"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message 
news:4ab1277c@news.povray.org...
>  I read that in the US there's such a huge global panic about children
> being kidnapped, that at some places it even borders the illegal to let
> children *walk* on the street alone (eg. to go to school or hobbies).
> Eg. some woman got fined because she let her kid do that.
>
>  Instead, children are always driven by car to and from wherever they
> need to go.
>
>  Now, this seems to be an utter failure of perspective: Approximately
> 100 children are kidnapped each year in the United States. However,
> over 10000 children die in car accidents each year in the United States.
> That's a one hundred-fold difference. Nevertheless, they still consider
> driving them by car safer than letting them walk.
>
>  Thus the "cure" to the problem of 100 children being kidnapped each
> year is to have ten thousand of them die in car accidents.
>
>  Sense or proportion, anyone?

It's a very good point.  I grew up in a house in the middle of the woods.  I 
had neighbors that were no closer than about 1/4 mile away.  I had an older 
brother, but certainly from the time he was 12, we were both home alone 
after school (I was 8/9).  The worst thing that ever happened is that my 
brother got fat, because he would eat too many snacks while Mom and Dad 
weren't around.

But anyway, this question came up again for my wife and me, in regards to 
our daughter, who was 10 at the time.  We started leaving her at home alone 
for the couple hours after school.  Neither of us was actually worried about 
her being kidnapped, but both of us were worried about "What will people 
think?"  Even so, we'd normally call just to make sure she was there, and 
that she hadn't, say, slipped in the bathtub or something.  If that 
happened, it's possible that an overly zealous prosecutor could put us on 
trial for child-neglect.  Michigan (where I live) has no law setting a 
certain age for children to stay home alone, so it's really left up to 
society in general, and at this rate, by 2100, society will believe that 21 
years old is the youngest you should be.

In reality, I think most people are like us.  We're not so much afraid of 
kidnappers, as much as we are afraid of how we might be viewed by our 
neighbors/community, not to mention Social Services (the government child 
welfare watchdog).  Once THEY come to get your kids, it can be months, or 
even years, before you get them back.

If I could talk to my grampa now, he'd probably tell me about how he had to 
get home from school, hop on the tractor and plow the field until sunset, 
when he was 8 years old...  ;-)

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