Guest post by Mama Kodiak Bear
Once upon a time, long before the invention of the helicopter parent, families lived their lives and parents did what parents have always done – they watched their kids grow, they nurtured them and protected them, and no fancy parenting laws were needed.
Then one day, a suspiciously overzealous journalist named Lenore Skenazy promoted the idea that parents are too overprotective. Somehow she was able to convince parental rights advocates and state lawmakers that her laws are absolutely necessary for children to be able to play freely.
In 2017, Skenazy teamed up with Daniel Shuchman, Dr. Peter Gray, and Jonathan Haidt to start a nonprofit promoting childhood independence and resilience. Its working title was, “Too Safe to Succeed.” But the team decided “Let Grow” better suited their goal of making it easy, normal, and legal to give kids back some age-old freedom.
“Free-roaming kids” are an easy way to measure a city’s health, said Skenazy. And though Skenazy is not an expert in urbanism, her friend Richard Florida most certainly is. Two years after he wrote The Great Reset, Florida tweeted how free-range kids are good for the community. Was he talking about the global community?
Free-Range Parenting laws are now called Reasonable Childhood Independence laws, and the plan is to have one in every state. But is such a law needed in every state so that kids can enjoy childhood? Or is this just someone trying to take her agenda to the next level? The next level would of course be LET GROW TOWNS, and if you think this momma bear is joking, read on!
It’s all right here.
Ithaca, New York declared itself the first Free-Range Kids town in the U.S. Hooray! Let’s hear it for Ithaca, an ICLEI community that’s making it perfectly clear kids are a vital part of the global community! This is better for the families, the stores, the economy, and even housing prices. And let’s all be more like Ithaca because the Just Play Project is developing an economically, socially, and environmentally just model of free play for all.
Wait a minute… why is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Just Play Project website? Do they want international law to override parental rights in our country? It’s a good thing Parental Rights Org steadfastly opposes the UNCRC. Maybe somebody should tell them about this.
And why is the Catholic news outlet Aleteia promoting Free-Range Parenting legislation?
In a HuffPost article from 2016, global CEO and best-selling author Rana Florida explained, “Lenore got in touch with me with a plan to encourage towns and cities to adopt the Free-Range Kids Bill of Rights.” The article was very informative and it highlighted an unfortunate experience of Julie Gunlock.
Rana Florida is on the Let Grow Advisory Board and is the CEO of Creative Class Group, a global think tank/advisory firm founded by her husband Richard Florida. Talk about a power couple, the Floridas are both appointed members of the UN Global Network on Digital Technologies and Sustainable Urbanization for UN Habitat. More about Richard Florida in a minute. Read on!
At a recorded 2014 Cato Institute event, Skenazy opened her famous ‘bubble-wrapping’ speech by thanking Julie Gunlock. She then proceeded to describe a weird dream she had the night before while sleeping over at Gunlock’s house. https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-video/quit-bubble-wrapping-our-kids-featuring-lenore-skenazy-part-1
Check out the articles and events on the Cato Unbound Children’s Safety and Liberty page. Was the “Reining in the Nanny State” event some sort of a joke? Because the Nanny State is exactly what we will have if the UNCRC ever comes roaring back in the US Senate. And how interesting to see one of the ‘Nanny State’ presenters was… Julie Gunlock.
Now let us examine some World Economic Forum connections — because there definitely are some of those.
Let Grow’s ubiquitous co-founder Jonathan Haidt, who famously co-authored “The Coddling of the American Mind”, is listed on the WEF website as an agenda contributor. Nuff said. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/authors/jonathan-haidt
Richard Florida counsels the UN Economic and Social Council and has been a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Creative Economy. He can be found on the WEF website and also in Lenore Skenazy’s old tweets.
So, is this the reason for free-range kids? To serve Richard Florida and his bogus creative class? Or is there a more nefarious reason for the rise of “free-range kids” and efforts to abolish the sex offender registry?
Prior to forming the Let Grow organization, Skenazy campaigned heavily for changes to sex offender laws.
In order to “counter the culture of overprotection” of children, one would have to understand the reasoning for abolishing the sex offender registry.
