brap jr. is allowed to waddle his way to Fat Camp every summer, to get there on time he usually has to set out around January and gets back home sometime in December, so it works out well for everyone.

DrySocket: Evil Mackerel: The monsters have always been out there, they just get more coverage now.

There are arguably fewer out roaming these days than there were growing up in the 70's and 80's. We have probably caught and put away the worst and have gotten better at tracking them down in recent decades. The number of identified serial killers is way down compared to 30-40 years ago.

See to me, it's not just about serial killers or kid rapists or whatever, it's the fact that society in general has grown a blind eye to what's going on at any given moment. Maybe it's just my small town roots showing, but when I was a kid, the community in general was almost a surrogate parent; you could trust any adult around to watch out for kids running around, and tell them "No you shouldn't be trying to break into that abandoned house" or "Hey why are you kids chasing this boy who is clearly not having fun?" There are still places/neighborhoods/people like this, sure, but doesn't seem like nearly as many as there used to be.

vernonFL:Children are more likely to be kidnapped or abused by family or people they know than by strangers.

The panic goes hand in hand with all men being predators....when they realize that fully HALF of the people out there ARE MEN!

UberDave: jaylectricity: When I was 8-12 I lived on the Air Force Base in Denver. We were allowed to go anywhere on base that there were houses. Once you got to the main artery in and out of the base, that became "permission land," as in, we had to get permission to ride our bikes that far. Of course, once we got our IDs, we'd sneak off base to go to the Circle K in Aurora to buy candy.

Lowry was a pretty safe base man...as long as you know to stay out of the road and even then people on Air Force bases are a little more alert for pedestrians...especially on a big training base. :)

Oh sure, that didn't stop us from having to check our candy on Halloween for razor blades and poison. At the time it seemed normal, but now I'm wondering how a bunch of people that live together and have the same boss would want to poison each other's children.

Lollipop165: Lumpmoose: Would that have happened if you grew up in Manhattan, even back then? TFA would be a lot more interesting if it compared average population density over time as it relates to childhood. They're jumping straight to the conclusion of blaming society and parental fears while in the meantime a hell of a lot more kids are growing up in densely populated areas. That's the issue that needs to be articulated and addressed (if there even is a problem). Journalists are lazy when they pin this solely on get-off-my-lawn nostalgia and they do society a disservice.

Having grown up in NYC, yes, kids were allowed to roam around by themselves even back in the *gasp* 1970's and 1980's. We'd just pack up. By age 12, most kids I knew were taking the subway by themselves too.

My Pop worked at Queens Criminal Court.As early as 11 years old I took the train from Long Island
to the courthouse,Then Pop and I would go to the Mets game.That was mid 70's.

bubo_sibiricus: chasd00: As a new parent the thimg that most worries me is traffic. My street is pretty quaint and peaceful but to get more than 2 blocks in any direction you have to cross pretty busy streets (4 lanes plus turning lane). I know I can teach my kids to cross but seen plenty of close calls in my time it still worries me a bit.

It took my *grandfather* to teach me how to cross a busy road like that - Mineral Spring Avenue in North Providence, RI can be treacherous even if you're in a car. But this former 12 year old kid, taught by his grandfather, had no troubles.

Teach your kids how to cross a street.

My eldest nephew went to high school two years ago. At the age of 14 he had NEVER crossed the main street of our city--not even accompanied by an adult. He hadn't been allowed to ride his bike to middle school--something his younger brother now does routinely--because of "fears of traffic". I dunno, maybe they could have taught him to walk on the sidewalk and only cross at the light? Like WE got taught to do?

Back in the good old days, my father told me kids would have things happen to them and it just was something you weren't supposed to talk about. Creepy Father O'Malley and that Scout leader and the dead kid whose body was found naked out in the woods.

Two of my mother's brothers were molested by some guy back in beautiful suburban 1950s Anaheim. Solution? Don't talk about it. Nice families don't talk about those kinds of things. Pretend your one son hasn't taken up sniffing glue and prostituting his little brother to the neighbourhood pedo. Pretend it couldn't have happened until they turn into adults whose minds are shattering.

It used to be so that I could get 6, maybe 7 kids in a region before the stories would start making the news. Now I'm stuck prowling the really remote places that have spotty internet because even Edna that works at the bank gets an RSS feed on my string of grisly murders.

Petey4335: Cars driving 50 in a 25 and a school zone no less and critical thinking skills are why I have a trampoline and a fenced in yard...

I drove the legal 20MPH in the school zone front of the school that just had let all of the kids out - they were everywhere - and experienced Mrs. Soccer Mom behind me in the Mega-SUV curse, floor it and pass me on the left in the oncoming lane at 50MPH.

Maybe I shouldda terrorized her and walked alone among the kids.

I was a Free Range Kid. I've watched, with increasing concern, the steady decline of my type over the decades.

Living in a rural area, I often would be gone all day and walked miles exploring things. I carried a BB gun, or a sheath knife and/or a machete and always a pocket knife since most of where I lived was forest and big drainage canals.

I was lean, wiry, fast, tanned and healthy. I rode my single speed, fat tired bike all over the place and often to school, 5 miles away. I did a lot of camping. I got banged and scraped up enough to develop an immune system strong enough to take on elephants. I often arrived home so dirty that my mom made me rinse off with the hose before going inside -- and right into the tub.

She found it rather entertaining doing my laundry when she emptied my pockets, never exactly knowing what she'd find in there.

What do I blame for the change?

Technology, the media and society.

See, as a kid, we had newspapers, one black and white TV, a radio and one fixed phone in the house for news. Then there was the theater in town for movies. TV was somewhat censored and that would not change until HBO arrived with cable TV and that alone started changing the world.

