Talking About Leiby

The brutal murder of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky continues to break New York’s heart. Shocking details of his death have brought home the fears of many parents about raising kids in the city. The Daily News convened a group of readers with young children and grandchildren to explore the impact of the tragedy:

Shawn Ragin, 28, a security manager, of Grand Concourse, Bronx, and father to a 5-year-old girl and 18-month-old boy; Grace El-Yateem, 44, a registered nurse, of Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, and mother of girls aged 17, 15 and 7, and a 12-year-old boy; Heidi Hoover, 40, a rabbi, of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and a mother of girls aged 10 and 6; Liliana Arzate, 39, a graphic designer, of Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, and mother of an 8-year-old girl and boys aged 5 and 2½; Bronya Shaffer, 62, a lecturer and teacher, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and mother of 10 children, aged 20 to 40, and 19 grandchildren between 4 weeks and 15 years old.

Here, in an edited transcript, is their thoughtful and illuminating conversation.

What, if anything, have you discussed with your family about the murder?

Heidi Hoover: For me, something that’s very important about this incident is to remember that this is something that
almost never happens. It’s very rare. Both my kids are away at camp. Since they’re not here, they probably will not have heard about it. By the time they get back, it will not be talked about in public anymore.

I probably will not tell them about it because I don’t think there’s anything they can learn from it that they’re not going to learn from what I’m teaching them already [about safety]. I think it’s really important not to shield kids from death, but that’s not what this is. This is shielding them from a very rare and tragic event.

Grace El-Yateem: We watch the news together. My 7-year-old asked me a lot of questions — some of which I had answers for and some of which I didn’t. She asked me: “Well, why would the mom not let him have a phone?” and “Why would the mom leave him to walk by himself if he’s never done it before?” And: “Mom, would you let me walk home when I turn 8 or 9?”

Because she’s very independent, she wants to do these things. Now she’s wary of it and she doesn’t want to. She wants me to always be there to hold her hand and she has become a little clingy ever since it happened. I took her to camp andshe didn’t want to go in. It’s a day camp — it wasn’t even like overnight — and she didn’t want to go. And she said: “I need you to stay with me, Mom.” So I stayed for about 10 minutes and got one of the counselors to stay with her for the next few minutes. My children have been affected. They’re very sad and totally brokenhearted.

Bronya Shaffer: I have, of course, been discussing it a great deal within the Hasidic community and with my siblings who have young children and my own children who have young children. No matter how removed one is from the actual child, for a parent to hear about a missing or murdered child, it is a nightmare. That [the accused killer] was someone who resembled one of ours — one of us who seemed to be someone familiar to this child — was especially horrendous for members of the Orthodox and Hasidic community. That was probably the single most prominent emerging fear. And it is going to certainly alter the way in which we teach children about safety.

Have any of you changed your kids’ behavior since the murder?

El-Yateem: At first, like many people, I tried to find the link between the boy and the murderer. But there wasn’t a link
from what we know and it was random. So it became something that we all had to deal with. My son is 12 and doesn’t have a cell phone. Since this has happened, just to go to the library, which is about three blocks away, I have been giving him my phone. I’ve been sending him with one of his cousins. I tell him: “When you get there, call me and, when you leave there, call me.” And try to keep to yourself. I tell him: “You have to go with your own gut.” We have been more protective.

Shawn Ragin: I wasn’t going to bring it up with my 5-year-old daughter. The most my wife and I have brought up is
the importance of always being with someone. We try to do this buddy system. My daughter has friends — at 5, we’re not letting her go anywhere by herself. We stress the fact of being with someone at all times. Even if she wants to go to the park or go to the other side of the park, we say: “Who’s with you? Be with someone.” Even if it’s walking down to the next park a few steps away, we stress this.

Liliana Arzate: My 8-year-old doesn’t know about it and we haven’t changed our behavior. What we tell our kids is to make them learn our phone number. I think that’s very important. I teach them to set the number to a song with a rhythm. Right now, my daughter doesn’t ask me if she can go by herself, not even to school. I wasn’t thinking of letting her, and now, forget it! My husband said, “No way.” But we can’t make them fearful about the city because they’re going to be living here. We need to teach them to be safe. I went online [to do some research] and there are some very interesting rules. Missingkids.com says to teach them o never go into the car of a stranger. Second rule: Instead of teaching them to go to a police officer when they are lost, because sometimes there is no police officer — just teach them to go directly to a pregnant woman, a woman holding the hand of a kid, a woman with kids. That makes sense.

