单选题：Questions are based on the following passage. Helicopter Mor

Questions are based on the following passage.
Helicopter Morns vs．Free-Range Kids
A．Would you let your fourth-grader ride public transportation without an adult? Probably not．Still,when Lenore Skenazy, a columnist for the New York Sun, wrote about letting her son take thesubway alone to get back to her Manhattan home from a department store on the Upper East Side,she didn't expect to get hit with a wave of criticism from readers.
B．"Long story short: My son got home, overjoyed with independence," Skenazy wrote on April 4 inthe New York Sun．"Long story longer: Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn mein for child abuse．As if keeping kids under lock and key and cell phone and careful watch is theright way to rear kids．It's not．It's debilitating (使虚弱)--for us and for them．"
C．Online message boards were soon full of people both applauding and condemning Skenazy's decisionto let her son go it alone．She wound up defending herself on CNN ( accompanied by her son) andon popular blogs like the Huffington Post, where her follow-up piece was ironically headlined"More From America's Worst Mom．"
D．The episode has ignited another one of those debates that divides parents into vocal opposingcamps．Are modern parents needlessly overprotective, or is the world a more complicated anddangerous place than it was when previous generations were allowed to wander about unsupervised?
E) From the "she's an irresponsible mother" camp came:" Shame on you for being so careless about hissafety," in comments on the Huffington Post．And there was this from a mother of four:" Howwould you have felt if he didn't come home ?" But Skenazy got a lot of support, too, with womenand men writing in with stories about how they were allowed to take trips all by themselves at sevenor eight．She also got heaps of praise for bucking the "helicopter parent" trend: "Good for thisMom," one commenter wrote on the Huffington Post．"This is a much-needed reality check．"
F) Last week, encouraged by all the attention, Skenazy started her own blog--Free Range Kids-promoting the idea that modem children need some of the same independence that her generationhad．In the good old days nine-year-old baby boomers rode their bikes to school, walked to thestore, took buses--and even subways-all by themselves．Her blog, she says, is dedicated tosensible parenting．"At Free Range Kids, we believe in safe kids．We believe in car seats and safetybelts．We do NOT believe that every time school-age children go outside, they need a securityguard．"
G) So why are some parents so nervous about letting their children out of sight? Are cities and townsless safe and kids more vulnerable to crimes like child kidnap and sexual abuse than they were inprevious generations?
H) Not exactly．New York City, for instance, is safer than it's ever been; it's ranked 136th in crimeamong all American cities．Nationwide, stranger kidnaps axe extremely rare; there's a one-in-a-million chance a child will be taken by a stranger, according to the Justice Department．And 90percent of sexual abuse cases are committed by someone the child knows．Mortality rates from allcauses, including disease and accidents, for American children are lower now than they were 25years ago．According to Child Trends, a nonprofit research group, between 1980 and 2003 deathrates dropped by 44 percent for children aged 5 to 14 and 32 percent for teens aged 15 to 19.
I) Then there's the whole question of whether modern parents are more watchful and nervous aboutsafety than previous generations．Yes, some are．Part of the problem is that with wall-to-wallInternet and cable news, every missing child case gets so much airtime that it's not surprising evennormal parental anxiety can be amplified．And many middle-class parents have gotten used tomanaging their children's time and shuttling them to various enriching activities, so the idea ofletting them out on their own can seem like a risk．Back in 1972,when many of today's parents werekids, 87 percent of children who lived within a mile of school walked or biked every day．But today,the Centem for Disease Control report that only 13 percent of children hike, walk or otherwise getthemselves to school.
J) The extra supervision is both a city and a suburban phenomenon．Parents are worried about crime,and they're worried about kids getting caught in traffic in a city that's not used to pedestrians．Onthe other hand, there are still plenty of kids whose parents give them a lot of independence, bychoice or by necessity．The After School Alliance finds that more than 14 million kids aged 5 to 17are responsible for taking care of themselves after school．Only 6．5 million kids participate inorganized programs．"Many children who have working parents have to take the subway or bus toget to school．Many do this by themselves because they have no other way to get to their schools,"says Dr．Richard Gallagher, director of the Parenting Institute at the New York University ChildStudy Center.
K) For those parents who wonder how and when they should start allowing their kids more freedom,there's no clear-cut answer．Child experts discourage a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting.
What's right for Skenazy's nine-year-old could be inappropriate for another one．It all depends ondevelopmental issues, maturity, and the psychological and emotional makeup of that child．Severalfactors must be taken into account, says Gallagher．"The ability to follow parent guidelines, thechild's level of comfort in handling such situations, and a child's general judgment should beweighed．"
L) Gallagher agrees with Skenazy that many nine-year-olds are ready for independence like taking publictransportation alone．"At certain times of the day, on certain routes, the subways are generally safefor these children, especially they have grown up in the city and have been taught how to be safe,how to obtain help ff they are concerned for their safety, and how to avoid unsafe situations bybeing watchful and on their toes．"
M) But even with more traffic and fewer sidewalks, modern parents do have one advantage theirparents didn't: the cell phone．Being able to check in with a child anytime goes a long way towardrelieving parental anxiety and may help parents loosen their control a little sooner．Skenazy got a lotof criticism because she didn't give her kid her cell phone because she thought he'd lose it andwanted him to learn to go it alone without depending on mom--a major principle of free-rangeparenting．But most parents are more than happy to use cell phones to keep track of their kids.N) And for those who like the idea of free-range kids but still straggle with their inner helicopterparent, there may be a middle way．A new generation of GPS cell phones with tracking softwaremake it easier than ever to follow a child's every movement via the Internet--without seeming tointerfere or hover．Of course, when they go to college, they might start objecting to beingmonitored as if they're on parole(假释).
Nowadays with the help of GPS cell phones, parents can, from a distance, track their children'severy movement.