Stella, who will soon be 7, likes to play in the rain. Sometimes she takes an umbrella outside; sometimes she wants to get wet. I suppose she could get mud stains on her clothes. I suppose she could get hit by a car because she misjudged the extra stopping distance that a speeding vehicle might require on wet streets. She could even get hit by lightning. Sometimes a storm comes sailing in more quickly than you might expect.
I always say yes when she asks to play in the rain. I am glad that she wants to be outside. I am glad that she's self-sufficient enough to enjoy her own company, curious enough to enjoy watching the worms writhe in the puddles, tough enough to view the rain as something to revel in rather than something to hide from. I'm not going to teach her to be afraid of rogue lightning bolts pelting out of nowhere in a slow November rain.
Stella's been walking to school alone recently. It's a half-mile walk through our quiet neighborhood. In the mornings there are lots of other kids walking to school too -- some with parents, some without. She had been walking with three of the boys from our block, but they were stressing her out. "They always talk about butts and stuff," she said with scorn. We walk together sometimes, but it doesn't work for me to do that every day. I was a little surprised the first day she said she'd prefer to go alone, but I knew she could handle it.
We walk a lot in our family. We practice: is it safe to cross now? What about now? How do you know? Which way should we go from here? We let the kids choose the route as soon as they show us that they have an inkling of where they're going. Recently I came across this old post about two-year-old Stella-- she's been walking to our neighborhood school without adult supervision, at least occasionally, for more than four years.
So I was really bummed when she came home today and told me that the principal, who often greets the kids arriving in the mornings, thought she needed an adult to walk with her. "Because of the creek," the principal said.
I feel very sure that this is not about the creek. The creek is, no exaggeration, about two inches deep most of the time and there is a sturdy bridge across it. The principal knows my daughter well enough to know that she is not given to spontaneous swan-dive sorts of stupidity. I think "because of the creek" is code for "because unregistered sex offenders exist and sometimes they cruise near schools and throw kids in the trunks of their cars."
I suspect she might also disapprove of Stella's playing in the rain. Nobody ever expects to get hit by lightning, you know. I suppose this shouldn't surprise me. I know from painful personal experience that people have strong opinions about 6-year-olds walking alone. I went looking for a stat that was floating around recently, about how something like 70% of Americans think a 13-year-old is too young to walk to school [except I made that number up -- feel free to correct me in the comments], and inadvertently dipped a pinky into the cauldron of crazy that belches forth mephitic misapprehensions whenever anyone starts talking about kids and independence.
So I'm just going to say it again, friends: nothing good happens, ever, when we tell kids they are not capable of doing something developmentally appropriate. You'd never tie your toddler's ankles together just because he might get hurt walking. You'd never duct-tape your preschooler's mouth closed because he might say something embarrassing at Thanksgiving dinner. So why then, why why WHY are we telling grade-school kids that they must not cross the street or cross the bridge or walk to school without an adult? The thing that has changed since Ramona Quimby was crossing busy streets alone at age 5 is not kids' abilities; it's parents' perceptions of kids' abilities.
Back in the 90s when I refused to believe that Snackwells were a good idea, I felt like a contrarian. People were getting all freaked out about fat, which turns out to be important for flavor and satiety, and exacerbating the problem they wanted to avoid. Once in 1997 I wrapped up a box of favorite recipes for a bridal shower. As it was passed around after the bride-to-be opened it, I overheard one of the guests whispering to another: "Look how much BUTTER is in that brownie recipe! Can you believe that?!" I feel the same way now, frustrated by opposition to something that seems obvious and sensible to me. I want my daughter to know that she is competent, able to make reasonable decisions within a sphere that will widen year by year.
In the writing of this post I told Stella to go upstairs and put her pajamas on. She's been worried about being upstairs alone lately, worried about invisible spooky things looming in the closets. I keep encouraging her that there's nothing to worry about, but I also came upstairs with her tonight so she would feel safer. As we lay in her bed together I said, "Do you feel worried or comfortable about walking to school without me?" She said, "Comfortable. But isn't it weird that Mrs. Principal thought I needed a grownup?"
The world is full of fearsome things. I will not be dismissive of her actual fears. And I categorically refuse to plant needless fears in her mind. I only wonder whether I can get the principal on board with that idea.
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