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Is it responsible for a parent to let a 12-year-old child ride the NYC subway alone?
Is it responsible for a parent to let a 12-year-old child ride the NYC subway alone?
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| Yes | 33% | 131 votes | Total: 392 votes | |
| No | 67% | 261 votes |
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Add to FavoritesI grew up in New York and it was perfectly acceptable to ride the subway at 12. I was 12 in 1992, if anything a more dangerous time in the city and the subway than today. In those not-so-long-ago days, many young New Yorkers took the subway to high school everyday from the age of 14 - not hopping on for a stop or two so they could avoid walking in the snow, but traversing the city. I went to Stuyvesant High School, in downtown Manhattan, and literally 95% of the students took some combination of ferry, subways and buses to arrive at school.
We didn't grow up afraid of our world and the people around us. We were independent young people with independent lives, complete with places to go and people to see. Taking the public transportation available to every citizen was the most natural thing in the world.
We live in Florida now and I have my own child. Everyone is constantly afraid of children falling off their bicycles, children getting hit by cars, children getting abducted, children getting molested, children being obese, children having eating disorders, children suffering from learning disorders, children suffering from depression and, finally, afraid of children committing suicide.
Between all these paranoias (and they are paranoias - contrary to what the news would have us believe, victimization of children by strangers is quite rare), our children have no independence at all and lack the freedom to create even basic senses of selves. They don't play with one another without our helpful supervision, because we take them wherever they go. They don't survive illnesses or injuries and, when they do, we feel guilty because they suffered because it should have been within our control.
Then, shockingly, we give them cars when they are 16 and give them the keys. They go from being shuttled around to owning machines capable of killing people from one day to the next. Two years later (if they haven't been killed or seriously injured in a car which, unlike victimization by a stranger, is very common), we pack them off to college and hope that the whole adult thing works out for them.
In New York, among native New Yorkers, 5 is about the appropriate age to go to a friend's apartment when the friend lives in the same building. Mothers call one another to wait the 2 minutes for their child to arrive, but this is unbeknownst to the child, who must develop independence. After another 2 years or so, walking 2 or 3 blocks in considered reasonable. At about 8, children walk to school when school is close to the house and by 11, the bus to middle school is an everyday event. In this world, twelve year olds going from 116th Street to 96th Street on the Number 1 doesn't seem so outrageous. In this way, they are prepared to travel to high school in two years and then move out four short years later.
We're moving back to New York shortly, because I am refusing to raise my son in the bubble of our best intentions. He needs to take the subway when he's 12 so he's ready to confront the world, as his own person, when he's 18.
Learn more about this author, Natalie Delia.
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No
Is it responsible for a parent to let a twelve-year-old ride on a New York City subway alone?
The answer to this frivolous debate is an indisputable NO.
Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps we need to remind ourselves that this is not your happy, safe, little suburban house with Brinks Home Security. This is a public subway, with people from perhaps all five boroughs riding in it.
The idea that any parent would allow a twelve-year-old child to ride ALONE on a New York City subway by himself (or herself) is ridiculous.
I was reading one of the articles written by the opposing side in this debate, and she (or he - I won't specify) said that too many parents have become helicopter parents, and don't allow their children to see the world for what it is.
I agree with such a statement - helicopter parents need to back off and let a child experience life. Just not when they're twelve, and not on a public subway, and not in New York City.
Helicopter parents need to allow their children to make mistakes - to LET them fall off their bike once to let them fully understand how to ride one, rather than persistently helping them on and off like an incessant mosquito. Helicopter parents should give their children advice on how to live their life, but they shouldn't live their children's lives for them.
That being said, children need to be watched and supervised at a young age. A young age such as twelve. Letting your child hang out with a friend at a local and SAFE park is fine. Allowing a twelve-year-old child to ride a subway alone, without supervision or previous experience, is not.
A twelve-year-old child is not necessarily going to be raped, abducted, or murdered on the spot, but the chances of a potential nightmare for you as a parent are a lot higher than if you had just taken the subway with him or her.
Perhaps it's because I happen to know a lot more about New York City then the opposing sides' debaters. Perhaps it's because I've BEEN to all five boroughs, the Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Perhaps it's because I've been on subways in New York City for most of my life that I'm not pretending to know what it's like to ride on a subway in NYC when I live in places like Canada or on the West Coast, and only occasionally visit it.
I am not trying to trash or beat down any of the other articles on this topic, but I find it preposterous that you would let a child ride a subway by himself (or herself) unsupervised when they're twelve. Even if you're riding a subway in Manhattan - say Times Square - letting your child do so just isn't WORTH IT. Let them grow up - maybe when they're 16 or older, you can talk with them about it. You don't need to be a helicopter parent, but you do need to have some sense as a parent - enough sense to not let your twelve-year-old child ride a subway by themselves in New York City.
Learn more about this author, Chris Leahy.
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