Union Station at 10 PM on a Wednesday?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are homeless drug addled people in NYC too - why is Union Station your biggest fear?

+1 - the folks around Penn Station in NY were way more concerning than anyone in Union Station - this was over July 4th. And yet, I, a woman alone, on foot, not armed, managed to survive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He gets off the Acela at New Carrollton, and goes over to the Orange line. Then depending on the time he switches to the Silver at East Falls Church and goes to Reston, or someone comes and gets him at Vienna. Metro is now staying open until midnight.

How on earth do you people survive in the real world.

OP again. I also love the idea of him getting off at BWI. One of us could easily grab him there as well. SO much easier then a late night into the city

OP, you seem really scared of DC.

When is your son taking this trip?

I suggest you and he get on the Metro and just take a trip around DC together, up till late in the evening. Just walk around Union Station at 10 PM yourself with him. Buy something. Use the bathroom. Hang out. Then take the metro back home. You are so petrified of what could happen, probably because of lack of experience. SO just go with him.

I send my 14 year old daughter alone into DC on the metro! She's a much bigger target than your 20 year old son, no matter how slight he is. Dress smart, walk assertively, don't look like you have anything valuable to steal.

Been to DC many times. Don’t care about daytime much. Reminds me of the guy who told his wife it was just fine to walk home from the bar in Capitol Hill at night, only to end up in a coma with severe brain damage

It reminds me of everyone I know who said they’ll be fine taking public transportation and then they were fine.

Yes, sometimes random things happen, but like with your neighbor, they can happen in the safest places too, despite all of your anxious overprotecting. My friend had an aneurysm while feeding her horses and died before she could walk from the stable to her house. Maybe I should hover while my kids care for their pets in case something bad happens.

I’m shocked that your cousin (I think, some relative at least) offered to let your son stay the night. I can’t imagine a day trip to a bookstore being such a big deal that I’d broadcast all the planning to friends and family.

I mean this kindly. I have anxiety. It sucks. I can relate. But treating it helps and can make your life (and your family’s lives) so much better and easier. In the moment, if feels like you’re the normal one and everyone else is too loosey goosey, but you’re really setting your kids up for issues. Anxiety is one of those fun things that’s both nature and nurture, so having an anxious mom means there’s a genetic predisposition and you’re teaching him it’s better to embrace the anxiety instead of living a normal, healthy life.

Did you pick up hitchhikers with the kids in the car when they were little? My husband used to use the anxiety line to justify this behavior. Forbidding him to go at all is anxiety. Asking him to use some common sense in traveling is something else again, given how much more crime-ridden DC has become under the guidance of Bowser. Some of our cities leadership is literally letting the inmates run the asylum.

So you’re saying your husband has thought you’ve had anxiety for years but you refused to take his concerns seriously. When the internet strangers you ask for advice (after consulting friends and extended family) for how you can plan a day trip (for your adult son because you feel like public transit is unsafe) and they pick up on your anxiety vibes, you deflect and dismiss them because they don’t participate in objectively dangerous behavior and pretend that’s clinical anxiety too.

One anxious way of responding to this situation would be to forbid him to go. Funny that you’re not doing that, since he’s an adult and doesn’t need permission. Another anxiety ridden response is to try to control everything, like you’re doing. Did he ask you do plan every little detail? Really ask, like “mom, can you help me with this” or give up and say “fine you plan it” after you dismissed everything he said as naive?

If you’d try public transportation and familiarize yourself with the situations you’re concerned about, you’d probably get over some of your anxiety. It feels foreign to you because it’s new. The labels you’re using (bullet train) and assumptions you’re making (bus is far superior to train) suggest to me that you’re not totally familiar with how it all works, and you’re trying to control something you don’t really know much about. One way to treat anxiety is exposure therapy. When you do something more and you’re familiar with it, it seems less scary. You desensitize yourself to it. That doesn’t mean you abandon common sense and personal safety, it means you don’t call 911 because a homeless person walks toward you.

Again, did your husband pick up hitchhikers with your kids in the car? You never answered that. Is it anxiety to express concern over that? I’m sure you believe the answer is no, which is why you avoided the question.

