the tindog coffeehouse

– “Mommy, can I please ride the subway all by myself?”
– “Sure, my little explorer, anything you want.”

Anyway, for weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.

No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn’t want to lose it. And no, I didn’t trail him, like a mommy private eye. I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn’t do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, “Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I’ll abduct this adorable child instead.”

Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.

OK, it’s one thing to want to teach your kid to be independent, but it’s quite another to drop him off in the middle of friggin’ New York City with 20 bucks and a map. (Notice how the mom seemed more worried about losing her phone than losing her child.)

Megan is about to turn 7, and she’s been begging for a real cell phone for at least a year. And our answer? “No!” Why is that so hard for parents to say? Are we stunting her personal growth by setting reasonable age-appropriate limits? I guess in this lady’s opinion we are.