Street Sense, Part I

Truth Thursday

School has been out for a little over a week, and apparently, in teenage land, that is license to forget the definition of the word "curfew."

My son is really quite responsible about checking in, letting us know where he's going and when he's going to be home. Except when he's not. And recently, on weeknights, he seems to think that every evening is an opportunity to call home at 10:00 (when he's supposed to be home) and mention that he wants to stay out later.

The moms of his closest neighborhood friends and I have, much to his horror, come together to talk about this as a team, so that we can unilaterally enforce a consistent curfew for all of the boys in their neighborhood band to abide by. It's a little more hands-on parenting than I'm used to, but we all agree that it's in the name of both safety and responsibility.

I've actually been thinking a lot about safety and street sense lately.

Two weeks ago, as I was taking a taxi to a meeting from one downtown DC location to another, I found myself in a frightening situation. My cab was cut off by a car, the driver of which started to yell at my driver. And my driver, who should have shrugged it off and moved on, instead got angry, and the two cars started yelling at each other, playing a game of cat and mouse from light to light. I was feeling the nerves jangle in the pit of my stomach.

I kept thinking the whole thing was going to end, which is why I didn't ask the driver to stop to let me out of the car. Instead, it escalated. Sure enough, at the next light, the driver of the other car yelled out of his window: "I'm going to shoot you!" Then he got out of his car and started storming over to the driver's side window of the cab. I feel my stomach fall into my legs, and I began to think that there was a distinct possibility that I could be caught in crossfire on the way to a work meeting.

Finally, the other driver looked at me, yelled that the cab driver was lucky that he had a passenger, and got back into his car. By that time, my cab driver lost his nerve, and began to drive way behind the other car. We continued to follow each other for several more blocks until it was time for me to get out – at last.

I saw the guys on the street again after I was done with my meeting – and I have to say, they looked like people I would cross the street to avoid.

Having grown up in New York City, I have been walking city streets on my own since I was about 10 years old. I lived in New York during its most dangerous modern years, the bankrupt 1970s and the crack-ridden 1980s. I was mugged at knifepoint in my doorway a few months before I left the city. I moved to DC, nicknamed the murder capital of the world, but it actually felt like a much safer, slower paced place, one in which I have almost always felt completely safe.

But I still have a finely honed street sense. I can tell in my bones when something seems inherently unsafe, and I always have my antennae up.

But do my kids?

My children have grown up in a neighborhood that feels, on its surface, quite safe. But I get police reports on a regular basis, and I know that there is a lot of crime around the edges, including up the block from us. Cars get rifled, people get mugged on their way home from the metro, sometimes there are hold-ups in local establishments. Houses are broken into, property is stolen, and there are occasional shootings. It is a safe neighborhood, but it is definitely more urban than suburban, and the level of crime reflects that nature.

What will happen when one of my kids, likely my teenage son, confronts a crime face to face? What will his response be? Will he know it in his stomach? Will he be smart and do whatever it takes to stay safe and get away? Or will he think he's tough and want to take on the attackers?

My 12-year-old daughter walks to school every day with a group of friends. But what if she's alone one day and someone tries to steal her phone? How will she react?

How do you teach street sense? Is it simply an intuitive thing, one that everyone has – the fight or flight response? Do you have to have had encountered some dangerous street incident to help you hone your own sense of personal safety? Or can I teach them something about what it takes to walk the streets in our city – a generally safe place but one in which they need to always be a bit wary?

My son's curfew is one of the few things left that I can impose to help keep him safe in the world – the one in which he is increasingly making his own moves and his own decisions. As he gets older and more independent, it is less and less my responsibility to be vigilant about his safety and it becomes more and more his own combination of brains, brawn and street sense that will see him through.

I have always allowed my kids a modicum of independence, from the time they were allowed to run "to the swings" down the block from our house when they were four, to allowing my youngest to start walking home from elementary school this year by himself, to watching my oldest learn how to use busses, the metro and his own two feet to get him where he needs to go.

I am proud of my kids' independence. And I am proud of my own street sense. Now I need to figure out how to weave the two together so that I can breathe a little easier as they make their way down the street and in the world.

 

 Photo by alancleaver_2000 via Flickr

 

 

 

Comments

[Linda Keely]

"How do you teach street sense?" Great question! I think it is a topic you can train your children on, so if they ever need to use it, the response will be internalized for them to rely on. Our family discusses some simple rules which we bring up from time-to-time to ensure they are sinking in.
1. Trust your instincts - if if doesn't feel right, take action and remove yourself from the situation as quickly as possible.
2. Know where the "safe houses" are (e.g., friends, neighbors, acquaintances, stores) that you can go to if your instincts are saying something's not right.
3. If you feel like someone is following you in a car, walk in the opposite direction that the car is going in.
For more suggestions on teaching street smarts, see "http://kidshealth.org/kid/watch/out/street_smart.html".

[Stacy]

Excellent post and good advice from Linda Keely, above! I think street sense is just a variant on common sense. Unlike you, I grew up in a very suburban town and didn't fully develop my street sense until I moved to New York. But one night, when I was in high school, I was driving home by myself from meeting up with friends who lived two towns over. I had the feeling that a car was following me (not sure why, but I did) and I knew that that it was when it followed me to the end of my block and then over to the next street. In a flash, I decided not to stop and get out of the car in front of my house or honk on the horn for my parents (who were deep sleepers). (This was before cell phones so I couldn't have called.) Instead, I drove out of the neighborhood and to the local Dunkin' Donuts, which was open all night, and usually had a bunch of police officers on the night shift hanging out in the store or in their cars drinking coffee. I pulled in between two cars, told the police what was going on, and they escorted me home.