#heroseries

Hella n stuff (she's tired)

Not the sexiest of heroes, you say? A man who has made some questionable political choices? While that may be, due to my history, there is no way that I can let news of Ralph Nader’s Tort Law Museum opening pass without commemorating it here. 

As the daughter of a trial attorney who fought for plaintiff’s rights, Nader has always meant a lot to me. I know, I know, there were his ineffectual and divisive Presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004, which led to the widely debated Nader effect. When George W Bush won the 2004 election, like others, I was pretty pissed at my childhood hero.  

Time has passed, and some of those wounds have healed (mostly). It certainly helps that Nader has gone back to doing what he does best: showing how important our legal system is in protecting consumers from corporate shortcuts and wrongdoing. That’s the goal of Nader’s ambitious new museum in Winstead, Connecticut. Here’s a good synopsis from John Culhane in Politico:

AMTL is meant, at least in part, to counter the narrative of the so-called “tort reformers.” Nader is puzzled and infuriated by their one-two punch, which has staggered the civil justice system by reducing the number of cases brought, and slashing the recovery of the plaintiffs who remain. Given the deterrent effect baked into tort law, these high barriers to litigation bleed off the incentive to make products, safety protocols and medical practice better.

Lest that sound dry, well, it’s not—great care was taken to make it eye-catching and interesting. From the same article:

Part of the reason for the museum’s success is the visual pop it achieves with outsized, dramatic illustrations of the cases. This dynamism isn’t surprising considering how Eisterhold Associates, the firm responsible for the National Civil Rights Museum and the Jurassic Park exhibit at Universal Studios, designed the AMTL.

It makes me leap for joy to see Nader try to set the record straight on the importance of giving the little guy his day in court against big corporations. After all, I am my father’s daughter—here’s a quote from his law firm Arthur, O’Neil, Mertz, Michel, & Brown: 

Rod's fundamental belief, which drove many of his accomplishments as a plaintiffs' attorney, was that it was a privilege and responsibility to stand up for those who could not stand up for themselves.

I love you Dad.

It’s not always easy to be a parent in the United States if you believe that your kids can handle some unsupervised time. As I wrote in my last post, we fear for our children’s safety (despite them being incredibly safe). Many parents think their children should never be unsupervised; some think leaving a child alone should actually be illegal. Unfortunately, parents who buck this trend and let their children go to the park or walk home alone face criticism and even arrest.

That’s why my hero today is Lenore Skenazy, author of the influential book and blog Free Range Kids, the motto of which is “Children have the right to some unsupervised time, and parents have the right to give it to them without getting arrested.” Skenazy came up with the idea for Free Range Kids after she wrote a 2008 piece in the New York Sun about letting her 9-year-­old son ride the New York subway alone (if this sounds crazy to you, note that NYC is one of the safest big American cities and that Japanese kids often start riding the subway alone at 6). 

The national outrage her column caused—she appeared under the headline “World’€™s Worst Mom?” in many media outlets—inspired her to stand up for other parents like her, and try to ground helicopter parents.

Her blog offers great reminders that children have incredible abilities, and thrive when left alone. It offers a treasure trove of reassuring crime stats. It admittedly tries to shock some sense into people by publicizing the truly scary and ridiculous ways parents are punished by overprotective authorities. But most of all it is a loud voice of reason calling on parents to believe in their children, and raise them to believe in themselves.

And I think she’s helping. There is a rising call against overparenting, from many sources. When a couple in Maryland recently let their 10 and 6-year-old kids walk home alone from a park and were charged by Child Protective Services, mainstream news outlets seemed more sympathetic than when Lenore did the same thing in 2008. And a few days ago when I let my very capable five-year­-old walk half a block ahead of me on the sidewalk and turn the corner by herself, a nearby adult smiled at me and said “Free range kid!”

Thank you, Lenore Skenazy, for helping us raise brave, resilient kids, and for your tireless support of parents who let reason triumph over fear.