I’m not forbidding him to go, because I believe the trip itself is safe, just like I knew his trip overseas was safe (they were not accompanied by adults). I’m not familiar with how it all works, which is why I asked, and got some very good suggestions about getting off in New Carrollton or even BWI. I’ve definitely been to Union Station many times, but I’m also quite familiar with the fact that the pandemic has changed so much, and that the area around (and inside) the station has deteriorated significantly. I know that a lot of DCers don’t want to admit that but it’s fact, and it’s abandoning common sense and safety NOT to admit that. Unfortunately, political correctness has done a number on our ability to evaluate an unsafe situation - if you read Gavin DeBecker’s “The Gift of Fear”, he explores this topic in depth. We often ignore our inner alarm bells in the interest of not insulting people, or not being judged by others. I’m in favor of teaching kids and young adults NOT to ignore this instinct as it’s saved my own life more than once, according to the officers I reported the incidences to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He gets off the Acela at New Carrollton, and goes over to the Orange line. Then depending on the time he switches to the Silver at East Falls Church and goes to Reston, or someone comes and gets him at Vienna. Metro is now staying open until midnight.

How on earth do you people survive in the real world.

OP again. I also love the idea of him getting off at BWI. One of us could easily grab him there as well. SO much easier then a late night into the city

OP, you seem really scared of DC.

When is your son taking this trip?

I suggest you and he get on the Metro and just take a trip around DC together, up till late in the evening. Just walk around Union Station at 10 PM yourself with him. Buy something. Use the bathroom. Hang out. Then take the metro back home. You are so petrified of what could happen, probably because of lack of experience. SO just go with him.

I send my 14 year old daughter alone into DC on the metro! She's a much bigger target than your 20 year old son, no matter how slight he is. Dress smart, walk assertively, don't look like you have anything valuable to steal.

Been to DC many times. Don’t care about daytime much. Reminds me of the guy who told his wife it was just fine to walk home from the bar in Capitol Hill at night, only to end up in a coma with severe brain damage

It reminds me of everyone I know who said they’ll be fine taking public transportation and then they were fine.

Yes, sometimes random things happen, but like with your neighbor, they can happen in the safest places too, despite all of your anxious overprotecting. My friend had an aneurysm while feeding her horses and died before she could walk from the stable to her house. Maybe I should hover while my kids care for their pets in case something bad happens.

I’m shocked that your cousin (I think, some relative at least) offered to let your son stay the night. I can’t imagine a day trip to a bookstore being such a big deal that I’d broadcast all the planning to friends and family.

I mean this kindly. I have anxiety. It sucks. I can relate. But treating it helps and can make your life (and your family’s lives) so much better and easier. In the moment, if feels like you’re the normal one and everyone else is too loosey goosey, but you’re really setting your kids up for issues. Anxiety is one of those fun things that’s both nature and nurture, so having an anxious mom means there’s a genetic predisposition and you’re teaching him it’s better to embrace the anxiety instead of living a normal, healthy life.

Did you pick up hitchhikers with the kids in the car when they were little? My husband used to use the anxiety line to justify this behavior. Forbidding him to go at all is anxiety. Asking him to use some common sense in traveling is something else again, given how much more crime-ridden DC has become under the guidance of Bowser. Some of our cities leadership is literally letting the inmates run the asylum.

So you’re saying your husband has thought you’ve had anxiety for years but you refused to take his concerns seriously. When the internet strangers you ask for advice (after consulting friends and extended family) for how you can plan a day trip (for your adult son because you feel like public transit is unsafe) and they pick up on your anxiety vibes, you deflect and dismiss them because they don’t participate in objectively dangerous behavior and pretend that’s clinical anxiety too.

One anxious way of responding to this situation would be to forbid him to go. Funny that you’re not doing that, since he’s an adult and doesn’t need permission. Another anxiety ridden response is to try to control everything, like you’re doing. Did he ask you do plan every little detail? Really ask, like “mom, can you help me with this” or give up and say “fine you plan it” after you dismissed everything he said as naive?

