Cross-posted at Fussbucket

I love this story - this is an issue my friends and I discuss regularly - how safe is the subway for our kids - Sue in Queens

A mother in New York has been making headlines the last few days after leaving her nine-year old son at Bloomingdale's in Manhattan to find his way home armed with a MetroCard, a subway map, twenty bucks, and some quarters to call home in case he got lost.

The mom, Lenore Skenazy who is a columnist for the New York Sun, told the Today show that it's good for kids to exert their independence.

Izzy, who is now 10, nodded in agreement and insisted it was no big deal. He had been nagging his mother for a long time to let him ride home alone, and finally she agreed to let him take the downtown Lexington Avenue subway and then transfer to a crosstown bus to get home from Bloomingdale’s. "I was like, ‘Finally!’ " Izzy said of his reaction when his mom finally caved in to his nagging. "I think that it’s a really easy, simple thing to get home."

The story has sparked both outrage and a wave of nostalgia among New Yorkers who spent their youth traveling independently around the city. These days even parents who live in the suburbs are afraid to let their kids roam free in their family-friendly neighborhoods. This fear, says Skenazy, is overblown.

"It’s safe to go on the subway," Skenazy replied. "It’s safe to be a kid. It’s safe to ride your bike on the streets. We’re like brainwashed because of all the stories we hear that it isn’t safe. But those are the exceptions. That’s why they make it to the news. This is like, ‘Boy boils egg.’ He did something that any 9-year-old could do."