“World’s Worst Mom” Lenore Skenazy will be at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on September 14 to talk about fear and freedom when it comes to raising your kids
Who: Lenore Skenazy
What: “How Did We Come to Believe Our Children Are in Constant Danger from Creeps, Kidnapping, Germs, Grades, Flashers, Frustration, Failure, Baby Snatchers, Bugs, Bullies, Men, and the Perils of a Non-Organic Grape?”
Where: Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl., 646-437-4202
When: Wednesday, September 14, $12 (includes one drink), 7:00
Why: Just in time for back-to-school season, Lenore Skenazy, the creator of Free Range Kids and the facilitator of the Discovery Life Channel reality series World’s Worst Mom, will be at the Museum of Jewish Heritage to explain why it’s okay to give more freedom to your kids. On the show, Skenazy has dealt with such scenarios as children riding their bike, walking the dog, or taking the bus for the first time without parental or other adult supervision. She attempts to calm the fears of overprotective, paranoid mothers, but instead she gets such responses as “I’m very irritated with you, Lenore,” from a young mother whose two children just walked the three blocks from school to home by themselves one afternoon. “It’s setting them up for something unrealistic. They’re not going to walk to school by themselves,” the mother argues, even as her husband thinks it was a good thing. Skenazy also writes the Free Range Kids blog, examining news stories and setting everyone straight on statistics involving such issues as child abduction and abuse. “Children deserve some unsupervised time” is one of her rallying cries, but not everyone agrees. You can join in the heated debate on September 14 at MJH, although you should bring your sense of humor as well, because Skenazy promises that this is a funny talk; tickets are $12 and include one drink.
I remember the first time I saw the BBC series Ways of Seeing, thoroughly entranced by the host, a curly-haired British art critic with the cutest little lisp of his “R”s who promised that, while looking at European painting in a whole new way, “we shall discover something about ourselves and the situation in which we are living.” Years later, I was distraught when I couldn’t find my paperback copy of the companion book; my wife quickly ordered it and it was soon in my hands, where I devoured every word and image again and again. So I was terrifically excited when I heard about the new documentary The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger, which opens August 31 at Film Forum. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I came away from the four-part film feeling disappointed and let down; I selfishly wanted only Berger (pronounced with a soft “g”) but instead got too much of his friends and colleagues. And to make matters worse, the directors are too often what Berger tried so hard to avoid being throughout his long, influential career: pretentious. The film begins in winter with “Ways of Listening,” in which director Colin MacCabe focuses on Berger and his longtime friend, Oscar-nominated actress Tilda Swinton, as they talk at Berger’s farm in the small French town of Quincy, where he moved in the 1970s after becoming fed up with England. Filmed in 2010, the segment works best when Berger tells personal stories about his father and war; Swinton listens while peeling apples, the camera on her as much as on him. It occasionally feels as if she can’t decide whether to share Berger or keep him to herself; they already have a special connection, sharing the same birthday, albeit thirty-four years apart. But I wanted to make my own connection with Berger, a down-to-earth intellectual with a lust for life and a wide-ranging legacy, an artist, critic, “radical humanist,” social commentator, political activist, husband, father, farmer, and self-described “revolutionary writer” who prefers to simply be known as a storyteller.
