It's a good article, and it makes some valid points. I've often said some of the same things. Parents are too quick to rescue their children nowadays. Nonetheless, the fact of the matter is that we do live in a different world now than when we were children, and with the way crime runs rapant in our society, there's no way I could allow my ten year old to leave home on a Saturday morning and not check back in until I flashed the porch light for her to come home that night. That's just a sad fact, but it's also reality.
The predators have always been there. It just didn't get blared out of the TV by a bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who sees it as her ticket to get noticed by one of the networks. Then again, they used to put cartoons on the idiot box on Saturday morning. Real ones at that!
I've thought about that myself. I know, as a kid, there were many a day my mom didn't know exactly where I was, just that I was out playing and would be home by dark. I was in the woods, or fishing, or digging for worms, or playing tennis in the road with neighbors, or swinging on someone's swingset down the road, whatever. Usually the day would start out one way and migrate to ending another. My Little One doesn't get to wander in the woods alone. Too afraid she won't make it home. I used to do my best thinking then... Frogger
Yes the predators have always been there but not to the degree of today. I think in our modern technological day has somehow acted as a prelude for most of the predators to physically target kids. Some of the latest news regarding child predators have started by seeking out and archiving photo's of young kids via the Internet. Then corresponding with them. And then the meeting with them. Today there are many more resources made available for the sick minds to further entice themselves to seek further options to satisfy their sick thoughts. I am very protective of my children and for very good reasons always will be. I remember when my son was younger and was doing a fund raiser over at Lowe's selling donuts. I was not there at the time but my ex was. Well, my ex asked my son to go to the car and get an envelope from the car with some of the money previously collected. Well there was a woman that grabbed my son to try and put him in a truck that some guy was driving. My son being the wiry guy that he was got away. All I can say is that that woman and the guy driving should be lucky I was not there because they would have been dead by my hands. I guess my point is that when I was in the second grade, I remember leaving the house with friends at 9 am and not coming back home till dinner time. We never had any problems while my friends and I were doing what we did.
