Allowing a 16-year-old girl to sail alone around the world — were they insane? Not at all. Unusual, yes. But hardly “the worst parents in the world,” as I’ve heard them called recently. In fact, they may be the opposite. Like Paul Romero, the father of Jordan Romero, the 13-year-old California teenager who climbed Mount Everest last month, the Sunderlands are practicing something bold and rare these days: brave parenting.
Raising kids today (I have two, ages 8 and 11) is like working on a construction site with an overzealous risk manager. Everywhere you look are signs reminding parents that Safety Is Job One. We’re told to cut up hot dogs and grapes to prevent choking, to lash the kids into car seats, to never let them out of sight at the park. A certain amount of this is progress, of course.
But in our obsession with safety, we’ve lost sight of the upside of risk, danger and even injury: raising bold children who are prepared for adventure and eager to embrace the unfamiliar.
The habitat of my own children is constrained. There are entirely too many screens and couches. As Richard Louv pointed out in his groundbreaking book, “Last Child in the Woods,” kids are playing outside less often and for ever-shrinking periods of time. Sandra Hofferth, a researcher at the University of Maryland, found that the amount of time kids spent outside doing things such as walking, hiking, fishing and beach play declined by 50 percent between 1997 and 2003.
That inactivity has consequences. In the 1960s, less than 5 percent of American kids were obese. Now it’s pushing 20 percent. So seldom do kids wander in the woods that “nature deficit disorder” has become a common concern among parents of my generation.
The Sunderlands aren’t crazy. They’re subversives. They’re undermining a dominant culture that pumps parents full of fear and finds us at fault every time our child skins a knee.
Let’s be clear: Brave parenting isn’t synonymous with wise parenting. I have my own reservations about a 13-year-old like Jordan Romero climbing Everest. The maturity of a 13-year-old can’t compare with a 16-year- old. It’s why we allow teenagers to drive at 16 and not 13.
Last year, Dutch authorities were so alarmed by 13-year-old Laura Dekker’s plan to sail alone around the world that they didn’t just stop her from setting sail; they punished her father by revoking partial custody.
Nanny state, thou doth appear ridiculous in thy judgments and thy wooden clogs.
There are murmurings this week about the Sunderlands signing a reality TV deal. To be honest, that makes me a little nervous. But consider that Abby’s older brother, Zac, did the around-the-world gig last year with no reality TV deal.
To me, the bright line in these situations is the age of 16. It’s taken us a century of trial and error to settle on that boundary in terms of driving and it seems an apt guideline for these sorts of adventures as well. Word to the Dutch: That’s guideline, not law.
And while I question the wisdom of a 13-year-old going up a Himalayan peak or sailing solo, I can’t fault the impulse behind it. I applaud it. I’m not about to rope up with my 11-year-old daughter on K2. That’s not who she is. And if it were, she’d still be too young. But the brave parenting of the Sunderlands and the Romeros forces me to reconsider the constraints I put on my kids. It helps me lead my son and daughter to the edge of the woods and tell them, go farther now. On your own.
Bruce Barcott is a contributing editor at Outside magazine. He wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.
