Why is our culture so AFRAID all the time?

[shinyhappypeople]

I let my responsible "knows how to cross the street safely" 9 year old walk ONE block from her dance class to a church activity. ONE BLOCK. Just ONE. Along a well-traveled road with nice, wide sidewalks. ONE STINKING BLOCK. And it has completely freaked some of my friends out. These friends are good, intelligent people who are generally quite sane. I just don't understand the level of fear that they've internalized.

 

Seriously. It's ONE block, people. Just one. A normal 9 yo can walk ONE block.

 

Which begs the question: WHY is there so much fear in our culture that allowing a 9 year old to walk unsupervised for 2 minutes is so controversial? Did something happen that triggered this?

[*********]

Well I really think it depends on where you are.

 

I wouldn't let my 9 year old walk one block alone in my parent's neighborhood in Flint. Not under any circumstances.

 

But I'd let him do it here where we live.

[Lady Marmalade]

Ha. We had friends who wouldn't let their teenage daughter take the trash to or from the curb without adult supervision. Because "you just never know".

 

I blame the media. All the stories we now hear about abductions and kidnappings and murders that "happened in small town USA, where you never would have expected it."

[Retired]

24/7 news cycles repeated over and over again all that wrong. I think for previous generation they felt their world was safe. They were insulated from other communities. The nothing bad had happen in their town so they were safe. There were probabily no books written on serial killer, stephen king novels etc. WE are in a world that has something evil on the internet, tv and books all the time. We as a society do not feel safe anymore. IMO

[4kidlets4me]

I blame the media. All the stories we now hear about abductions and kidnappings and murders that "happened in small town USA, where you never would have expected it."

 

 

This.

[Jane in NC]

Good for you and your nine year old.

 

Someone here on the boards asked this question a while back. After I responded that I was not afraid, I was told I was naive.

 

Oh well. I'd rather live in my naivete than in fear and suspicion.

[shinyhappypeople]

Well I really think it depends on where you are.

 

I wouldn't let my 9 year old walk one block alone in my parent's neighborhood in Flint. Not under any circumstances.

 

But I'd let him do it here where we live.

 

 

That's a good point.

[mlbuchina]

Yes, the 24/7 "news" media that is a constant barrage of one crisis after another. Don't eat this, it will kill you, don't do that, it will hurt you, don't let your kids do this, you'll never see them again. All. The. Time.

[GoVanGogh]

We live in nicer suburb of a large city.

A few years back we had a drug house next door to us. During that time, I wouldn't even let my child walk out to the mailbox w/o supervision.

The house has since been cleaned up and we have new neighbors, so I let my child play out front unsupervised. I let would let them walk a block within our subdivision, which does not have an 'through' streets so little traffic.

 

But walking a block outside our neighborhood?

It isn't the distance, but the neighborhood/community.

Our suburb has been hit so hard by drugs, I don't even like to drive around here anymore as there are so many accidents involving teens driving under the influence. We only walk during certain times of the day and not around the high school. (We live one mile from the largest high school, so problem may be amplified in this general area.)

[mlbuchina]

Well I really think it depends on where you are.

 

I wouldn't let my 9 year old walk one block alone in my parent's neighborhood in Flint. Not under any circumstances.

 

But I'd let him do it here where we live.

 

 

I agree with this, too. Use some common sense (are we aloud to do that anymore?), and your better judgement about the area you live in. I know the places in our town that I am comfortable letting my dc out of my sight for a few minutes, and those that I won't even travel through in a locked car if I don't have to.

[SarahW]

Srsly.

 

When I was living in the Middle East I saw kids as young as 5 walk themselves to school, through little twisty roads, a journey that would take at least 20 mins. In a place where I was told to never walk alone. Now, I was a foreigner, and these kids weren't, but still, it was a politically unstable area, and it was still completely normal that these kids would just take themselves where they needed to go and back.

 

I'd let my kid walk someplace that he knew and which had good sidewalks. But good sidewalks seem to be increasingly rare in America. :glare:

[Dad 4 Boys]

Media hype or not, children are abducted by strangers on a regular basis in this fine country of ours. In St. Louis, there was a case a few years ago where a boy was taken while walking alone on a country road. He was eventually found, but the authorities also found another boy at the same place who had been taken several years earlier.

