In Support of Free-Range Mothers

Mary Ann Frost Stearn Pratt

     I am going to give another little post from my talk since this has to do with Pioneers and this is the time of year to honor them.  I talked on strengthening families.  If you have seen all the wonderful families around me you would wonder why I was asked to give advice on this subject.  I know it perplexed me.
     My kids euphemistically call my parenting style "free-range".  I have to plead guilty but in my defense I come from a long line of "free-range" mothers.  To paraphrase what my cousin told her kids- "Don't you feel blessed that you came into a family where you could learn so many things by kindergarten: how to use the microwave, how to make your own lunch, how to amuse yourself with books and going out into nature, etc. Aren't you glad you don't have a parent hovering over you all the time?"
     Anyone who knows my mother, Carol, knows I was raised this way. Her mother, Elsie Booth Brockbank was the same, and tracing back through the mothers you get Delia Winters Booth, Mary Ann Stearns Winters and then Mary Ann Frost Stearns Pratt.  This is a story about her.
    

     Mary Anne, was married to Parley P. Pratt.  While he was imprisoned in Missouri she would take her 2 children and stay with him in a prison. Parley, though in jail, was secretly writing some manuscripts that they felt would be dangerous to the men if they were discovered.  On one visit, Mary Ann was letting her daughter crawl up the door or on the walls. I'm not sure which but her daughter, also a Mary Ann (who is the child I am descended from) fell and broke her arm. All the ensuing commotion allowed Mary Ann to get out of the prison with the manuscript.

      The lesson I learned from this story growing up was that there are blessings in letting your kids explore without a lot of supervision. Although maybe this story was told in our family to show how the Lord works miracles in strange ways, but... I don't think so.  You should let your kids roam.