Shaffer: After the initial response of: “Oh my God, who can you trust?” we need to settle down to teaching our children how to be trusting but also to be safe. When I was growing up and raising my older children, there was a much more trusting environment because there was much less awareness. The same way we were trusting of bikes without helmets and children in cars without seat belts. So it really wasn’t because it’s any worse now. I think Leiby’s murder is a pivotal moment n history with raising children. I think it’s when we really have to be very careful about what we impart for children. Certainly, we never should impart fear, panic and anxiety, but be very clear, just as we are about safety regulations over crossing the street and wearing seat belts and all of that.

Hoover: I let my 10-year-old go to the library around the corner by herself, and I send my kids to the drugstore together to run errands. But, because of this incident, I was reminded to send them to self defense classes with a company called Prepare Inc. They give kids practical skills on both how to identify the danger — how to identify the feeling in your gut that something is wrong and how to react to that — and also practice struggling when someone grabs you. It’s done in a way hat doesn’t scare them. The tutors are trying to get it into your muscle memory so you do it automatically. It increases your awareness.

I want my kids to start having that, especially my 10-year-old. It’s very important for her to start going places by herself. She’s going to be in fifth grade this year, and next year she’ll be in middle school and she’s probably going to have to travel alone. So, if she has no experience at all traveling alone before then, I don’t think that’s a good thing because she might have to go a significant distance with more than one train. I’ve asked her if she would like to try going on the subway by herself, and she feels she’s not ready yet. And I feel that this is an important thing as well, having our children tell us when they’re ready to start doing this kind of stuff. We have to get over our own panic and fear and allow them to begin to spread their wings.

Do you all worry about raising children in the big city?

Ragin: Riding the trains, you’re going to bump into those weird persons on a daily basis. It’s going to happen. And
sometimes I’m like, “Yeah, I got to get out of this situation.” At the moment, I’m taking my daughter to school on the subway every day. I was a home-child most of the time. I used to live in Queens, with a big home, a big backyard, so everything was there. Across the street was the big park. I wish I could have the same for my daughter. Eventually. But yeah, city life kind of toughens your skin as a parent.

El-Yateem: Here in Brooklyn, we’ve got a bad rap. When I first moved here, people always had negative comments,
like, “Oh my God, you’re moving into the city!” On the contrary, I feel so safe. I lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia for a while and in Ohio, but I feel much safer in the city and raising my kids here. Maybe it’s because more people are around.

My kids don’t have some of the fears that I had growing up. In the summer time, they can be out until 11 p.m., sitting outside with the heat. I don’t feel that my kids have any fears, which is both good and bad. They’re fearless, especially my 17-year-old. My two teenage daughters are in California right now but had heard about this murder. We talked about it on the phone and I just said, “Be careful.” They’re riding a train on their own for about four hours from San Francisco down to Bakersfield and they said: “Mom, we’re fine. You’ve taught us a lot of things. We know how to be safe.”

Ragin: I can see that. I was explaining to my cousin when I was moving to the Bronx, he said: “Why the Bronx? I hear
Bronx on the news all the time.” I said: “Oh, it’s not that bad. You’re just seeing the worst of the Bronx. Of course you’re going to hear that. That’s what makes news.”

Hoover: A lot of what people know about New York is a New York that is nottoday’s New York. It’s the New York of the 1970s. Crime is way, way down compared to then. Kids growing up in the city learn skills that other kids don’t learn. By the time they were 4, my kids knew how to cross the street. They didn’t do it by themselves when they were 4, but they knew not to run into the street. And suburban kids don’t always know that. I feel like my kids could go to almost anywhere in the world and have the skills that they need to stay safe.

Arzate: Leiby’s murder shocked me first of all because, for me, New York City is safe compared to Mexico City, where I lived before. In Mexico City, you cannot even walk like we walk here. You could get kidnapped — everybody, the whole family. That’s what I like about being in New York. Nowhere is 100% safe, but in New York City, you can walk everywhere, be out at night, sit on your stoop and be at the park. In Mexico City, you cannot even sit down in the park and have a picnic with your friends.

What rules and limits do you set for your kids about life in the city?

Ragin: With my daughter I have a list of things called Daddy Don’ts. Things she knows Daddy does not want her doing. She looks out the window but she wants to stand on the window sill and look over. She knows that’s a don’t. She knows crossing the street by herself is a don’t. I just try to get into her head these things that I don’t want her to do. She loves her father so much. I kind of use that as an upper hand. I just repeat it over. We were going through fire safety and I said: “You know what? Let’s try to point out all the exits and the smoke detectors.” We made it a game.

Arzate: I started telling my older daughter when she was 4 about the dangers of going with strangers. I said: “Be aware of where we are. Where is Mommy walking? Because there are people that maybe can take you and then I won’t see you anymore.” I tell my 5-year-old, “Don’t go with anybody that you don’t know because I might not see you anymore and you don’t want that to happen.” But it’s hard because he is very friendly and he talks to everyone.

Shaffer: Which is a wonderful quality that you don’t want to stifle.

Arzate: Exactly.