Journal: News & Comment

The walk

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Three and a half years ago I walked my older daughter to kindergarten for the first time in the warm September sun—that's the photo. This morning, for the first time, I stood on the sidewalk in front of our house while she and her younger sister walked the whole way to school by themselves in the drizzle of March.

The older one is in grade three, her sister in grade one. We've been working up to the trip all week, during which I walked them part way, then turned around and went home while they finished the remaining blocks. In these more paranoid times, that's a bigger step than it used to be (at their age, I think I'd been walking to the same school by myself for a couple of years).

The other advantage of having them walk themselves is that it rids us of the temptation to drive them there, which in our hurly-burly lives is far too easy to fall into.

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