 "2010-08-23T18:52:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/81 "2010-08-23T22:38:43Z")
I just went back and saw that **Dio** admitted that he had been thinking of the Warriors. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s only slightly more fantastical than assuming that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is an accurate representation of life in NYC.
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### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2010, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/82 "2010-08-23T22:40:01Z")
> [@descamisado](#):
>
> This is a reasonable and fair assessment of all but **DtC** ’s assertion that he’s forming his opinion from movies (_The Warriors_, my gods)
I’m _fairly_ sure this is him just having a laugh, but unfortunately **Dio** has developed his own variant of Poe’s Law.
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### Author:  [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2010, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/83 "2010-08-23T23:02:50Z")
**Dio** , of course it really sucks to have people questioning (let alone criticizing) ones parenting techniques, which is why child care advice threads so often turn nasty. However, as long as the damage seems to be done, perhaps I’ll make a respectful contribution…
You might want to watch out for a common human error that you may be making. That is, we’re often quite vigilant about sensational, extraordinary, and \*rare \*dangers, to the extent that, in trying to avoid them, we expose ourselves to dangers which are more mundane, but also much more common and realistic. For instance, someone links you to a handful of anecdotes about alleged molestations on airplanes (which, if you’d thought about it, you would’ve had to assume existed with or without the links), and you decide that it’s not “safe” to let your children fly unattended. Ok, your kids are now less likely to be molested by a stranger on an airplane, but that was a billion-to-one shot to begin with. In the meantime, through this decision and others like it, you run the risk of sending your children the message that the world is full of evil and dangerous people, and should be generally feared instead of embraced. Or, more mundane still, you run the risk of retarding somewhat their development as independent, confident adults. And that’s to say nothing of the simple opportunity cost involved in not having unattended flights as an option.
Look, obviously you know your kids and we don’t, and if you don’t feel like they’re ready to, for example, ride the subway alone, then don’t have them do so. But if you want to ban them from a whole host of solo activities because they’re “not safe,” well, there’s probably data for that, and you can be right or wrong. And IMO you’re doing your kids no favors by _arbitrarily_ \*walling them off from this or that because of whatever exceedingly rare and grotesquely attention-grabbing worst-case scenario happens to flit across your field of vision.
- –\> You mean you let your children go near swimming pools? Or _ride in cars_??? Don’t you know how dangerous that is?
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### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/84 "2010-08-23T23:49:47Z")
> [@robardin](#):
>
> > [@CalMeacham](#):
> >
> > I know. Everyone says “it was different then”. Only statistics seem to show that it really isn’t.
>
> And this is in a relatively quiet and suburban-like corner of Northeastern Queens. My wife grew up on the pre-yuppie Upper West Side, with chalk outlines on sidewalks, winos passed out in doorways and gunshots on certain streets and avenues she was not allowed to walk down. However she still took the bus and subway by herself at the age of 10, to get to school or to afterschool activities like music lessons on her own.
>
> My wife was the second of 4 kids and the idea that her parents would be responsible for escorting a 10 year old around town was simply not a question. And in my neighborhood (when I was growing up), as well as her own family, at age 10-12 any kids with younger siblings would usually be tabbed with the responsibility of taking them around the neighborhood.
>
> As a result, she usually can’t resist the obvious comeback to the other parents who say “it was different then”, especially the ones who are local natives like us (and amazingly, they often are). “Really? NYC in the 1970s was so much safer than it is now? LISTEN TO YOURSELF!”
Oh my God , I thought it was just me! I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard people say “NYC was safer when we were young”. Are they crazy ? It’s different all right- it’s a hell of a lot safer now. The only explanation I can think of is that they were young and not afraid at the time. The biggest danger on the subway when children are likely to be riding is that you’ll be hit by some damn fool not paying attention to his or her backpack.
