How over-protective parents raised an anxious generation | Lenore Skenazy

The spiked podcast

spiked

Politics, News, Society & Culture, Government

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Lenore Skenazy let her nine-year-old use the New York Subway on his own, she was dubbed ‘America’s Worst Mom’. In our age of safetyism, children are expected to be supervised, monitored and coddled at all times – not left alone to explore the outside world. No generation has ever been so sheltered. And nor has any generation felt so anxious and depressed. Here, Lenore Skenazy – president of Let Grow – makes the case for free-range parenting, for letting kids have some independence from their parents, and toning down the panic over ‘stranger danger’. Read spiked: https://www.spiked-online.com/ Support spiked: https://www.spiked-online.com/support/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:00.1	As kids' independence and free play have been going down, their anxiety and depression have
1:05.7	been going up. You don't get a chance to run to your friend's house after school or hop on your
1:10.2	bike. Any of these sort of classic childhood activities, the vast majority of crimes against kids are not committed by strangers.
	...

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