 

I guess you have to decide how dangerous any given area is and decide on how you want to play the odds.

[justamouse]

I am a free range parent.

 

Thankfully, we live in a town that is a 'walking district' so kids around here walk a LOT.

[Mama Geek]

Probably a lot of it comes from not knowing our neighbors and the people in our community. When I was young we lived in a rural area where everyone knew everyone and the adults would keep an eye on kids that weren't theirs. You just don't see that so much anymore.

[Word Nerd]

It definitely depends on the area. Both of my kids walk to school (weather permitting), and the older one can go to the park, corner market, etc. by herself. I would not give her that much freedom if we still lived where we did before.

[Guest inoubliable]

This happened.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Adam_Walsh

 

Media frenzy. Then Code Adam.

This all went down shortly after I was born. My parents and their friends can pinpoint to this EXACTLY as being a catalyst for change in how they all began to keep a tighter leash (quite literally in some circles) on their kids.

 

We have entire shows on cable TV dedicated, it seems, to missing kids. Nancy Grace, for one.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Well, if you've accurately assessed the situation, why should you be afraid of what other people might think of your decisions for your child?

[Word Nerd]

Media hype or not, children are abducted by strangers on a regular basis in this fine country of ours. In St. Louis, there was a case a few years ago where a boy was taken while walking alone on a country road. He was eventually found, but the authorities also found another boy at the same place who had been taken several years earlier.

 

I guess you have to decide how dangerous any given area is and decide on how you want to play the odds.

 

I think most parents believe the odds are much worse than they actually are, though.

[Arcadia]

One reason is the area, some are not safe even to drive through. The other is that kids are not as street smart as a long time ago. They seem more oblivious to their surroundings. We used to walk everywhere and pedestrains were plenty so there was a psychological safety in numbers feeling. Now kids travel by car less than a block to school and people walking is scarce. It just feels scarier.

 

ETA:

We had a spate of grab-and-run robbery as well as car thefts for the past few years.

[Unicorn.]

I agree that it depends on where you live, or even where people come from, and media. I have a friend who lives in a quiet neighborhood- one where kids could safely roam the streets, but when our dc were little (oh, 7-12ish) she wouldn't even let them cross her street to the neighbor's house unsupervised. (no traffic on her street) But she would turn them loose at the waterpark! I was the opposite- my kids roamed the neighborhood (busy streets), but at the waterpark they were constantly under my or dh's eye.

 

I have another friend who wouldn't let her kid run around the fair unsupervised at age 12 (even though we were working there-just not w/ our dc), and still at 14 won't allow her kid to stay home alone all day. But then they let the kids do things that make me say "no way!". So, I don't get it either sometimes.

[shinyhappypeople]

Well, if you've accurately assessed the situation, why should you be afraid of what other people might think of your decisions for your child?

 

I'm not afraid of their opinions, I'm just shocked that there was such a hullabaloo over me choosing to let her walk one block on a safe, well-traveled road. Interesting point: no one mentioned the risk of her being hit by a car, because she had to cross an intersection at a crosswalk (with the walk/don't walk lights). That was MY big concern, so I double- and triple-checked that she knew how to cross safely and evaluated her maturity.

[dbmamaz]

its much more common to be abducted or abused by friends of the family than by strangers.

 

this fear drives me nuts too. My neighborhood is INCREDIBLY safe! NOTHING happens here. We have a grocery store a quarter mile away, and one of my daughter's friends was not allowed to walk there by herself until high school.

 

My middle child was on a special needs baseball team for a while in middle school. He was one of the higher functioning kids on the team. The entrance to the baseball park is maybe 300 yards from my driveway. I let him ride his bike to practice one day and I went a little later. The team mom made it clear she was being nice by 'letting me' get away with that against her better judgement. WTF?

[shinyhappypeople]

its much more common to be abducted or abused by friends of the family than by strangers.

 

this fear drives me nuts too. My neighborhood is INCREDIBLY safe! NOTHING happens here. We have a grocery store a quarter mile away, and one of my daughter's friends was not allowed to walk there by herself until high school.