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### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/85 "2010-08-24T00:12:45Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> Just out of curiosity, would anyone who actually has a kid that age (or close to that age) be willing to let them ride unattended on a subway like that?
```
My kids were going further than around the corner at 8, taking buses by 10 , and while I'm not sure when the first train ride was, I know they were both commuting to school by subway by 13 - long trips with transfers, not two or three stations. It really is still very common in NY for kids to travel on public transportation alone. Plenty of them have no choice - lots of them don't attend the closest school to home, and student Metrocards are the transportation provided for intermediate school students and up. It just that certain groups don't allow it- for example, my kids went to school with the children of working-class SAHMs- they couldn't believe I let my kids take buses and trains. My professional coworkers on the other hand usually allowed their children to travel by public transportation.
```
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### Author:  [@jasonh300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonh300)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/86 "2010-08-24T00:25:50Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> well, it’s possible I have a distorted view of what NYC subways are actually like. I was joking above, but it’s true that all I know about NYC subways is what I’ve seen in the movies, and the movies always make them look like cesspools of degenerates, druggies, rapists and psychopaths, and that you’re taking your life in your hands every time you get on one. Is that not accurate?
What you see on TV about NYC, especially stuff from 10+ years ago is highly inaccurate. The first time I went to NYC, I was surprised at how clean it was, the lack of bums and muggers and dead murder victims in the park, etc.
I was still leery about the subway, but on my 5th trip up there, I just didn’t feel like walking 24 blocks back to Penn Station or hailing a cab, so I bit the bullet and went into a subway station (I had my 9 year old son and a non-native friend with me).
While it’s not exactly the cleanest\* place in the world, there were no seedy looking people around. I stayed alert of my surroundings, but not any more than I would’ve in any strange city. If I had felt the least bit uncomfortable I would’ve gotten the hell out of there. The actual subway cars were pretty clean. It’s nothing like you see on TV.
I wouldn’t have turned my 9-year old loose being that we’re not from NYC…he just doesn’t have the street smarts for a city like that. However, I can understand that if I lived in a densely populated place like that, the subway might be the only possible way for a kid to get to school, and for a New Yorker, that might not be any different than me putting my kid on a school bus.
\*When I say “cleanest”, I don’t mean pools of urine or vomit or blood or anything like that. When you look off the platform at the tunnel and into the abyss, everything is coated with a nasty black dust.
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### Author:  [@carm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carm)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/87 "2010-08-24T00:32:46Z")
Interestingly, in [this book](http://www.amazon.com/RISK-SCIENCE-POLITICS-DAN-GARDNER/dp/0753515539/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282609156&sr=1-14), the author claims that in the aftermath of 9/11, when nobody was flying, the extra car journeys taken all over the country resulted in 1500 extra deaths; cars being more dangerous than planes.
Another point made in the book is that people are hopeless at risk assessment and understanding statistics. I agree.
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### Author:  [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/88 "2010-08-24T00:35:13Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> Just out of curiosity, would anyone who actually has a kid that age (or close to that age) be willing to let them ride unattended on a subway like that?
Yeah, he was eight. It wasn’t Bruce Willis, it was Arnold Schwarzenegger, he knocked the motorman out of the cab and hit the throttle to get away from the bad guys, and the kid said it was like a roller coaster instead of a subway.
And all this time I thought he was just making it up.
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### Author:  [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/89 "2010-08-24T00:42:32Z")
Actually, you know what? I make chocolate chip cookies. The cookies are good–but the cookie dough is superlative. I eat it, and I let my kids eat it.
Even last Saturday.
I did go online and check the serial number of the eggs. I don’t usually do that.
My husband won’t touch that stuff, and he won’t eat anything with hollandaise sauce even in a restaurant. He would freak out if he knew how much of this cookie dough we were eating.
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### Author:  [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/90 "2010-08-24T00:50:22Z")
But would you let a 9-year-old eat cookie dough while traveling alone on the subway, carrying an Uzi, skidding through blood and vomit and hollandaise sauce, and fending off the advances of a stink-poo pervert!?
