Am I worried about your safety or my reputation?

When I was a kid, my sisters and I did all sorts of crazy stuff.  We tumbled down the stairs in laundry baskets.  We rode our big wheels down the front steps into the stone wall next door.  We took our bikes everywhere, not for fun, but as a way to get around.  I don't even remember if we had helmets or not.  We went to the local public pool and jumped off of the 10 meter diving platform.  I don't think my sisters ever once used the ladder to get down from their bunk beds.  Why bother when flipping off onto your back was so much quicker?

And we got hurt.  I bloodied my head letting a friend carry me around with her eyes closed while I directed her where to walk (she tripped and fell and my head went into the side of a house).  I fell off of my bike and scraped my knees more times than I could count.  I smashed my finger in a see-saw when about ten of us piled on (I was in the middle and holding on right at the pivot point - ouch!). 

We were also home alone fairly frequently.  My parents worked opposite schedules and one of them was home most of the time, but there were plenty of days when we let ourselves in after school and made dinner.  Once I left the stove on under a pot of spaghetti sauce for several hours and almost smoked out the whole neighborhood.  Another time, my sister was making a grilled cheese sandwich in the broiler, and caught a potholder on fire.  She yelled for me, and then threw the flaming potholder to me in a panic.  I threw it right back at her.

We survived all of these encounters.  Did they make us stronger?  I have no idea.  There was no permanent damage, but really it could have gone either way.  We were just lucky, I guess.  And it was all considered part of growing up.

The sad thing is, my kids will probably never be in most of those situations.  Some things I consider to be non-negotiable no-brainers.  They wear helmets when riding on anything with wheels.  My seven-year-old can't cross streets alone - in a neighborhood of one-way streets, he still doesn't look both ways!  We live in a four story house and I think I've said "Don't do that near the stairs!" about 10,000 times.  There will be no riding down them on anything, ever.  I just recently let him start making his own toast, but I think that has more to do with me being a control freak than thinking he's going to burn the house down. 

I am by no means a helicopter parent.  I like to think of myself as more of a bungee parent: I'm attached, but I let the kids stretch out far before snapping them back in to me.  I park my ass on a bench at the playground and only get up if I haven't spotted them for a while.  They can run or bike ahead of me, and I know that they'll stop at the corner.  I've let my son stay home alone for as long as 20 minutes while I picked his sister up from art class, but he was pretty scared and stayed on the phone with me the whole time, so I think I'll let him take the lead on that one.

But the rest of it?  The but-you-could-break-an-arm stuff that my parents didn't even have to deal with because we were off playing outside?  My gut says to let them go nuts, to give them the chance to break an arm, to let them figure out what their limits are.  But my brain can picture the NY Post headline.  I can imagine bloggers like myself tearing me apart for letting my kids do something that wasn't even an issue when I was their age.  My heart goes out to the dad who not only lost his son in a horrific bike accident, but then had to endure a public debate on whether or not his son should have been riding with him in the street.  I hear about the mom who let her nine-year-old ride the subway alone, and my gut says "Good, a city kid should know how to get around."  But my brain screams "Is she INSANE?"

Back in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up (you know, last century?), if a parent did something that resulted in an emergency room visit, the family and friends heard about it.  If you were really unlucky, it might end up on the evening news or on the local pages of the paper.  But that was it.  Now, go a few doors down to borrow some eggs and you get arrested on your way back for abandonment.  Try to teach your kids some responsibility and get arrested for child endangerment.  Not because what you're doing is so bad, but because it's so public.  And the police know that if they don't act swiftly, they'll get a pounding on YouTube and Twitter.  The woman who kicked her kids out of the car because they wouldn't behave got arrested.  That's crazy.  The youngest was ten and should know how to find her way home in an emergency, even if the emergency was created by her own bratty behavior.

So yes, I let the fear get to me.  Not the fear of what could happen to my kids, but the fear of being dragged through very public mud if I screw up in some way.  Something really boneheaded would deserve the public thrashing.  I came down hard on the woman who breastfed her toddler while driving.  That's not a judgement call, that's downright dangerous.  But we all know our kids better than our friends do, better than our neighbors do, better than the police do, and definitely better than the blowhards online do.  We all need to respect that, and let the bungee cord stretch a little farther.

This is an original post to NYC Moms Blog. Amy also edits the NYC section of Famplosion, blogs about parenting in Brooklyn while keeping herself sane and comfortable at Selfish Mom, and attempts to keep one step ahead of the stalkers and paparazzi at Filming in Brooklyn and Examiner.com.