Helicoptering, the inside story?

I felt I had to follow up on the Monday morning story. Daycare schedule is still up in the air, but the bus situation has been resolved--intriguingly so.

Monday afternoon I walked up to meet Edith in the afternoon at the bus stop she/we prefer. A couple of  parents welcomed me, asking why they hadn't met me before. I explained, still rather grumpy about the whole thing. People began weighing in: Of the six mothers, one father, and one grandmother at the stop, several seemed vaguely sympathetic, but the most vocal either (1) registered their disapproval of my laxness as a parent, or (2) kindly tried to solve the problem for me. Let us walk your daughter home for you, several suggested. Call one of us to babysit your toddler if she's napping at bus stop time, offered a husband-wife couple. Another mother planned to contact the transportation department to get the route changed, so the stop nearest our home would come earlier. Today's parents are nothing if not problem solvers.

But as for the idea that letting a child walk alone is inherently valuable, neither Teaching Independence nor Showing Trust seemed to be a conversation starter. Among the contemporary parenting priorities weighed in the balance, they don't seem even to register on a scale tipped so heavily toward Safety.

Or so I thought. Apparently a few other parents secretly think it's okay for a first grader to walk half a block alone after all. Or they're busy at 4 p.m., too, and see the sense in not racing up to the corner to hang around but in letting their children come to them. When the bus rolled up to Edith's stop the next morning, the driver got off, beckoned the adults over for a conference, and announced that multiple parents had called the director of transportation the night before to say they wanted their children to be able to use two different bus stops without direct supervision. (I wasn't one of them--though I had emailed the principal, who cited Stranger Danger and mountain lions as the school's first priorities.) The bus driver didn't like it at all, he said, but he had been overruled. We'd better realize we are responsible for our kids once they get off the bus. We do. (Though I fear Edith is just as screwed if she meets a mountain lion with me as without me. Fortunately, no one who grew up in the neighborhood has ever seen one.)

The result is that much of the afternoon route seems to have evaporated, as about half the neighborhood is now getting off at the stop four doors up from our house. (It's smack in the middle of a maze of streets that otherwise make for a looping, circuitous route.) Many parents are still waiting for their kids on the curb, but not all. So far everyone seems to have found their way home.

Here's hoping all your children find the mixture of safety and challenge--and you, the blend of care-giving and sanity--that works for a happy, healthy family.

But if anyone's interested, I'm still happy to consider the commune.