Parenting Advice From The World’s Worst Mom (With Lenore Skenazy)

Lever Time

The Lever

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.8 • 560 Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As parents, we’re told homicidal maniacs, drug peddlers, and creeps are lurking in every shadow, waiting to grab your children. But is that true? Is our obsession with keeping our kids safe doing more harm than good? Today on Lever Time, David Sirota investigates the difference between good parenting and overparenting — and the political history behind our fear that kidnappers are roaming the streets. David enlists the help of author and advocate Lenore Skenazy, a champion for “free-range parenting,” who was once labeled the World’s Worst Mom when she let her child ride the New York City subway alone. Want to hear more? As an exclusive bonus to our paid subscribers, click here for David’s full conversation with Lenore Skenazy. Lenore explains how to protect kids on social media, how she developed her parenting philosophy, and so much more. Not yet a paid subscriber? Click here for a special membership offer exclusive to Lever Time listeners. Click here for a full transcript of the episode. To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the free ad-supported version of our podcast. For an ad-free experience,
0:05.5	visit levernews.com slash upgrade. When Donald Trump was inaugurated like all presidents, he swore
0:12.1	an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. Instead, Donald Trump has decided
0:16.9	to swerve, deflect, and append the Constitution and treat it like a terms and conditions
0:21.8	page. I'm Professor Corey Brett Schneider. And I'm deeply unqualified comedian John Fugleson.
0:27.3	We'd like to invite you to listen to the Oath in the Office podcast where every week we interpret
0:32.1	the Constitution and hold Trump accountable to his oath. It's a podcast that offers real insight on how to take action against tyranny and mayhem,
0:41.2	because despair is not a strategy.
0:43.8	We'll hold him to his pledge, despite his threats to democracy and the law itself.
0:49.3	It's a podcast that's all about hope for what a real democracy should look like from an esteemed, respected
0:54.9	constitutional scholar and a deeply neurotic comedian who thought the emoluments clause was a breakfast item.
1:01.1	Subscribe to The Oath in the Office where every week we talk about how citizens can preserve our democracy
1:06.7	and fight back against the threat to democracy.
1:10.1	Subscribe to The Oath in the Office on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.
1:17.8	The Lever
1:18.7	From The Lever's Reader-supported Newsroom, this is Lever Time.
1:24.9	I'm David Sirota.
1:26.3	If you're a parent, you know what it means to worry.
1:29.8	I know that feeling. I worry about my kids all the time, about basically everything. But what
1:36.3	happens when that worry spirals completely out of control and takes a chokehold on our society?
1:42.0	Today on Levertime, I'm going to tell you about how an internal
1:45.5	family debate in the Sorota household, about my son's dream bicycle, triggered a descent
	...

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