 

My middle child was on a special needs baseball team for a while in middle school. He was one of the higher functioning kids on the team. The entrance to the baseball park is maybe 300 yards from my driveway. I let him ride his bike to practice one day and I went a little later. The team mom made it clear she was being nice by 'letting me' get away with that against her better judgement. WTF?

 

That is absolutely ridiculous, and a little scary. I worry that the extreme helicopter parents will gain so much influence that allowing DD to walk a block or [insert other unsupervised activity] will become illegal. I've heard stories of cops interfering when kids were playing outside, solely because the kids were unsupervised. THAT is scary.

[Word Nerd]

One reason is the area, some are not safe even to drive through. The other is that kids are not as street smart as a long time ago. We used to walk everywhere and pedestrains were plenty so there was a psychological safety in numbers feeling. Now kids travel by car less than a block to school and people walking is scarce. It just feels scarier.

 

Walking is still part of our local culture, and in the spring and summer you can see kids, adults, and families walking around town or to the pool and park practically every day except in extreme heat. I would guess that there are more free-range families here than not, and it is a place where you can look outside and most likely recognize the kids who are walking by.

[Serenade]

Probably a lot of it comes from not knowing our neighbors and the people in our community. When I was young we lived in a rural area where everyone knew everyone and the adults would keep an eye on kids that weren't theirs. You just don't see that so much anymore.

 

And most moms used to be at home during the day, keeping their eyes on things. This was still the case in my very middle class neighborhood in the 70s, but I could see the changes starting to occur in the late 70s, when more and more moms started going to work, or educating themselves to work.

[nmoira]

I blame the media. All the stories we now hear about abductions and kidnappings and murders that "happened in small town USA, where you never would have expected it."

 

This is exactly the point I was going to make. It must be difficult to watch local evening news and not be fearful.

[Mergath]

Media hype or not, children are abducted by strangers on a regular basis in this fine country of ours. In St. Louis, there was a case a few years ago where a boy was taken while walking alone on a country road. He was eventually found, but the authorities also found another boy at the same place who had been taken several years earlier.

 

I guess you have to decide how dangerous any given area is and decide on how you want to play the odds.

 

It's not quite "on a regular basis." Stranger abduction is extremely rare. There are some places it's not safe for children to walk alone because of gang or drug violence, or because the people in that area drive like they're insane (lived in a couple of those), but the odds that your child will be abducted by a stranger is almost zero. One in 347,000, if you actually google it. Whereas the odds that your child will have an accident in his or her first year of driving are one in five, according to a USA Today article. And yet, we don't hear of too many parents that won't let their teen get a license.

[4kidlets4me]

I live in a pretty sketchy area, this is not a quiet suburban environment. We have lots of poverty, drugs, an extraordinary amount of sex offenders. But the crimes that happen here are not of the kidnapping, molesting, killing variety. They are more of the domestic violence, petty burglary, vandalism variety. I'm more afraid of the pedophile disguised as the friendly soccer coach than the stranger kidnapping my kids from the front yard. We had a high school teacher who was sexting his 12 year old neighbor.

 

I let my kids walk the one block to the YMCA on a regular basis. My older two walked to the corner store which is two blocks away and had to cross a fairly busy street. My kids play outside unsupervised but I do put the dog out there with them and he's pretty ferocious.

 

I refuse to live in fear of an imaginary boogyman.

[Lara in Colo]

its much more common to be abducted or abused by friends of the family than by strangers.

 

this fear drives me nuts too. My neighborhood is INCREDIBLY safe! NOTHING happens here. We have a grocery store a quarter mile away, and one of my daughter's friends was not allowed to walk there by herself until high school.

 

My middle child was on a special needs baseball team for a while in middle school. He was one of the higher functioning kids on the team. The entrance to the baseball park is maybe 300 yards from my driveway. I let him ride his bike to practice one day and I went a little later. The team mom made it clear she was being nice by 'letting me' get away with that against her better judgement. WTF?

 

 

This.

I am actually more afraid of the "good people" of the world, than the nutters.

I don't really know if they are truly afraid for you/yours or if they just want to be superior, I fear them and the agencies they report to.

So even if I am NOT afraid to send my child to the grocery store at 12, I am afraid of the person who will report me and the legal fees I will occur as a result.

