Market Data 
- I decided to take my kids on an 18-month trip through Latin America.
- The trip gave my then-2-, 3-, and 6-year-olds new-found independence and self-esteem.
- Returning to live in the US has been difficult and challenged their independence in negative ways.
When I first crossed the border between Texas and Mexico with my kids, they were 2, 3, and 6.
We had 21 suitcases crammed into a Honda Odyssey and very few plans.
The only certainty was that we were headed south on the Pan-American Highway over the next 18 months.
I’d backpacked through Latin America solo before my children were born and was now eager to share the places I fell in love with there with the new, small people I loved.
What I didn’t expect was how strong of an impact our travels in Latin America would have on my children and their level of independence.
In the Latin American countries I visited, I saw many more children in public without their parents
In total, we extensively traveled through nine countries: the US, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Peru, and Chile.
While in the US it’s largely taboo for parents to let their young children go out in public unsupervised, I noticed a more relaxed attitude in the other countries we traveled to.
At our first long-term stop in Guanajuato, Mexico, I saw children the same age as my oldest skipping along cobblestone streets, hand-in-hand with their toddler siblings without parents hovering nearby.
Kids played alone in public plazas, laughing and sharing candies with people passing by.
As our journey continued south into more rural regions of Central America, evidence of children’s independence grew.
In Nicaragua, elementary-age children walked long distances on tricky terrain to attend school.
We often saw young children selling artisanal goods or taking a share of cooking for the family business.
Sometimes we spent months in a single location, talking with local parents. We were occasionally invited into their homes for meals and holidays. I witnessed parents trusting their children to manage themselves and also trusting their neighbors for support.
It seemed so nurturing. I was inspired.
I’m raising my kids to be independent, and I pushed these boundaries while traveling in Latin America
I aim to parent my kids to be strong, independent individuals. Since my kids could walk, I’ve let them run around our urban Pittsburgh neighborhood barefoot to play with friends, only popping out of my house occasionally to peek at them.
In Latin America, I had to decide whether to allow my kids more independence than I was initially comfortable with.
In Guatemala, for example, my oldest asked to walk to the corner convenience store alone to pick up some cookies.
The first time she went, I watched diligently out the window, worried that something bad would happen. But I knew she could navigate the streets, and she’d learned enough Spanish to order at restaurants, so surely she could buy a snack.
When she returned, she was radiant with confidence and accomplishment. The next day, I let her younger sister go with her.
Soon there were times when my children were completely out of my sight in a foreign country. The girls once rode horses independently in Chile on a mountain tour. My son was just 3 when he went off to pick mangoes alone during a farmstay.
Returning to the US has been challenging for us
As our journey was ending, I was apprehensive about returning to the US, where the expectation of parents is often that they don’t let their children go anywhere unsupervised.
I didn’t want the new-found self-esteem and confidence my children had discovered to suddenly be stripped away.
Two days after we returned, my 8-year-old, who had now mastered a light grocery trip in a second language, was told she couldn’t grab a muffin from a hotel lobby without an adult present and was escorted back to our room.
It made me wonder what people in the United States are so afraid of.
We’ve been back for over two years and still struggle to find the perfect balance. Helicopter parenting norms in the US challenge anyone with more independent child-rearing styles.
I allow them as much independence as culturally acceptable while home. But we also take a couple of trips each year back to our favorite Latin American spots — Mexico, Guatemala, and Costa Rica — so my kids can continue to exercise all the freedom they had while traveling.
My 10-year-old is even about to take her first solo flight this summer.