If you’d try public transportation and familiarize yourself with the situations you’re concerned about, you’d probably get over some of your anxiety. It feels foreign to you because it’s new. The labels you’re using (bullet train) and assumptions you’re making (bus is far superior to train) suggest to me that you’re not totally familiar with how it all works, and you’re trying to control something you don’t really know much about. One way to treat anxiety is exposure therapy. When you do something more and you’re familiar with it, it seems less scary. You desensitize yourself to it. That doesn’t mean you abandon common sense and personal safety, it means you don’t call 911 because a homeless person walks toward you.

Again, did your husband pick up hitchhikers with your kids in the car? You never answered that. Is it anxiety to express concern over that? I’m sure you believe the answer is no, which is why you avoided the question.

I’m not forbidding him to go, because I believe the trip itself is safe, just like I knew his trip overseas was safe (they were not accompanied by adults). I’m not familiar with how it all works, which is why I asked, and got some very good suggestions about getting off in New Carrollton or even BWI. I’ve definitely been to Union Station many times, but I’m also quite familiar with the fact that the pandemic has changed so much, and that the area around (and inside) the station has deteriorated significantly. I know that a lot of DCers don’t want to admit that but it’s fact, and it’s abandoning common sense and safety NOT to admit that. Unfortunately, political correctness has done a number on our ability to evaluate an unsafe situation - if you read Gavin DeBecker’s “The Gift of Fear”, he explores this topic in depth. We often ignore our inner alarm bells in the interest of not insulting people, or not being judged by others. I’m in favor of teaching kids and young adults NOT to ignore this instinct as it’s saved my own life more than once, according to the officers I reported the incidences to.

OP again…correction: the two boys were initially not accompanied by adults, and the flight required a changeover in Munich, and the second flight was the last of the day. Since both boys were not of age to get their own hotels, I insisted there be an adult chaperoning the flight. At the time, there was a lot of eye rolling, etc, but sure enough, the flight WAS cancelled and because there was an escort, they got a nice hotel and left the next AM. It is my job as a parent to think outside the box and give my kids the concept of having a plan B (and even C) if things go awry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He gets off the Acela at New Carrollton, and goes over to the Orange line. Then depending on the time he switches to the Silver at East Falls Church and goes to Reston, or someone comes and gets him at Vienna. Metro is now staying open until midnight.

How on earth do you people survive in the real world.

OP again. I also love the idea of him getting off at BWI. One of us could easily grab him there as well. SO much easier then a late night into the city

OP, you seem really scared of DC.

When is your son taking this trip?

I suggest you and he get on the Metro and just take a trip around DC together, up till late in the evening. Just walk around Union Station at 10 PM yourself with him. Buy something. Use the bathroom. Hang out. Then take the metro back home. You are so petrified of what could happen, probably because of lack of experience. SO just go with him.

I send my 14 year old daughter alone into DC on the metro! She's a much bigger target than your 20 year old son, no matter how slight he is. Dress smart, walk assertively, don't look like you have anything valuable to steal.

Been to DC many times. Don’t care about daytime much. Reminds me of the guy who told his wife it was just fine to walk home from the bar in Capitol Hill at night, only to end up in a coma with severe brain damage

It reminds me of everyone I know who said they’ll be fine taking public transportation and then they were fine.

Yes, sometimes random things happen, but like with your neighbor, they can happen in the safest places too, despite all of your anxious overprotecting. My friend had an aneurysm while feeding her horses and died before she could walk from the stable to her house. Maybe I should hover while my kids care for their pets in case something bad happens.

I’m shocked that your cousin (I think, some relative at least) offered to let your son stay the night. I can’t imagine a day trip to a bookstore being such a big deal that I’d broadcast all the planning to friends and family.

I mean this kindly. I have anxiety. It sucks. I can relate. But treating it helps and can make your life (and your family’s lives) so much better and easier. In the moment, if feels like you’re the normal one and everyone else is too loosey goosey, but you’re really setting your kids up for issues. Anxiety is one of those fun things that’s both nature and nurture, so having an anxious mom means there’s a genetic predisposition and you’re teaching him it’s better to embrace the anxiety instead of living a normal, healthy life.

Did you pick up hitchhikers with the kids in the car when they were little? My husband used to use the anxiety line to justify this behavior. Forbidding him to go at all is anxiety. Asking him to use some common sense in traveling is something else again, given how much more crime-ridden DC has become under the guidance of Bowser. Some of our cities leadership is literally letting the inmates run the asylum.

