but I agree with the overall message from this mom.  First of all, kids in NYC need to learn how to get around independently.  When we had the power outage in 2002, and Leah was stuck in Manhattan, you can bet I was glad she and her friends knew how to get around.

On a day-to-day basis, I think we need to figure out what are real dangers and what are blown out of proportion.  And then we need to protect our kids when we can, and teach them to deal with things that we can't totally prevent.

Also, I agree that the media attention to relatively rare events and flashing highway signs about a missing child (while they may have their benefits) create an atmosphere of fear that is unwarranted.

In relation to this story, it's not a question of "if" but "when".  Leah wasn't on the subway by herself at 9 or 10, but she was by 12 or 13.  If she had been a braver kid (as this kid seems to be), she might have done it earlier.

Lex Ave train and a cross town bus.  I am sure he was well within the upper east side - midtown area which is generally safer than say Harlem or the Heights.

I lived on the upper west side and i saw kids all the time on the subway, riding the bus, etc.  How do they get to school otherwise?  Most middle class parents don't have cars to take them to school at least they didn't in my part of town.

Just in case, I would have followed the first time.  But then again, ask my why I don't live in NYC anymore?  Cuz I have kids....lol

public transit buses in here in our city at junior high age...they ride them to school.  Sometimes they've had to change buses downtown.  I never thought anything about kids doing it at 12 as a good many kids are doing it.

I'll echo what Sue and Anne said above.  When I'm in NYC, I see middle school age kids all the time on the subway and on buses.  Would I send a nine year old out alone?  I don't know...depends on the child, I suppose.   If the child has a good understanding of where he/she is going, knows what to do in case of trouble and has been proven to be responsible in the past, well, I think those traits are more important than chronological age.  Much like deciding the appropriate age at which a child can be left home alone.  

For what its worth, when I was a child growing up in a small town of 10,000 people, I rode my bicycle everywhere at the age of 9.  Back in those days, parents just didn't run their kids here and there...if you wanted to go to a friends or to the library or to the pool, you rode your bike or you walked.  In warm weather, I walked over a mile home from school every day.

The extraordinary level of surveillance that is now considered necessary is something of a pet peeve of mine.  Independance and self reliance needs to be taught and nurtured at every age.  Children will rebel and separate from us at puberty and the teen years whether we like it or not.  But we let them hit this stage unprepared and unskilled.  This is a huge cultural shift - I think back to my own childhood and my children's lives seem so limited, nothing but playdates and structured activities.  But I feel the peer pressure to hover excessively over my kids or be condemned as a neglectful parent.  

Nine is certainly old enough to follow a well known route.  (I suspect my 6 year old could manage if he absolutely had to.)  If I felt nervous I might have given him a cell phone to carry.

but wouldn't have been able to do it when my dd was 9 years old.  however, i do think we are far too protective in general.  i eased dd into public transportation when she was in middle school.  we lived a fair distance from her school (we lived in oakland and school was in berkeley).  we started with public bus in 6th grade.  we moved to going on BART with her into SF and by 9th grade allowed her to travel on BART by herself.

i have no regrets and glad we did it this way as now she is comfortable with bus, muni and BART.

in the 1960s. We all rode the subways and took buses alone at that age. Arguably, it was less safer then than it is now, but nothing happened to us. I give this mom credit for teaching her son independence and how to navigate the system. When my girls were that age in the 1980s, we let them venture out on their own when they were in the fifth or sixth grade. Quite honestly, when NY was at its nadir in the mid-70s, it was much scarier then than in the 60s or 80s.

What I think a lot of anxious parents forget is that one of the ways to protect your child is to make sure they can take care of themselves.  That often involves making a few mistakes.  In this case she made sure he had cash, a map, and a way to call her if he got lost.   I figure she knows her own son - he had the confidence to try, and she decided he was old enough to have a shot at it.

I also walked to school in the 70s, starting in first grade.  Five blocks through a working class/young professionals urban residential neighborhood, later with my little sister in tow.  I also biked all over town with no helmet, on my own, to friends' houses and after school swim classes etc.  Starting when I was 12 I took the city bus to dance lessons downtown, on a main strip lined with topless girlie bars.  When I started high school (in a pretty bad even more urban neighborhood, my local one had been closed down) I often took the bus, past a lot of XXX movie theaters showing Deep Throat and the like, we saw a few streetwalkers and pimps waiting for the bus after rehearsals for school plays.  