Now, you can't move without something throwing information at you. More than you want or need. Technology has enabled us to hear about murders anywhere within seconds of their happening instead of hours or days.

It's also given a free and easy forum to crackpots and loonies who spout their paranoid delusions to the world and those who have learned how to fake videos so well that you think they're real. Others 'helpfully' post instructions on how to make lethal things out of stuff found in the home or where to get more dangerous stuff.

Pip bombs became popular after an anarchists site posted instructions on how to make them and, naturally, kids did. Another site posted the recipe for nitroglycerine. Still another for gun cotton and gunpowder.

Pretty much, no one was willing to take responsibility for what might happen when others used their information. Some hoped many would. Others considered it their RIGHT to distribute lethal instructions to the masses.

At the same time, TV shows and movies became more 'real', disclosing crime solving techniques that the average public never knew -- and criminals made note of. Then they showed criminals using techniques to break into places that John Q Public didn't know and a hitman published a book on how to kill and get away with it.

The book was banned, but helpful citizens promptly published it in the internet.

Soon the news media was fighting each other for ratings, exaggerating stories and seeking the most lurid ones possible.

Out came the invention of the Supermarket Scandal rag, led by the National Inquirer, distorting facts and truth for decades and yes, Elvis is actually dead and no, his ghost is not roaming the county doing good deeds.

Then the nation became litigious, suing everyone for everything. Common sense bit the dust. People became fearful of doing things they used to do for fear of being sued. Like letting neighborhood kids play with their kids in their yard. If one gets hurt due to his own stupidity, the parents, though close friends, now sue for medical bills, emotional stress and anything else their lawyer can dream up.

The media would focus on a topic or two and just flood the public with lurid stories and expose's -- like dangerous gangs and how murderous they were and how perverts lurked behind every bush and weed outside, just waiting to snatch and molest your kid.

Other morons turned kid on kid sexual curiosity into a felony, something parents have handled for eons with no fuss for generations, now requiring the cops, the department of children's affairs possibly a shrink and more than likely major mass media coverage of the little pervs.

Meaning, at 5, when you showed a little girl of the same age, your 'dingle' and she showed you her 'flower', even though you had no idea what they were for, you were a PERVERT and the LAW had to step in.

Then around 500 'experts' informed you about how damaging, dirty and nasty this is while 500 more told you to get over it and the politicians promptly passed laws against it so vague and unclear that parents could be arrested for corporal discipline to their own kid.

Heaven help the dad who chose to bath with his son under 5 without mommy present to make sure he didn't diddle the kid.

All of this brought to you by the major advances in the electronic technology, the ranting of idiots with a now huge public forum and a change of business morals.
Just for the heck of it, flood the market with lurid video games. Go further by creating some that puts you in the criminal's shoes and see how fun it is to mow down pedestrians, get chased by cops and gun down anyone you choose.

Then, here comes the warped computer geniuses, who find hundreds of ways to electronically abuse your systems, some for fun, most for profit and they're followed by companies that PAY them for your secret information. Not to mention hackers who screw up your systems just for fun. Then entire companies who design needed equipment, like phones, that keep a record of nearly everything you do, can be turned on remotely and even track you when turned off.

Introduce social networking sites, which soon develop internet bullies while providing access to more 'friends' than you ever dreamed you could have without the trouble of personal contact.

While that's going on, TV is introducing all new fads, many of which go on to create new diseases like anorexia. People start copying both good and bad things since years ago, you usually only got three channels. Now, you have 500. Many of them have programs where seemingly wise, intelligent, mature folks are telling you that basically everything you thought right is wrong.

Enter the Jerry Springer version of reality shows -- rigged but you don't know it.

Paparazzi make sure you're kept up to the minute on any star who farts in public and will even climb trees, scale fences and use telephoto lenses to get that nasty money shot of them in the privacy of their own homes. Oh, yeah, rags and news companies will pay good money for a shot of a famous person taking a dump or picking their nose.

By now the concept of right and wrong is blurred, since the lawyers have been suing the krap out of anyone who questions it or making up defenses for those who KNOW they did wrong, but feel justified.

Like the law that had to be made making it illegal for landlords to secretly record their tenants because the technology popped up allowing it and they did it.

Consider this. Radar guns came out for the cops. Right behind them came radar detectors and the makers of them defended their RIGHT to subvert lawmakers technology. Lawyers found 50 ways to question the skill of a cop using a radar gun, including when it was last calibrated and casting doubt on the cops, which encouraged the public to doubt them.

So, see how stupidity evolves? Wonder why society goes nuts? For every great invention there will be hundreds of folks willing to alter it's purpose, compromise it, capitalize off it and use it for nefarious reasons.

Consider your cell phone. The old landline was actually safer. Especially the non-digital dials. Not as fun or useful though.

FunkOut: Back in the good old days, my father told me kids would have things happen to them and it just was something you weren't supposed to talk about. Creepy Father O'Malley and that Scout leader and the dead kid whose body was found naked out in the woods.

Two of my mother's brothers were molested by some guy back in beautiful suburban 1950s Anaheim. Solution? Don't talk about it. Nice families don't talk about those kinds of things. Pretend your one son hasn't taken up sniffing glue and prostituting his little brother to the neighbourhood pedo. Pretend it couldn't have happened until they turn into adults whose minds are shattering.

We ran pretty much wild all over our neighborhood; in and out of our friends houses as well as our own. Nobody worried about anything except rattlesnakes. Found out many many years later that our next-door neighbor was molesting his own daughter the whole time. Yes, nice Mr. X was diddling his daughter...but still we get the line "Well, things were DIFFERENT then!" Yeah, nobody talked about it, that's what was different.

As a kid in the late 80's we only had two rules: don't go in the sewer, and don't play behind the hobo camp.