Lenore Skenazy

Co-Founder & President, Let Grow

Lenore Skenazy is co-founder and president of Let Grow, a nonprofit promoting independence as a critical part of childhood. Ever since her column “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone” created a media firestorm, Lenore has been declaring that our kids are smarter and stronger than our culture gives them credit for. She is the author of Free-Range Kids, the book-turned-movement that garnered her the nickname, “America’s Worst Mom.” At Let Grow, Lenore oversees school programs, an online community, and legislative efforts all promoting the idea that when adults step back, kids step up, growing resourceful, resilient — and ready for the world. Lenore lives in New York City with her husband. Their sons have flown the coop, which is good for “proof of concept” purposes”¦but she misses them.

Before all this, Skenazy was a reporter and columnist at the New York Daily News and New York Sun. And, bragging here, she also used to write for Mad Magazine. (And Cracked.)