[dirty ethel rackham]

Funny you should point this out. I was walking the dog this morning as I always do ... rain or shine, hot weather or cold weather. We live 2 blocks from an elementary school in a very walkable neighborhood complete with crossing guargs. I saw more people walking their dogs than kids walking to school. I saw at least 7 cars drive up to the school, wait in line to drop their kids off, then go back home - all of them within 3 blocks of the school. Really? Most of these moms could have stood at the end of their driveway to see their child walk up to the school. So what if it was a little drizzly. If I can last an hour in all sorts of crappy weather, surely they can make it 5 minutes. When my boys were little, they used to stop what they were doing and watch the "parade" ... the large numer of kids walking to school past our house ... and then go back to what they were doing. These days, there is no "parade" ... only a few kids, mostly walked by their moms. Why can't the rest of the kids walk with them?

[Julie Smith]

I also agree that because that most people don't travel by foot, bike... that it is seen as scary. I hear about parents having to make sure that the kids know how to correctly cross a street. We walk everywhere. I don't need to purposely teach my boys to cross a street because if you do it as a family 40 times a week every week for years then you kind of figure it out. (Okay, I admit Youngest is having a great deal of difficulty figuring it out. Oh, my that kid can be a space cadet. But I know that he is a space cadet because I am out walking with him all the time. I also knew that Eldest could be trusted years ago.)

 

I also think it's the worry. The thought that if you as an adult was watching, then nothing bad would have happened. We as a society are less likely to just accept that bad things happen.

[Joker]

As far as kids walking to school...We live close by and there are crossing guards but many days I still drive dd. Every other day she takes and brings home her french horn. She can't walk with the horn and her books. Then there are days where her backpack is full and her arms are as well due to homework. I find her full backpack a pain to carry at all much less the whole way home. She walks sometimes but it's not often. That doesn't mean she doesn't get out and walk. I let her walk the 3 mile round trip to the store whenever she wants. The sidewalk to and from there is always full of kids even if the walk to and from school isn't.

[nandmsmom]

I grew up in the 70s and 80s. At the age of 5, I would walk up town with my 7 year old neighbor and spend a few hours. There were just as many sickos then as now. There were just as many abductions then as now. The difference being the media attention paid and our fear levels. I am working on letting my kids have more freedom. We live in an average suburban town. My kids are 8 and 11. They're allowed to walk to dogs over to the next block. The fear is holding our kids back and it is causing issues with their development. They are growing up with an inability to think for themselves and care for themselves. So, which is worse? Taking the 1 in a million+ chance that something will happen to your kid, or having a kid who is fearful and unable to mature normally? I'm working on it myself.

[Mergath]

Funny you should point this out. I was walking the dog this morning as I always do ... rain or shine, hot weather or cold weather. We live 2 blocks from an elementary school in a very walkable neighborhood complete with crossing guargs. I saw more people walking their dogs than kids walking to school. I saw at least 7 cars drive up to the school, wait in line to drop their kids off, then go back home - all of them within 3 blocks of the school. Really? Most of these moms could have stood at the end of their driveway to see their child walk up to the school. So what if it was a little drizzly. If I can last an hour in all sorts of crappy weather, surely they can make it 5 minutes. When my boys were little, they used to stop what they were doing and watch the "parade" ... the large numer of kids walking to school past our house ... and then go back to what they were doing. These days, there is no "parade" ... only a few kids, mostly walked by their moms. Why can't the rest of the kids walk with them?

 

That reminds me of the time dd and I walked a few blocks to the store while it was lightly snowing once last winter. We were dressed warmly, dd was catching snowflakes and having a great time, but we had four different people stop, hang out of the vehicles with a horrified look on their face, and yell, "Oh my gosh!!! Do you need a ride?" I mean, it was nice of them to ask, but good grief. You'd think we were walking over molten lava or something. People can't imagine being out in the weather, I guess. :001_rolleyes: They looked quite baffled when I yelled, "No thanks, we're fine! We have a car, we just wanted to walk."

[Joan in GE]

I agree with those thinking it is the media promoting it in one sense....

 

But there is media here and yet kids walk to school alone at young ages...I believe they walk alone in Germany too...Here there have been some incidents (at the level of kidnapping) but not many (only one that I know of in a distanct city)...Though in the cities the kids are sometimes harassing other kids (sometimes even sexually - making them take off their clothes - though I don't know rates at all and it depends on the 'quartier')....

