Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Abby Sunderland

I was listening to the radio the other day when a local DJ came on and suggested that the Sunderland family was "Balloon  Boy part 2."

Huh?

I was so tickled to hear about a 16 year old girl, with tons of experience on the ocean, whose father is a shipwright and whose older brother also captains his own yacht, attempting to circumnavigate the globe.  Yes, she ran into trouble on the Indian Ocean.  But even the most experienced sailors run into trouble from time to time.  She kept her head, did what she was trained to do, and came out just fine.

And now her parents are being attacked for "putting her in danger."  She's 16, for crying out loud.  She can get a driver license.  That's statistically a lot more dangerous than sailing around the world.

Why do we allow society to determine what's best for our kids?  I'm in favor of free range kids, where children are taught step by step how to behave, what safety rules they need to follow, with the goal of letting them fly the nest well prepared for their lives.

Too many young people today are leaving for college without a clue of how to do anything much for themselves.  Abby Sunderland is a young woman who is setting a standard of how to live your dreams, and how to behave when things do go wrong.

Her parents have done a terrific job with this young lady, and they should be justifiably proud of the way she's handling herself.

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