Didn’t think so.
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### Author:  [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/91 "2010-08-24T00:50:53Z")
When I was a kid it was standard to walk home by yourself from school. At 11 I used to travel around London by myself, eg to go to the British museum.
However I have a very clear memory of a man offering me a lift home in his car when I was about 8 or 9 and me refusing, and when I was in London of a man exposing himself to me in the toilet. I dont feel traumatised by those incidents but do wonder whether I was extremely unlucky to see that many, or extremely lucky that it didnt turn out worse.
One problem is that the issue can become self confirming - almost noone lets their kids travel by themselves now so the few who do are more obvious as targets.
Otara
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/92 "2010-08-24T01:06:37Z")
> [@gurujulp](#):
>
> > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
> >
> > Flight attendants have a hard enough job without having to be caregivers for your kid.
>
> If the service is offered, I shall pay for it.
Doesn’t sound like you’ve paid for it yet – just expected it for free.
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### Author:  [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/93 "2010-08-24T01:44:43Z")
[tangential anecdote]Couple of weeks ago on a busy Friday afternoon I was hoofing it through the masses in Penn Station trying not to miss the earlier train.
Thousands and thousands of people rushing to and fro, nobody really bothering anyone, everyone with purpose.
Then I suddenly slowed down as an obstacle began to obstruct the natural flow of people. There was a boy of about ten wandering along in the center of the multitude at a leisurely pace, with his head down, playing a GameBoy or its new-tech equivalent. As I squeezed by the obstruction I heard his mother scolding him, “Johnny, put that away… this is neither the time nor the place for that.”
It struck me how apt her statement was. The center of the busiest train station in America at peak rush hour, with tens of thousands of sweaty commuters milling about. He would have had to work hard to pick a worse place to play Mario.
Now if that boy was alone, he would have been good and _lost_, but unharmed.[/tangential anecdote]
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/94 "2010-08-24T01:52:11Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#):
>
> The “solution” to child safety is to drop the speed limits in school and playground zones (and my city just increased the hours for school zones this fall - from ridiculous to really ridiculous); it never seems to be to teach children how to walk safely around traffic.
I will say that I was very surprised at the traffic rules as regards school and playground zones in your location, **Cat**. They seemed to be more about the onus being on drivers to take care in school/playground zones (entirely appropriate, IMHO), and less on children taking any responsibility for their own safety (inappropriate, IMHO). When I was growing up, we learned to look both ways before crossing the street, to cross at crosswalks only, and most importantly, that cars would do more damage to us than we would to them. We learned that roads were dangerous places, and we shouldn’t play near them. Today, however, it seems that in your city, children are taught that they have the right of way in all situations and cars will stop magically if a child steps into the streets. I’d like to remind your city council that the laws they pass will never supersede the laws of physics, and I’d like your city council to remind children of this fact. While speed zones in school/playground areas are appropriate, I think a greater degree of safety can be accomplished if we simultaneously instruct children in traffic safety.
As for my offering to the thread, I grew up in the city of Toronto–no suburb, we lived in the City proper. Today, my old neighbourhood is considered “downtown” by many. Consequently, I grew up knowing how to use subways, buses, and streetcars; and my parents took us (my sister and I) around town often enough that we knew what was what, and where was where. I was probably about 11 years old when I had the run of the transit system by myself. All Mom worried about was that I made sure of where I was going (where to change trains if necessary, what subway stop to get off at, and where to go from there, for example), and that I had a dime to call home if necessary. Of course, I let her know where I was going and when I thought I’d be back, but I’d ride the subways if I needed to get someplace. Even today, when I visit Toronto, I don’t need a transit system route map–I know where I’m going without one.
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### Author:  [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/95 "2010-08-24T02:11:57Z")
[QUOTE= Diogenes the Cynic]
Do you have any kids? Just curious where you derive your expertise about parenting?
