WOW is all I can say.  In my state this lady would have her son taken away from her ASAP.  I don't even let my kids play in the front yard without an adult or their oldest sister out there let alone get on a subway!  Are there parents who over protect their kids?  Yes.  Are they the ones that turn emo?  No.  The emo kids running around where I live are the ones with little to NO parent involvement. 

I think what frustrates me about over parenting is that honestly, the world is no more dangerous today than it was five, ten, or fifty years ago. The only thing that has changed is public perception of the dangers, especially with the addition of shows like Criminal Minds, CSI, etc. All of a sudden we're aware of every single little thing that could possibly go wrong, no matter how unlikely, and we feel that it's our job as a "good parent" to protect our children.

And on the one hand, it is our job to protect our kids. But it's not healthy to cripple them either. It's not healthy to have them so afraid of people that they won't ask another adult for help or even smile at them in the grocery store. We're raising wimpy, fearful kids who can't handle themselves and it's ridiculous.

All that being said, I don't use Purell on my kids literally or figuratively. I refuse to be a helicopter mom, I do not hover over my children, and I don't think it's my job to be their best friend/constant companion/source of all entertainment, happiness, and safety. I applaud this woman for letting her son ride the subway and be independent. We need more parents who are brave like that.

My parents were over-protective of me---understandbly. When I was younger (under 10 years old) I was never allowed to play in the front yard without an adult or my dog outside with me (plus the yard was fenced in). We lived a few blocks away from lower-income housing and where crimes were rampant. Also, props for mentioning the purell thing! I feel the exact same way. I am actually hoping to go to graduate school to help prove that things such as Purell are causing problems with our kids.

I do think that many parents suffocate their children with supervision.  Kids need to get out and experience life on their own, sometimes that is the only way they will actually learn!   I use to tell my mom to "Mother, not smother" lol.  I'm not saying kids should not be supervised, I just think that children should be allowed to make some decisions on their own.

I think part of the problem is that people often dont look at all of the options.  Using the subway examply - many people say that the kid should not have been allowed to ride the subway alone.  Perhaps completely alone was not the best option, if he had never ridden without an adult.  Perhaps the child should have ridden with another 9 year old friend first and then alone.  (I dont know the whole story behind it, so perhaps the kid had ridden without an adult before.)

My 10-month old nephew will soon be taking baby swimming classes.  My brother-in-law is a paramedic.  This past summer, he responded to a call in which a 2 year old boy drowned in the family's pool.  Both parents were home along with grandparents and aunts and uncles.  It was an accident, but trying to always keep a child away from a pool wont work.  So you have to find a happy medium - teaching the child to swim from a young age.  It has saved children before - they were able to swim around the pool long enough for someone to find them. 

When I was in middle school (starting age 11) I used to walk the 2.5 miles home on along a curvy road.  The road has gotten busier since then, but it still didnt have sidewalks.  We were taught how to walk along the side of a road, so that we kept safe instead of having someone hover over us all of the time.  (Of course many kids now couldnt imagine having to walk that far for anything!)

I think too often parents these days stick to one extreme or another!

@der_lila_Stern@xanga - Agreed 100%!

I've seen both extremes courtesy of my own mother... From the time I was 13 until I moved out of her house at 16.5, I rarely saw her, made my own meals, kept the house clean and did my own homeschooling. I did okay, but I wasn't the average teenager that I see around town today! I did make a lot of dumb mistakes because I didn't have her guidence and I couldn't go to her for it.

She went to the other extreme with the two boys that are now in my care. At 7 & 8-now-9, they looked at Tim and I like we had three heads when we told them they could go to the park together (but without adults) one day this past Summer! The park is contained within our neighborhood as part of the HOA...it's less than a 1/10 of a mile away from our home. Would I send them to the McDonald's alone? Probably not. It's only a mile away, but would involve crossing two intersections and there's four lanes of traffic...it's just too much for them to pay attention to and there's a 30+ MPH speed difference. They don't really know how to interact with other kids their age and it causes a lot of problems for them. They drive themselves nuts worrying about things that are HIGHLY unlikely to happen because that's what she taught them: to be afraid of their own shadows. :-/