 

But then I don't think there are as many people who would do terrible things here...I have no idea of statistics..While there is pornography, there is no 'whistling' by construction workers..They tend to be Portugese men with cultural/religious upbringing of treating women more respectfully...So they aren't treating women as objects...

 

So I think it is also cultural habits of insisting that children learn 'independence at a young age', of respect for others....That said there are definitely areas of France (banlieu) which don't have a good reputation...

 

Interesting question...

 

Joan

[Julie Smith]

This.

I am actually more afraid of the "good people" of the world, than the nutters.

I don't really know if they are truly afraid for you/yours or if they just want to be superior, I fear them and the agencies they report to.

So even if I am NOT afraid to send my child to the grocery store at 12, I am afraid of the person who will report me and the legal fees I will occur as a result.

 

:iagree:

[zoobie]

its much more common to be abducted or abused by friends of the family than by strangers.

 

this fear drives me nuts too. My neighborhood is INCREDIBLY safe! NOTHING happens here. We have a grocery store a quarter mile away, and one of my daughter's friends was not allowed to walk there by herself until high school.

 

My middle child was on a special needs baseball team for a while in middle school. He was one of the higher functioning kids on the team. The entrance to the baseball park is maybe 300 yards from my driveway. I let him ride his bike to practice one day and I went a little later. The team mom made it clear she was being nice by 'letting me' get away with that against her better judgement. WTF?

 

Our regular league requires that a parent or guardian be present with the child during games and practices. Not to say Team Mom wasn't a grouch. :)

[kewb]

The media has played a huge role in our culture of fear. I will own up to the fact that it is something I struggle with. A parents role is two-fold. To Protect and To Prepare. As a society we seem to have forgotten the To Prepare half. We are so busy protecting that our kids have zero street smarts. My ds was the recipient of the bulk of my over protectiveness. My dd has benefited from my experiments with the my ds.

 

I have made great improvements but I know I still have a ways to go.

[zoobie]

Double post. Sorry!

[dbmamaz]

I live in such a dense suburban area that the elementary school is the biggest in the district and only pulls from a 2 mile square. There are no crossing guards on the 4-lane road the school is on, and therefor kids are NOT ALLOWED to walk to school without parents.

 

Not only do parents drive their kids to school in huge quantities, they even drive their kids TO THE BUS STOP! I have lived in 2 neighborhoods in the same elementary school district. first i was in a townhouse neighborhood that had a covered bus stop. One of the moms lived within sight of the bus stop and still drove her kid in her SUV to the bus stop, and the kid waited in the car for the bus. In my current subdivision, in bad weather i was sometimes the ONLY mom who would walk to the bus stop instead of drive, to pick up my kids after school.

 

oh, the bus driver WILL NOT LEAVE kindergarteners unless the parent is there or another adult who is on the pre-approved list. If you want someone else to meet your child at the bus stop, you have to call at least 2 days ahead of time to get that approved. If an approved person is not at the bus stop, the driver takes the kindergartener back to school and the cops are called. this is the safest place i have ever lived and this is NUTS! i lived in a really poor small town . .. nothing like that.

[dbmamaz]

even at the middle school level a parent is required to stay on the field the entire practice? NUTS! seriously?

[twinmami01]

Media hype or not, children are abducted by strangers on a regular basis in this fine country of ours. In St. Louis, there was a case a few years ago where a boy was taken while walking alone on a country road. He was eventually found, but the authorities also found another boy at the same place who had been taken several years earlier.

 

I guess you have to decide how dangerous any given area is and decide on how you want to play the odds.

 

This. My husband has been in law enforcement for 20+ years. I've heard waaay too many stories. I live in FL, so you can do the research and see why we're paranoid. Sadly, it is the reality for the times we live in. I'd rather my child not be a statistic.

[dirty ethel rackham]

As far as kids walking to school...We live close by and there are crossing guards but many days I still drive dd. Every other day she takes and brings home her french horn. She can't walk with the horn and her books. Then there are days where her backpack is full and her arms are as well due to homework. I find her full backpack a pain to carry at all much less the whole way home. She walks sometimes but it's not often. That doesn't mean she doesn't get out and walk. I let her walk the 3 mile round trip to the store whenever she wants. The sidewalk to and from there is always full of kids even if the walk to and from school isn't.

