The XX Factor: What women really think.



  • « Prev | Main | Next »

    Where Are the Children?

    Posted Wednesday, March 18, 2009 5:08 PM | By Bonnie Goldstein
    Rachael, you are the same age as my daughter, making me among the lead-paint-exposing, tummy-down-crib-placing cohort of child neglectors whose Gen X children narrowly survived. In fact, I was probably among the worst of the loosey-goosey caretakers of the era, taking risks with my first-grade child that, in retrospect, should have brought the police. The cop who scolded the Mississippi soccer mom for letting her 10-year-old walk a few blocks to the playing field may have over-reacted, but, belatedly embracing my geezer curmudgeon, I say, better safe than sorry. When I was a young single mother in 1978, we lived in the unrenovated Adams Morgan neighborhood of D.C. My little girl's public school was about nine blocks west on Calvert Street from the city bus stop nearest our rented row house.  Where a park would form a few years later, my 6-year-old cut daily through a vacant lot strewn with old tires to get to the 40 line stop. I walked with her to the bus stop the first few days of the school year, but after she knew the way, I let my self-sufficient grade-school child set out alone every a.m. with a bus token and a peanut butter sandwich. My daughter survived my cavalier and inexperienced parenting and took her independence with her when she moved to Manhattan for college. As so many of you Generation X achievement goddesses, she grew up fearless at facing her professional and personal challenges. The self-reliance forged in childhood has served her well. That said, I was a nitwit who acted as if the innocent were immune. My neighbors should have blown the whistle on me. That spring, another child the same age as my daughter, destined perhaps for a similar happy future, wasn't as lucky. A set of well-intentioned but naive New York City parents heard a wakeup bell that reverberates today in Mississippi; Washington; New Haven, Conn.; and Ohio. The boy's parents, Julie and Stan Patz, were loving caretakers who, like me, failed to estimate the risk of allowing their 6-year-old to walk two blocks from his apartment door to his school bus. I've just finished reading a new release, After Etan, by my former ABC News colleague Lisa Cohen (who now teaches journalism at Columbia). Lisa's book is a disturbing and harrowing dissection of the unsolved Etan Patz missing child case that "held America captive" for days, weeks, and years after his disappearance. I'm certain that National Missing Children's Day, observed every year on the anniversary of their son's kidnapping, offers little comfort to his parents.
Print This ArticlePRINT Discuss in the FrayDISCUSS
<March 2009>
SMTWTFS
22232425262728
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930311234
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Syndication