Lenore Skenazy

I am here to talk about parenting, which is kind of weird because if you Google America's Worst Mom, you find me there for 22 Google pages, followed by America's Worst Mother's Day Gift, which, guys, a lot of you here, we don't want an iron and lingerie is for Father's Day.

So how do you get a name like that?

Well, years ago, when our younger son was nine, he started asking me and my husband if we would take him someplace he'd never been before, in New York City, where we live, and let him find his own way home by subway.

So we talked about it, me and my husband, who you never hear of as America's worst dad.

And we decided, sure, why not?

Long story short, I wrote a newspaper column, Why I Let My Nine-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone.

And two days later, I was on the Today Show, MSNBC, Fox News and NPR.

Fox News and NPR.

OK?

Kind of wild.

And I realize that a lot of you would not make the same decision, obviously, but you should have seen our son.

He came into the apartment levitating.

He was so happy.

So I want you to think back for just a second on something that you absolutely loved doing as a kid, maybe flashlight tag, building forts.

And now I want you to raise your hand if your mom knew exactly where you were.

Okay, it's an older crowd here.

Sorry.

It is usually the younger people who raise their hands because that's what's changed.

In fact, that's what I wrote my book about, free-range kids.

For the last generation or two, kids have been getting so little time on their own, so little time unsupervised.