So you’re saying your husband has thought you’ve had anxiety for years but you refused to take his concerns seriously. When the internet strangers you ask for advice (after consulting friends and extended family) for how you can plan a day trip (for your adult son because you feel like public transit is unsafe) and they pick up on your anxiety vibes, you deflect and dismiss them because they don’t participate in objectively dangerous behavior and pretend that’s clinical anxiety too.

One anxious way of responding to this situation would be to forbid him to go. Funny that you’re not doing that, since he’s an adult and doesn’t need permission. Another anxiety ridden response is to try to control everything, like you’re doing. Did he ask you do plan every little detail? Really ask, like “mom, can you help me with this” or give up and say “fine you plan it” after you dismissed everything he said as naive?

If you’d try public transportation and familiarize yourself with the situations you’re concerned about, you’d probably get over some of your anxiety. It feels foreign to you because it’s new. The labels you’re using (bullet train) and assumptions you’re making (bus is far superior to train) suggest to me that you’re not totally familiar with how it all works, and you’re trying to control something you don’t really know much about. One way to treat anxiety is exposure therapy. When you do something more and you’re familiar with it, it seems less scary. You desensitize yourself to it. That doesn’t mean you abandon common sense and personal safety, it means you don’t call 911 because a homeless person walks toward you.

Again, did your husband pick up hitchhikers with your kids in the car? You never answered that. Is it anxiety to express concern over that? I’m sure you believe the answer is no, which is why you avoided the question.

I’m not forbidding him to go, because I believe the trip itself is safe, just like I knew his trip overseas was safe (they were not accompanied by adults). I’m not familiar with how it all works, which is why I asked, and got some very good suggestions about getting off in New Carrollton or even BWI. I’ve definitely been to Union Station many times, but I’m also quite familiar with the fact that the pandemic has changed so much, and that the area around (and inside) the station has deteriorated significantly. I know that a lot of DCers don’t want to admit that but it’s fact, and it’s abandoning common sense and safety NOT to admit that. Unfortunately, political correctness has done a number on our ability to evaluate an unsafe situation - if you read Gavin DeBecker’s “The Gift of Fear”, he explores this topic in depth. We often ignore our inner alarm bells in the interest of not insulting people, or not being judged by others. I’m in favor of teaching kids and young adults NOT to ignore this instinct as it’s saved my own life more than once, according to the officers I reported the incidences to.

OP again…correction: the two boys were initially not accompanied by adults, and the flight required a changeover in Munich, and the second flight was the last of the day. Since both boys were not of age to get their own hotels, I insisted there be an adult chaperoning the flight. At the time, there was a lot of eye rolling, etc, but sure enough, the flight WAS cancelled and because there was an escort, they got a nice hotel and left the next AM. It is my job as a parent to think outside the box and give my kids the concept of having a plan B (and even C) if things go awry.

OP, this is not hitchhiking. And your kid is not a kid. If you love living your life like this, that’s your life. But your kid is an adult now. I hope he’s going away for college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is how he becomes more street savvy, OP. Let him figure it out. You told him when he was a kid no talking to strangers, right? What exactly do you think will happen?

If he survives his first armed robbery, he will wise up.

Mugging is just part and parcel of living in a large, vibrant, modern city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is how he becomes more street savvy, OP. Let him figure it out. You told him when he was a kid no talking to strangers, right? What exactly do you think will happen?

If he survives his first armed robbery, he will wise up.

Mugging is just part and parcel of living in a large, vibrant, modern city.

It is not. Only a tiny percentage of people who live in a city are the victims of a mugging.

[Anonymous]

Considering my uncles fought in WWII at 18 this is over the top

[Anonymous]

I think OP has valid concerns.

I'm a well-traveled adult who takes the train to NYC for work several times a month, and even I don't like Union Station late at night. Do my 19 and 21 year olds take it late at night? Yes, but the first time each one did a late night trip, I went with them first to guide them on some important things.

At night it becomes a hub for the homeless, many with mental issues. When I arrived at around 9:30 PM two weeks ago, a homeless man and woman were having sex outside of the metro entrance. The transit officers were just laughing at them.