The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) loves Lenore because she wrote an article drawing sympathy for poor unfortunate Galen Baughman (a Soros Justice Fellow), who had sex with a 14-year-old when he was nineteen. https://all4consolaws.org/2015/12/who-is-a-sex-offender-lenore-skenazy/
Slate magazine expanded the story a year later and it looks like the sex offender brunch publicity stunt might have backfired. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/04/galen-baughman-seemed-like-an-ideal-spokesman-for-sex-offenders-civil-rights-then-he-got-arrested-for-texting-a-teenage-boy.html
Oh well, no matter. Years later the sex offender brunch is still being applauded — and defended — by Julie Gunlock.
PRO-PEDOPHILE ORGANIZATIONS
Destigmatization of pedophilia is the end goal for groups such as NARSOL, ACSOL, Prostasia, and NAMBLA.
Does NAMBLA love Lenore because of articles like this?
The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL) loves Lenore Skenazy so much that they gave her an award. In 2015, she was one of their first recipients. https://narsol.org/awards/
They love articles about abolishing the public sex offender registry. https://narsol.org/2017/01/abolish-the-public-sex-offender-registry/
NAMBLA was so impressed with Skenazy’s work that they shared it on their website.
Who is NAMBLA and why do they love Skenazy’s work?
Lenore recently wrote a piece defending the parents who take their children to drag performances: https://reason.com/2022/06/10/drag-show-ron-desantis-kids-family/ While Skenazy stops short of saying it is a good decision to take your kids to a drag show at a gay bar, she says that it shouldn’t bring an investigation to families because investigations are stressful. Never mind that children at these events are being sexually groomed and indoctrinated with gender ideology. Why would Skenazy feel compelled to chime in on drag queen entertainment for children? I thought she was about children playing alone outside or using public transportation alone? Here is a picture of her with Drag Queen Yuhua Hamasaki, a Drag Queen Story Hour reader:
Reason wrote a second article defending drag shows for kids in which it stated parents should be free to take their kids to the child sexual grooming events and claimed that drag was not inherently sexual. Perhaps the editors at Reason should have done more research on drag culture and about the particular role models at the drag event in Dallas they wrote about. The host of the show has a criminal record for prostitution, drug possession, and drug distribution. But that is nothing unusual in drag culture. Reason editor, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, even went so far as to say that Texas Representative Bryan Slaton who is proposing a law to ban children from drag queen entertainment was the one sexualizing things.
Brown writes about sex and sex work. In this article for Reason, she laments the attacks on the pornography industry and makes a strange claim that the ability for anyone to upload homemade porn on the internet creates more diverse porn.
Reason is on board with Skenazy and her “free-range kids” concept. It seems they also think children should have free range on the internet.
Nick Gillespie also writes for Reason. He seems strangely in favor of children being exploited in a Netflix movie as long as it sends an important message. Huh? Pervs watching these young girls gyrate on stage and rub up against each other certainly aren’t thinking of the social message it sends.
Who are the influencers platforming Crazy Skenazy and the idea of less oversight of children while simultaneously relaxing sex offender laws?
ALEC https://alec.org/person/lenore-skenazy/
IWF https://www.iwf.org/people/lenore-skenazy/
CATO INSTITUTE https://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/lenore-skenazy/
REASON https://reason.com/people/lenore-skenazy/
NARSOL https://narsol.org/tag/lenore-skenazy/
ACSOL https://all4consolaws.org/?s=skenazy
NAMBLA https://www.nambla.org/zeitgeist.html
https://www.nambla.org/zeitgeist_october_2011.html
Lenore in Coddling of the American Mind book https://www.thefire.org/catching-up-with-coddling-part-eight-some-big-wins-for-free-play-and-childhood-independence/
New York Times Bestselling Author Irshad Manji Joins Let Grow to Promote “Unwoke Diversity” in Schools https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-york-times-bestselling-author-irshad-manji-joins-let-grow-to-promote-unwoke-diversity-in-schools-301016104.html
It seems almost unfathomable that so many influential organizations and people are embracing the relaxing of safeguarding of children, promoting the freedom to spread porn without even protecting children, and promoting relaxing the sex offender laws. What could possibly go wrong?
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