Being a parent is hard work, particularly if you care about raising your children to be strong, smart, independent adults who don’t call 911 when the power goes out.
That’s why we should at least give a pat on the back to the Vancouver dad who made international headlines recently because of a forward-thinking parenting choice he made. In a post on his blog, Vancouver’s Adrian Crook revealed that he spent more than a year grooming his four oldest children, all between the ages of seven and 11, to take public transit together to school. After a planned, gradual decrease in the father’s involvement, the four eventually learned to do the entire 45-minute bus trip from Vancouver to North Vancouver on their own.
That’s some dedication – this father, who shares custody of his five children with his ex-wife who lives in North Van, obviously cares about raising strong citizens, and doesn’t care about that weird sticky feeling coating every surface of a bus.
As a father of two who gets fed up spending half an hour prepping my kids for bedtime – seriously, how can they run all day at top speed but it takes them 20 minutes to walk eight steps to the bathroom!? – this bus plan sounds like a lot of work.
Every parent knows there’s an easy way to do things and there’s a better, harder way to do things. If there’s half an hour to kill before suppertime, parents can haul out the paint set for the kids, set up the easel, go in the storage closet to get the big pad of paper and then pretend to be dazzled by whatever smeary mess emerges. Then they can head to the carpet store to check out swatches for the paint-stained section that’ll need replacing. That’s the hard way.
The easy way to kill 30 minutes? Turn on the TV. Boom, done. I know this choice well, because I have a few *stunning* paintings in my house (and on my furniture) and I’ve also watched many hours of TV with my children (try Nature Cat on PBS, it’s hilarious!).
Crook and his big brood of bus riders did things the hard way and he should be commended. He says he used to own a minivan and could have kept on driving the kids to school and dropping them at the front door. He didn’t do that, however, and chose the bus route instead.
The reason his story garnered international attention is that the provincial Ministry of Children and Family Development received an anonymous complaint and, after a long investigation, told him he can’t leave any of his children who are under the age of 10 unattended, regardless of all the work that the family did to prepare them for this daily journey.
I’m not here to pass judgment on this particular case. We don’t know these kids or all the facts beyond what the father said (and our newspaper did ask the ministry). There isn’t any one-size-fits-all answer to these types of issues. I’ve met some nine-year-olds who are so sharp they could probably drive the bus themselves, and I’ve met some 16-year-olds who should not be allowed near any moving objects or other human being without the strict supervision of a well-armed team of Mounties. I’m not going to bash the ministry either – their workers no doubt have a tough job. Protecting kids from harm is important work. It’s pretty much the most important work, I’d say.
But the facts, as laid out by the father, certainly don’t make it seem like he is putting his children any more at risk than most other children who travel to school every day. As Crook pointed out, the No. 1 killer of children under the age of 15 is car accidents, while bus travel is much, much safer.
You want to see unsafe? Watch the parade of parents racing their SUVs to school every morning, trying to get their kids as close as vehicularly possible to the front door while side streets half a block away remain empty. Many of them don’t even bother parking, they just stop in the middle of the street and the kids jump out and run. Whose kids are safer?
Crook is worried that he might lose access to his children if he runs afoul of the ministry again (a horrible fear for every dedicated parent). It’s a bit ironic that the moral panic induced by the incredibly unlikely scenario of a stranger kidnapping one of these kids off the bus has contributed to this father’s real fear of getting his children taken away by the government.
Anyway, for all who are shouting their important opinions about child safety onto internet message boards, might I suggest that you do something that really helps better the life of a child?
Become a Big Brother or Big Sister. Advocate for hot lunch programs. Coach a team, implement a walking school bus program, lobby the government for safer bike lanes so parents can feel confident sending their kids off to school on two wheels.
There’s an easy way to do things and there’s a harder, better way to do things. Sometimes, when you really care about the long-term results, you’ve got to do things the hard way. Right after Nature Cat is over.