In grade school my sister and I were once accosted by a flasher (wierd, but not a trauma), had to deal with a bullies following and pelting us with snowballs/jumping us (my dad taught me to throw and to punch, they left us alone after that).  

In high school we had some change thrown at us by johns, and my sister was once accosted by a pimp trying to hire her (in broad daylight, her bus came, she was relieved).  We were shaken at the time, but no lasting effects, it just made us increasingly wary, which paid off when I went to NYC in the early 80s and had to deal with some serious oddness and walking/taking the subway home much later at night.

But I'll tell you - the kids we know who were assaulted and raped (at least 6 that I can think of off the top of my head, sadly) - it was teachers, stepfathers,  and recently ex boyfriends who did it.  Never strangers.  Not once.

can walk to their grandmother's house three blocks away, mind you this walking on a street with no sidewalks for most of it, if they are together, I suspect they would have no problem alone, I just like them together to cross the street.

Next year I plan on them walking home from school by themselves,  I pick em up this year in part to walk more myself, it is a half mile to the school but there are sidewalks on all but our street.

I suspect my girl would be able to walk to kinder by herself, she is that independent, but she won't have to since her brothers will be in the third grade at the same school.

When my older brother was two my mom got hepatitis and as she was lying there sick as a dog, she thought about death and knew that if she survived she needed to teach her kids to be independent. She worked rather hard to make sure that all of us would survive without our parents if we had to. How to judge people and situations, how to talk to adults, not just kids, and she often reminded us that it was people you trusted who posed the most danger- not strangers and to make lots of noise if anyone did anything we didn't like.

There seems to be an idea that the Big City is much scarier than other places, but I'm not sure that's true.  There are creeps everywhere.  Those of us who walked fair distances through neighborhoods to and from school probably weren't any safer (or more endangered) than those riding buses and subways.

But I tend to think the world is a safer place than the news would have us believe.  

In our case, DS was ready for small independent challenges out in the community (walking places alone or with a friend) sooner than he was to stay home alone, even in the daytime.  So I guess a lot has to depend on the kid.

I agree with most commenters who said it depends on the child. I grew up in suburban DC and I was walking to school when I was in first grade (not through a dangerous neighborhood but still:) Plus my parents were divorced and by the time I was nine or ten my brother and I had keys and hung out at home till my mom got home from work. I never once felt unsafe or was threatened but my mom would call us from work and we lived in a relatively safe neighborhood. I too am a big believer in public transportation from a young age. My parents were busy and if I wanted to hang out with my friends I could depend on my parents or walk or take the bus. Those were my choices. Now, I would say that the area you live in makes  a big difference. My biggest pet peeve about Indianapolis is the lack of good public transport!

The school bus is not the same as public transportation, but it has improved DD's confidence immensely that she rides the bus and does things like buy lunch or bake sale items on her own. It's been great for her to learn how to handle herself.

You need to know your kid, of course.

But this mom is pretty brave - I'm not at all worried that her kid will be hurt in NYC, but I would be worried about CPS and that kind of criticism.

...has been asking to ride the bus by herself ever since she was 4.  I told her that the skills she need to ride a bus are:

1. Learn to read

2. Learn to tell time

3. Learn to cross the street safely

4. Know where to get on and off

So, I'm thinking of letting her ride the bus by herself next year when she's 7 in order to meet me at work after school.  I thought it might be a better idea than turning her into a latchkey kid sitting at home alone until I come home.

Our public transit system charges kids over 6 for a ticket so the implication is that a kid who is old enough for school is a "real" bus patron, not just an appendage to an adult.

But come to think of it, my family is "low income" so we don't really have the option to buy a car and devote an adult to driving kids about in it.

but I know that I took the bus to swimming lessons by myself at about 10.  I can remember holding the dime in my hand.  

There is a fair amount of evidence (she said, totally talking out of her behind) to support the notion that kids who are never allowed to take reasonable risks become crazy risk takers later.  If they're always told when it's safe to cross the street then they never develop the skills to cross the street by themselves.  

http://www.michaelungar.ca/

I like this fellow's ideas that we're not helping our kids at all by not setting them free.

in ct-

this is totally off topic, but is anyone interested in a meet up?

i'm available any saturday evening or sunday afternoon or evening

this is a new development in my life- i could never get my husband to take care of the kids and let me have a break, but we just separated, and he will be responsible for the kids saturday evening through monday morning

back to the topic- what a great kid- it reminded me of my son and me going to different movies together- same big multiplex, but we'd see different shows, then meet up after

he was young when we started doing that, and it made him feel very grown up.