I mean, as it is, it's getting harder to find a restroom inside that's not occupied by a homeless person. If you are truly handicap and in need of that stall, you're SOL. I've yet to see a restroom there that didn't have a homeless person living in that stall.

[Anonymous]

OP seems to have found a convenient home for her general anti-city, anti-"political correctness" hobbyhorses in irrational anxiety for her adult son.

I cannot imagine being treated like this by a parent when I was 20.

OP, since he's going to bookstores in NY, surely you'll want to warn him about all those scary scary homeless people outside the Strand. Perhaps you'd prefer to send him to a nice clean homeless-people-free Barnes and Noble in central Kansas instead? That would suit your pampered, sheltered, "we only do private" aesthetic far better.

[Anonymous]

Make sure he carries an umbrella!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are homeless drug addled people in NYC too - why is Union Station your biggest fear?

+1 - the folks around Penn Station in NY were way more concerning than anyone in Union Station - this was over July 4th. And yet, I, a woman alone, on foot, not armed, managed to survive.

Are you “street smart?” Did you grow up in a city?

- because OP described her son as naive, kind of clueless, and unaware of his surroundings.

That is the source of her concern, people.

Maybe he will learn his lessons the hard way. Is that what you all want?

[Anonymous]

But OP, your "kid" isn't a kid anymore. He is 20. And he isn't flying internationally as a minor. He is taking a DAY TRIP to New York City and returning at 10 PM to a train station in the nation's capitol. You live perhaps an hour's drive away? He speaks the language here. He has money. He has a cell phone. There are cabs. There's Uber and Lyft.

Sure, granted, the restroom facilities at Union Station could well be skeevy. Tell him about that and suggest he may wish to use the toilet facilities on the train before he gets off the train. That's a legitimate concern if he's never been in the train station at night before, he wouldn't know about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are homeless drug addled people in NYC too - why is Union Station your biggest fear?

+1 - the folks around Penn Station in NY were way more concerning than anyone in Union Station - this was over July 4th. And yet, I, a woman alone, on foot, not armed, managed to survive.

Are you “street smart?” Did you grow up in a city?

- because OP described her son as naive, kind of clueless, and unaware of his surroundings.

That is the source of her concern, people.

Maybe he will learn his lessons the hard way. Is that what you all want?

No one is suggesting he run through Union Station holding his wallet, yelling, "Please mug me!" He's simply arriving on a late train. That's not "learning lessons the hard way."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are homeless drug addled people in NYC too - why is Union Station your biggest fear?

+1 - the folks around Penn Station in NY were way more concerning than anyone in Union Station - this was over July 4th. And yet, I, a woman alone, on foot, not armed, managed to survive.

Are you “street smart?” Did you grow up in a city?

- because OP described her son as naive, kind of clueless, and unaware of his surroundings.

That is the source of her concern, people.

Maybe he will learn his lessons the hard way. Is that what you all want?

So why isn’t she planning this with her adult son instead of for him? Either he doesn’t want to listen to her overreacting to him doing something normal, or she isn’t interested in teaching because she wants to control the situation to try to alleviate her anxiety. If she were trying to teach him how to handle the metro at night, she probably would’ve done that before he became an adult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are homeless drug addled people in NYC too - why is Union Station your biggest fear?

+1 - the folks around Penn Station in NY were way more concerning than anyone in Union Station - this was over July 4th. And yet, I, a woman alone, on foot, not armed, managed to survive.

Are you “street smart?” Did you grow up in a city?

- because OP described her son as naive, kind of clueless, and unaware of his surroundings.

That is the source of her concern, people.

Maybe he will learn his lessons the hard way. Is that what you all want?

I mean "learning the hard way" would be dropping him off at midnight in the toughest neighborhood of an unfamiliar city with a dollar and a Bible. Getting off a train at a large station with multiple transportation options, money, and a phone is a normal life experience that most young people should have so they don't go through life so fearfully that they can't fully experience the world. I went to grad school with women who wouldn't go out alone after dark. I know people who won't come to my small fun city unless they are armed. Lack of experience led to those irrational fears.