NEW YORK-
In cities that have subways, learning to ride the train alone is as big a rite of passage as getting a driver’s license. Only it tends to happen at a much younger age.
At age 12, I started going to junior high school in Manhattan by subway. It took three trains to get there, and this was during the ’70s, when New York City was not as clean, safe and well-run as it is today. The trains often stopped in the tunnels and lost power for minutes on end; purse-snatchings were rampant and graffiti was everywhere. As a daily rider, though, I was able to tune all that out. As long as the lights stayed on, I spent as much time on the train as I could doing my homework. I learned early not to make eye contact with my fellow riders.
I began taking my own children on the subway when they were newborns, literally transporting week-old infants in Snuglis and Baby Bjorn carriers to doctors’ appointments, later trudging up and down flights of subway stairs with strollers as I brought them to places around the city. As they grew up, they learned safety and etiquette: No running on the stairs or platforms (“There’ll always be another train,” I told them, “but there’s only one you”). Give your seat to anyone who looks like a grandma or grandpa. Please don’t shimmy up the pole or do chin-ups on the handbars. And of course, don’t stare at others, even if someone looks or acts a little odd.
My older son started his solo subway trips at age 10 going on 11, as he began sixth grade and had to attend middle school in another neighborhood. At first this filled me with terror. What if he got lost? What if he got mugged? What if he lost his MetroCard and was stranded? What if a crazy person pushed him on the tracks or tried to kidnap him?
The first two days of school my husband and I went with him, morning and afternoon. I wasn’t sure how we were going to keep doing this, given that we both work full-time, but I was trying not to think that far ahead. By the third day, though, my boy had had enough of our molly-coddling.
“What do you think is going to happen to me?” he said.
Not wanting to frighten him with my paranoid visions of disaster, I said, “You might get lost.”
“I’ll prove to you that I won’t,” he said. “Follow me, and don’t say a word.”
It was 9 p.m. on a weeknight, but he nagged me until I agreed to go with him. Out we headed to our local subway stop. Wordlessly, I followed as he made the trip to his school and back without a hitch. When we got off the train near home again, he turned to me triumphantly.
“See? I did it!”
Instantly my brain was flooded with a hundred what-ifs. So I put him through the paces. “What if a really scary person got on the train and started staring at you?”
“I would go stand next to a nice-looking lady and pretend she was my mother.”
I was impressed. “What if the train was re-routed and skipped your stop?”
“I would get off at the next station and take the train back.”
Then came the trivia. I fired the questions as fast as I could. “You’re at Jay Street-Borough Hall, going to school. Are you heading to Manhattan or Coney Island?”
“Coney Island,” he responded, quick as a Jeopardy contestant.
“You’re at Prospect Park, headed home. Manhattan or Coney?”
“Manhattan,” he shouted.
“You get on the G train by accident. Where do you change to get back to the F?”
“Smith and Ninth.”
A few more of those and I was exhausted. He was ready, even if I wasn’t. And why shouldn’t he be? I did the same thing at his age. Taking the subway by yourself is part of growing up in New York. And for many city kids, it’s the first journey they’ll ever take alone–if riding a rush-hour train with a thousand other New Yorkers counts as being alone.
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This week’s advice: Is there a bus route or other safe form of public transportation in your town? If you have an adolescent who hasn’t ridden alone, consider teaching him or her how to follow a simple route, perhaps from your home to a friend or relative’s home. Ride the route with the child a few times, then follow wordlessly as the child runs through the route alone. If your child has a friend with a likeminded parent, see if the kids can take the bus together to see a movie or go to a mall some time. Give them a cell phone so they can check in or in case they need advice along the way. They’ll love the independence and they’ll have an alternative way to get around without relying on mom and dad’s chauffeuring.
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