I can see when there are large, heavy things to carry. I wish my mom would have helped me out when she had me walk to school carrying my brother's electric guitar (because I didn't have an acoustic guitar for lessons.) I hated carrying that thing 7 blocks to school, every two houses putting it down and walking around it to change hands. But not one of these kids looked laden down when getting out of those cozy cars.

 

Most mornings, I see a teen get driven 5 houses to the bus stop. She waits in her dad's car until the bus comes, then her dad drives those 5 houses back home. She is usually dressed in skimpy clothes that are totally inappropriate for the weather.

[twinmami01]

Media hype or not, children are abducted by strangers on a regular basis in this fine country of ours. In St. Louis, there was a case a few years ago where a boy was taken while walking alone on a country road. He was eventually found, but the authorities also found another boy at the same place who had been taken several years earlier.

 

I guess you have to decide how dangerous any given area is and decide on how you want to play the odds.

 

This. My husband has been in law enforcement for 20+ years. I've heard waaay too many stories. I live in FL, so you can do the research and see why we're paranoid. Sadly, it is the reality for the times we live in. I'd rather my child not be a statistic.

[RoughCollie]

Miniscule risk:

 

 

http://www.fbi.gov/s...ldren-spotlight

 

Extremely high consequence if child is abducted:

 

The Washington State Attorney General’s Office also conducted research on child abduction murders and made the following observations based on its review of over 775 cases between 1968 and 2002:

• in 76 percent of the murders of an abducted child, the child was murdered within 3 hours of the abduction;
  
• in 89 percent of the cases, the missing child died within 24 hours of disappearing;
  
• in nearly 60 percent of the cases, more than 2 hours passed between the time someone realized the child was missing and the time police were notified; and
  
• the primary motive for the abductor was sexual assault
  

http://www.justice.g...08/chapter3.htm

 

I think parents (including me) are not willing to suffer the consequence if their child is abducted, and would rather be safe than sorry. No one wants to be in the position, however irrational, of believing they caused their child's death or assault due to their own lack of supervision. Who can live with that guilt, however misplaced it is? Who can live with the pictures in their heads of what happened to their child at the hands of a killer? We protect future selves and our present children instead.

 

In 1979, Etan Patz walked to blocks to catch a bus and was never seen again. That case sparked a lot of parental fear.

 

In 1981, Adam Walsh was kidnapped from a mall. His father is now the host of America's Most Wanted. http://en.wikipedia....r_of_Adam_Walsh

[Firefly]

I will admit this is something I struggled with when my two were little. I was a free range kid, and wanted that for my own. I truly believe it's a wonderful thing for a child. Once I had them though, it was like, one in a bazillion chance is still too great a risk if my kid is that one. We don't live in a neighborhood so they've always been free to run around our property, in the woods, to the nearest neighbors etc. It was mostly out in public places. The buddy system was my friend (I was lucky to have two close in age). I learned to just trust my instincts about certain situations/places/people. I do think the media influenced me, which is a part of the reason why we no longer have cable and access to 24 hour news.

 

At any rate, it's much, MUCH easier for me now that they're teens. :)

[Parrothead]

Dd, in my opinion, is old enough to walk to dance lessons two blocks away. She is even old enough to walk half a block to where I go to yoga. Unfortunately, on the way to both places are drug houses. So every Monday I take her to dance and pick her up. Every Wednesday I take her to dance and a trusted adult walks her up to the yoga studio.

 

I find it well worth the 3 minutes it takes for me to drive her.

[Lisbeth]

Srsly.

 

When I was living in the Middle East I saw kids as young as 5 walk themselves to school, through little twisty roads, a journey that would take at least 20 mins. In a place where I was told to never walk alone. Now, I was a foreigner, and these kids weren't, but still, it was a politically unstable area, and it was still completely normal that these kids would just take themselves where they needed to go and back.

