[...] all week was my piece for GRS about the Boxcar Kids. The most unsung, in my humble opinion, was this little gem about the Museum of Science not giving kids membership cards because of “security [...]

[...] Museum Says Member Cards Not Safe For Kids [...]

[...] Museum Says Member Cards Not Safe For Kids [...]

Really its simple, believe it or not, some parents will simply drop children off and leave them for hours. I volunteered in a museum for many years, you would be amazed by the things I saw. Obviously there were issues with children misbehaving, these things are uncomfortable but relatively easy for the staff to handle. I was present when an 8 year old tripped and took a bad fall down the stairs. There was no parent present and concern that the child had seriously injured his foot. The child knew his mother’s cell phone number but there was no cell phone reception in most of the building. Staff members had to radio down to the main office and they called the mother. There was a long delay before we would contact the mother and she could arrive and pick up her child. There was also the heartbreaking of a hurt, scared little boy who was trying to be brave but wanted the comfort of his mom. If the child has a membership card and walks in on there own, it puts the staff in a very uncomfortable position. Can they refuse to admit a member? There are legal issues with allowing untended children in the museum. There is also the convenience issue for families and cost issue for museum. If each family member is given a card, should each card be shown when the family visits the museum? If each card must be shown, most parents will become annoyed at the thought of keeping track of the extra cards. If each card does not need to be shown, why should the museum issue the extra cards?

Like, I’m sure, many parents in this area, I have a Museum of Science membership solely because I have a young child and it’s a good thing to do with her when the weather is bad. This means, of course, that the card has frequently been used by her and a caregiver without either of the listed adults on the card present — I’m glad that’s apparently within policy, but it has always seemed awkward to me. In a very real sense it’s *her* card, and I would like it if that could be reflected on the card.

I think the case above of children being left alone is a red herring — libraries both issue cards to young children, and generally have policies against young children being unattended. I don’t see why the museum couldn’t have analogous policies. (And as for extra cards, the MoS already issued two cards to us with our membership; I don’t know if that’s because it was a two-adult membership and you get n cards for an n-person thing, or if it’s just general policy to ship two cards. Regardless, both cards have both of our names.)

Speaking as the reader who originally raised this issue with Sierra, it now occurs to me that maybe the security concern is just that kids don’t routinely carry photo ID. When an adult shows up with a card with some name on it, the staff can (in theory) ask to see ID that proves the name matches the face. But with kids’ names on cards, they can’t do that.

Our local YMCA issues photo IDs to kids to address that problem; we’ve even had (very cute) photo IDs for kids too young to talk. But it solves the caretaker problem, with relatively good protection against misuse of memberships.

Of course, there might be people using their own membership, without photo ID, who are somehow acting suspicious enough to be asked for ID, … and that would be a problem.

The WCS (notably the bronx zoo) is the same way. You put the parents names and then 1 other adult who has permission to take your kids to the zoo and just the number of children under 12.