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By Lenore Skenazy

Back in 2009, the parenting site Babble listed the top 50 “mom” blogs in America—funniest, most fashionable, etc., and “most controversial.”

That would be my blog, Free-Range Kids. Then it was voted most controversial again, a year later.

What crazy idea was I pushing? Don’t vaccinate your kids? Clobber them when they cry? Teach them to play piano by threatening to burn their stuffed animals? Actually, my message was—and is—this: Our kids are just as safe and smart as we were when we were young. There’s no reason to suddenly be afraid of everything they do, see, eat, wear, hear, touch, read, watch, lick, play or hug.

That idea runs smack up against the big, basic belief of our era: That our kids are in constant danger. It’s an erroneous idea that is crippling our children and enslaving us parents.

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