The one thing harried modern parents want is everybody else to get off their backs

This article was published in The Australian 9 October 2010

Let kids run wild, or bury them in cotton wool: it doesn't seem to matter what we do, it's wrong.

Free range is a clever name for a how-to-bring-up-children crusade. It conjures visions of sunlit frolics through dandelion meadows while conveniently framing one's opponents as a pack of baby battery farmers.

The emotive imagery bypasses the need for evidence. Well, where would you rather be raised? The answer's a cinch. Except that when it comes to how best to raise children, the answer is never a cinch.

Free-Range Kids is a parenting movement started by Lenore Skenazy, the New York columnist branded America's worst mom after allowing her nine-year-old son to ride the subway home from a department store alone.

Apparently the young lad arrived back conspicuously unharmed by all the pedophile gangster-priest-muggers infesting our public transportation. Since then, Skenazy has started a blog, written a book and become an international instructress on sprog-raising.