 

I'd let my kid walk someplace that he knew and which had good sidewalks. But good sidewalks seem to be increasingly rare in America. :glare:

 

What would happen in the Middle East to a child molester vs. here? Because here, we let them serve sometimes a short sentence and then send them out again among our children.

[dbmamaz]

Miniscule risk:

 

 

http://www.fbi.gov/s...ldren-spotlight

 

Extremely high consequence if child is abducted:

 

The Washington State Attorney General’s Office also conducted research on child abduction murders and made the following observations based on its review of over 775 cases between 1968 and 2002:

• in 76 percent of the murders of an abducted child, the child was murdered within 3 hours of the abduction;

• in 89 percent of the cases, the missing child died within 24 hours of disappearing;

• in nearly 60 percent of the cases, more than 2 hours passed between the time someone realized the child was missing and the time police were notified; and

• the primary motive for the abductor was sexual assault

 

http://www.justice.g...08/chapter3.htm

 

I think parents (including me) are not willing to suffer the consequence if their child is abducted, and would rather be safe than sorry. No one wants to be in the position, however irrational, of believing they caused their child's death or assault due to their own lack of supervision. Who can live with that guilt, however misplaced it is?

 

In 1979, Etan Patz walked to blocks to catch a bus and was never seen again. That case sparked a lot of parental fear, and a movie. http://en.wikipedia....ce_of_Etan_Patz

 

In 1981, Adam Walsh was kidnapped from a mall. His father is now the host of America's Most Wanted. http://en.wikipedia....r_of_Adam_Walsh

 

I'm confused - this text wasnt on the post when I hit the quote button?

 

but the first 2 paragraphs of the quoted article was:

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), every year, more than 200,000 children are abducted by family members. An additional 58,000 are taken by nonrelatives with primarily sexual motives. However, only 115 reported abductions represent cases in which strangers abduct and kill children, hold them for ransom, or take them with the intention to keep.¹

Media news outlets have portrayed that abductors primarily consist of strangers or registered sex offenders (RSO), which has proven invalid in the past 2 fiscal years (FY). When a child is reported missing, members of the media advise parents to check sex offender registries to prevent their child from possible abduction or sexual victimization. However, FBI reporting indicates that RSOs are a minimal part of the problem. In FY 2009, an RSO was the abductor in 2 percent of child abduction cases; in FY 2010, this figure dropped to 1 percent.

 

I just cant see why living your entire life in fear is worth the incredibly small chance that your child could be a victim. you in essence turn them in to a life-long victim of fear by trying to avoid something less common than sexual assault by an adult friend, or getting his by a drunk driver?

[Lisbeth]

I live in such a dense suburban area that the elementary school is the biggest in the district and only pulls from a 2 mile square. There are no crossing guards on the 4-lane road the school is on, and therefor kids are NOT ALLOWED to walk to school without parents.

 

Not only do parents drive their kids to school in huge quantities, they even drive their kids TO THE BUS STOP! I have lived in 2 neighborhoods in the same elementary school district. first i was in a townhouse neighborhood that had a covered bus stop. One of the moms lived within sight of the bus stop and still drove her kid in her SUV to the bus stop, and the kid waited in the car for the bus. In my current subdivision, in bad weather i was sometimes the ONLY mom who would walk to the bus stop instead of drive, to pick up my kids after school.

 

oh, the bus driver WILL NOT LEAVE kindergarteners unless the parent is there or another adult who is on the pre-approved list. If you want someone else to meet your child at the bus stop, you have to call at least 2 days ahead of time to get that approved. If an approved person is not at the bus stop, the driver takes the kindergartener back to school and the cops are called. this is the safest place i have ever lived and this is NUTS! i lived in a really poor small town . .. nothing like that.

 

 

I am always interested in the chicken and egg theories of these sorts of safe places. Are things there safe (low crime stats) BECAUSE they are so careful? Are crime rates down because parents are so careful these days? Because you always hear: "Why are parents so paranoid? The crime has actually gone down!" but then, it may have gone down because of the paranoia.

 

We would never allow our kids on the bus, either, as an aside to the above comment to so many driving their kids in to school. My friends are full of stories of how awful the bus is for bullying. I wouldn't trust the bus driver to administer our epi pen. Also, the choking diesel smell on the bus was overwhelming whenever I attended a field trip. Day after day of that? Naw.