Honest question: what is the objective, per-child risk of that happening? I don't have data for that, but I would be shocked if it was anything except exceedingly low, on the order of getting killed in a commercial aircraft crash.
Most of the time, if a child is abducted, it is the other parent in a post-divorce situation, rather than a kidnapper / molester. But we do see stories about those occasionally in the national news, so most people are "aware of the danger".
Ditto, I suppose, for CPS getting called by an over-reactive neighbor upon seeing a child wandering around without supervision. These types of stories also make the national news, for whatever reason, so most people are "aware of the danger".
And thus, we live in a climate of fear. Yay!
For the record, I spent some parts of my childhood wandering around in the woods alone (or with friends) where I could have: fallen down a hill, drown in a stream, fallen out of a tree, etc., etc., etc. without a reasonable possibility of timely rescue (no mobile phones back then). And I somehow survived. It is a shame that most kids in urban or suburban areas won't get a chance to do this anymore.
The moral is basically "You can't depend on people not to murder your children. You can't bring back dead children, we all need to protect our children." Watching M for the first time was incredibly strange. M was filmed in 1931 and the plot could have been written yesterday. I'm a huge proponent of letting kids explore the world (both literally and figuratively) without adult supervision.
I'm extremely thankful that my parents instilled such a strong sense of self-reliance in me. So many people who I grew up with are afraid to do anything without somebody there holding their hand. When I was a child I was allowed to go pretty much anywhere as long as my parents knew where I was going, when I'd be back, and if there was an adult I could contact in an emergency.
Other parent's used to ask my mom why she let us ride our bikes to school alone. (Always my mom, never my dad.) They'd ask "aren't you afraid of what could happen?" My mom was always insulted by these exchanges, and rightfully so -- the implication always seemed to be she didn't love us enough to protect us. Nothing could be further from the truth. My mom is pretty neurotic, and I know for a fact she was incredibly restless anytime my brother or I were out and about without supervision. She let us go because she wanted us to do more than live, she wanted us to thrive.
Just made me think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
Among children / classmates close to my age in my hometown, I'm not aware of anyone who died, due to accidents or otherwise. So our mortality rate was somewhere below 1%, and I don't see anything to indicate we were unusual in that regard.
I also had an aquantance of mine die in 5th grade. Him and two of his brothers drown when the ice broke on a pond they were playing on[0]. But that's it, out of all of the people I know from school and church, all the way growing up, not just my age peers. At least, those that I heard of.
[0] - http://articles.latimes.com/1988-03-06/news/mn-708_1_young-b...
When I was between 7 and 9 I often came home from school and was alone for a while, warmed up food or cooked something simple (using a gas stove that required a match to light), went outside to play with friends if I wanted, etc.
It is sad the society today will jump in to protect my kids from me if it catches me letting them do anything like that.
So I gather that somehow these two kids were, when alone, acting in such a way that allowed the person who called the police to believe they were alone? It feels like there's some more context here. What were the kids up to? (:
I posted my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12744241 at the top level FYI.
I'm not sure that incorrectly assessing risk is limited to just parents either - look at our collective response to terrorism and mass shootings. I'm sure it's already been mentioned somewhere in these comments but the role of the media sensationalizing tragic but rare events is probably significant in this.
There is no difference there. Sending your child out to play unsupervised and getting on a plane each have X risk of Y outcome so your decision is based on those variables.
GP was simply suggesting that the risk of one's child being abducted (by social services or others) is probably similar to the risk of being on a plane that crashes (e.g. so low that most people do not even think about it).
Sending them out unsupervised exposes them to the possibility that they could get lost, they could get hurt, they could get bullied, or they could be a victim of a serious crime. Of course they could also have a great time which is why parents do it despite the (minimal) risks.
If something bad happened to your child, plenty of parents would question their decision and that experience would likely influence their future decisions. There is a reason we have fences around pools, marked locations to cross busy roads, teach kids not to chase a ball out onto a road etc - they are situations that children encounter on a routine basis. Being involved in a plane crash as an unsupervised minor is far less likely to happen and probably has fewer possible outcomes.
You are comparing a decision to an outcome, so that doesn't really mean much. You would have to consider "sending a child out unsupervised" vs. "taking a trip on a plane" (two decisions) -
Potential outcomes for sending a child out unsupervised:
- Abduction
- Bullying
- Getting hit by a car
- Stabbing
- etc.
Potential outcomes for taking a trip on a plane:
- Plane crash
- Grounding
- Diversion
- Hijacking
- etc.
If something bad happened (on their plane ride), plenty of (people) would question their decision and that experience would likely influence their future decisions.
Any number of outcomes are possible in both situations and the level of control the person experiencing the outcome has will varying greatly depending on any number of circumstances. None of this is relevant to the very simple comparison GP was making.
If you educate your kids about the risks, give them the tools to protect themselves, and give them advice on how to handle their often difficult social situations, you'll do much better than never letting them out for fear of them being molested, stabbed, or robbed.
Yes, there is a huge danger of your children being abducted, if you are not a helicopter parent. It's not some shadowy molester however, it's the government which will abduct your child.