[/QUOTE]
I have three surfboards, and I’m still a shitty surfer.
Besides, doesn’t (or, I guess, didn’t) [Andrea Yates](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates) have more kids than you?
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/96 "2010-08-24T02:15:57Z")
> [@doreen](#):
>
> The biggest danger on the subway when children are likely to be riding is that you’ll be hit by some damn fool not paying attention to his or her backpack.
The thing I’m afraid of is those random guys who come into the subways and do these weird gymnastic moves to music in the cars. I’m always afraid they’re going to smash into me.
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### Author:  [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/97 "2010-08-24T02:17:46Z")
Besides which, you admit to having no idea what environment you’re condemning someone else for “exposing” their child to.
And finally, I noticed above you’d want your own kid to have a predetermined path through an airport. What happens when the poor dear gets lost? She’ll starve to death because her linear thinking will leave her stranded like an ant cut off from the pheromone trail. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/98 "2010-08-24T02:21:15Z")
I didn’t condemn anybody else. I just said I wouldn’t want to do it. I also admitted that response was based on what appears to be a false apprehension about what New York subways are really like.
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### Author:  [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/99 "2010-08-24T02:28:01Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> I never said anything about New York in general, just the subway, because (my attempts at humorous exaggeration aside), I really did have an impression that they were generally unsafe and prone to be populated with vagrants, gang bangers and the like, just like the city buses can be in Minneapolis. I wasn’t trying to trash New York, and I wouldn’t let my kids run around Minnapolis by themselves either.
The subways are fine. Really.
I wandered all over the city (especially Queens, where I grew up) when I was a kid. Mostly on a bike, sometimes on buses, occasionally on the subway. When I was 13, I started taking the subway every day to high school. And this was in the 70s, when things _were_ bad. Son of Sam was doing his thing during my high school years, crime was rampant, and the city was a mess. I never had a problem.
The city is immensely better now. I’d have no hesitation letting my (so far hypothetical) 9 year old take the subway or the bus by him or herself. I think Ms. Skenazy is a breath of fresh air.
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2010, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-lets-9-year-old-ride-nyc-subway-people-go-insane-are-we-crazy-about-kid-safety-these-days/551188/100 "2010-08-24T02:32:23Z")
> [@GusNSpot](#):
>
> \
> Everything is risk management but IMO, an untrained, uneducated in the ways of the world, sheltered child who is taught to fear is not really a good way to go in the long run.\
That is an excellent description of how my two nieces are being raised. My 15 and a half year old niece has taken a city bus by herself twice; she’ll get her license to drive a car without ever having had to walk, bike, or bus anywhere, and that strikes me as just not right.
> [@Spoons](#):
>
> \I will say that I was very surprised at the traffic rules as regards school and playground zones in your location, **Cat**. They seemed to be more about the onus being on drivers to take care in school/playground zones (entirely appropriate, IMHO), and less on children taking any responsibility for their own safety (inappropriate, IMHO). When I was growing up, we learned to look both ways before crossing the street, to cross at crosswalks only, and most importantly, that cars would do more damage to us than we would to them. We learned that roads were dangerous places, and we shouldn’t play near them. Today, however, it seems that in your city, children are taught that they have the right of way in all situations and cars will stop magically if a child steps into the streets. I’d like to remind your city council that the laws they pass will never supersede the laws of physics, and I’d like your city council to remind children of this fact. While speed zones in school/playground areas are appropriate, I think a greater degree of safety can be accomplished if we simultaneously instruct children in traffic safety.\
The kicker to all that? There are never any kids in any of the school or playground zones, because they’re all driven everywhere. Tens of thousands of drivers inconvenienced multiple times, every day (there are school and playground zones EVERYWHERE here), for a handful of kids, but you don’t dare criticize it because that will make it appear as though you’re an advocate of endangering children.
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