Rant ahead

I am not one to openly question someone's parenting skills, but...here we are. I was directed to a blog written by a rather conservative, religious woman who homeschools her children. I most certainly do not have a problem with any of those things, but let's just say things got a bit disturbing as I continued reading.

Take this post, about her 22-year-old daughter's experience with jury duty.

The first paragraph set off some alarm bells. Take this sentence:

"I would not leave her in the Big City by herself."

What exactly is the "Big City," you ask? Well, it's that frightening metropolis, Wilmington, Delaware.

WILMINGTON, DELAWARE.

Yes, that crime-ridden cesspool of a city!

As my faithful readers know, I was born and raised in Wilmington (within the city limits, even!). I know that there are bad sections of town (hell, I grew up near one) but the area near the courthouse at 9:30 in the morning is hardly the setting for a Law & Order episode. Why in the world would a healthy, non-mentally challenged 22-year-old who lives mere MILES from the city not be able to handle getting downtown by herself? Especially after completing a test run the day before? I'm sorry, but if your (FULL-ASS ADULT) child cannot even remotely navigate her way around a city by herself at 22, let alone a town of 80,000, then you have failed as a parent. And even if she can (and I'm inclined to believe she could), if you will not let her attempt to do so, you have failed.

I want to finish by saying that I was not the most self-reliant of children. Nevertheless, my parents pushed me to go beyond my comfort level and I'm the better for it. I cannot imagine how my life would be today, 25 years old and having lost both of them, if they had simply done everything for me like I wanted them to. Their job was not to protect me from the world, but to prepare me to live in it.