"Mom lets son, 9, ride subway alone"

That's MSNBC's headline on a story that shows how insane people are. Not the woman who let her kid ride the subway—no, I was riding the subway in Chicago alone at about that age during a far more dangerous era—but the people who think she committed some kind of child abuse:

"It's safe to go on the subway," [the boy's mother said in an interview]. "It's safe to be a kid. It's safe to ride your bike on the streets. We're like brainwashed because of all the stories we hear that it isn't safe. But those are the exceptions. That's why they make it to the news. This is like, 'Boy boils egg.' He did something that any 9-year-old could do."

Finally! Someone with a realistic appraisal of risk, and the balance between child safety and child growth.