Free Range Children

My perspective on this might change when I have children but for now I agree that the reins parents hold over children these days has become a bit extreme over the last 30 years or so. I remember seeing a little boy no older than 5 or 6 walking home from school by himself in the middle of Tokyo a couple years ago and I thought "wow, I'd never see this in the U.S."

Crime stats certainly don't support the overabundance of caution of U.S. parents so it leads me to believe that the author may be correct...it very well could be an outgrowth of sensationalist cable news and the culture of fear that the news and others thrive off of.

An excellent read on a lazy Sunday afternoon from Salon...

When I was growing up, my parents were not watching those horrific television shows that are on now like "CSI" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." They were watching "Dallas," "Dynasty," stuff with maybe big hair, but that was the biggest crime. It wasn't all these shows with really graphic, horrifying consequences for kids.

And then, you didn't have cable, and cable has to fill 24 hours with the worst possible stories, because if they filled it with stories about kids getting home safely, you wouldn't watch. What's the most compelling story that anyone has come up with so far? It's something terrible happening to a child.

The crime rate today is equal to what it was back in 1970. In the '70s and '80s, crime was climbing. It peaked around 1993, and since then it's been going down.

If you were a child in the '70s or the '80s and were allowed to go visit your friend down the block, or ride your bike to the library, or play in the park without your parents accompanying you, your children are no less safe than you were.

But it feels so completely different, and we're told that it's completely different, and frankly, when I tell people that it's the same, nobody believes me. We're living in really safe times, and it's hard to believe.

There is a 1 in 1.5 million chance that your kid would be abducted and killed by a stranger. It is hard to wrap your mind around those numbers, and everybody always assumes: What if it's my 1 in 1.5 million?

If you don't want to have your child in any kind of danger, you really can't do anything. You certainly couldn't drive them in a car, because that's the No. 1 way kids die, as passengers in car accidents.