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I gave him a metro card and a map, and I said goodbye.

And I went one way and he went the other.

Well, clearly Lenore Skenezy thought it was perfectly okay to put her then nine-year-old son on the New York City subway alone.

Now, I'm a father of an eight-year-old.

There is no way in hell.

He's getting on a subway in Manhattan alone. What you just listened to is an old clip from the popular CBS television show Entertainment

Tonight, detailing the national controversy surrounding Lenore Scanesi's 2008 decision

to let her then nine-year-old son ride the New York City subway by himself.

Amid the uproar, Schenese, then a writer for the New York

Daily News, was dubbed America's Worst Mum. But Lenore wasn't put off, and she leaned hard

into a campaign to free American children from what she sees as an overly restrictive and

fearful style of parenting, which denies children

the ability to have adventures and develop essential life skills without constant parental oversight.

Since that time, she's written a book, starred in a reality television series, and co-founded

an organization called Let Grow, devoted to what she calls free-range parenting.

Most recently, Lenore delivered a well-received speech at the 2025 TED Talks in Vancouver,

which is where I cut up with her while attending Ted with my boss, Claire Lehman.

...