A 19-Year-Old Reflects: How Let Grow Parenting Prepared Me for Life

We love when readers write to us, especially when they are young — like the intrepid Magdalene Selin-Williams!

Dear Lenore and Let Grow:

I have admired and resonated with your work since I found out about it. My name is Magdalene, I’m 19 years old, and I am a successful product of Free-Range / Let Grow parenting, although that’s not what my parents knew it as. They just knew it as being normal!

I came across your work a few years ago and was shocked that your choice to allow your son to ride the subway alone was so chastised. It caused me to think back on my experiences with childhood independence, especially that of traveling on the DC Metro system alone beginning at around age 8.

I never thought anything of it at the time, even before I had a cell phone (my parents gave me a flip phone when it became clear this would be a regular occurrence rather than every once in a while). I simply wanted to take the bus home instead of having to walk a mile. I wasn’t told not to tell my peers that I was riding public transit alone, but as I became a tween and teenager, I realized that all of my friends were just now beginning to do what I had been doing for years.

I was shocked.

Why had their parents deprived them of such an important chance to be independent? Riding public transportation alone as a child (whether just to school or to visit friends, take myself to appointments, or buy snacks) allowed me to learn how to keep my head up, stay aware of my surroundings, get myself where I wanted to go without relying on my busy parents to accompany me, and grow my confidence. I would be a fundamentally different person if I wasn’t allowed to take the metro by myself, if I didn’t have the chance to bike around alone, or to take a solo walk to the neighborhood center or a friends’ house.

Now, as someone on the cusp of being an adult, I can see how these experiences have shifted my perspective. I do not doubt my abilities to travel freely as someone in the body of a young woman. When I tell my peers about my solo cross-country camping trips to and from college and to visit friends, the most common response I get is “Alone?”

But to me, this doesn’t raise an eyebrow at all. My instincts have been sharpened by over a decade of independence and personal decision-making, something that I am endlessly grateful to my parents for allowing. Free-Range children are much more prepared to go into the world. Thank you so much for putting yourself on the line to do this excellent work, so kids can continue to grow up like I did.

Let Grow here: Parents! Want to start stepping back and seeing how much your child can do on their own? Here’s our FREE “Four Weeks to a Let Grow Kid” guide!