Welcome to the Quillette Podcast, which is usually hosted on alternate weeks by me, Jonathan Kay, and by Iona Italia. Quillette is where free thought lives. We are an independent, grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless commentary.

What you just listened to is an old clip from the popular CBS television show Entertainment Tonight, detailing the national controversy surrounding Lenore Skenazy’s 2008 decision to let her then-nine-year-old son ride the New York City subway by himself. Amid the uproar, Skenazy, then a columnist for the New York Daily News, was dubbed America’s Worst Mom. Now, most parents would be chastened by this and retreat from public life. But not Lenore, who leaned into her campaign to free American children from what she sees as an overly restrictive and fearful style of parenting, which denies children the ability to have adventures and develop essential life schools without parental oversight.

Since that time, she’s written a book called Free-Range Kids, starred in a reality television series, and co-founded an organisation called Let Grow, devoted to what she calls free-range parenting. Most recently, she delivered a well-received speech at the 2025 TED Talks in Vancouver, which is where I caught up with her while attending TED with my boss Claire Lehmann. Please enjoy my conversation with free-range parenting advocate Lenore Skenazy.

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