http://FreeRangeKids.com

- a great blog to visit everyday - will help awaken us from "Unfounded Fears" and return the country to rational, reasonable decision making...ummm, well, at least in the realm of parenting. For years the nation has lived in fear - fear of just about everything except the real things that can harm us. During the 20+ years of raising our boys, I know the one thing that always caused a disconnect for me was the safety of city living we experienced versus the horrors reported by the media. All these years, I kept expecting the worst and not finding it. Don't get me wrong, this isn't Shangri La. It's a city.

Anyway, as an example of Lenore's great reporting: If you haven't seen her video clip posted on youtube about what she calls:

Parental Fear #62: Will Raw Cookie Dough Kill My Kid?

Take a look!

http://www.youtube.com/watch v=t8kiMKtixAo

I either walked to school since I was 5 or 6 alone (like two blocks and my dad watched me from the door) or walked one avenue down from the bus while my mom stayed on and went to work (divorced parents). Additionally every school I went to before HS let us go out to lunch unsupervised with parental permission.

By the time I was in JHS I walked (or ran due to my dilatory nature) to school (about a mile) and was allowed to travel on the subway to the city (aka Manhattan) with a friend (prob soon after alone). All the transplants that move here are so shocked by the freedom us city kids had not being tied to cars.

People in this day and age are moronically scared. Did we get mugged? Yes! Do I know anyone that got seriously hurt or abducted? Nope. There are probably less muggings these days too! We need more people like Lenore.

http://www.transalt.org/newsroom/media/650

My question for Ms. Skenazy is this -- where do you work? At home, something that is possible given your profession?

It seems that the shift to completely managed children corresponded with the purchase of the SECOND car, which went with the second full-time career. Up until, say, the 1980s, if the second spouse worked they did so in the neighborhood, which is also where they were if they did not work, and where the children were. And that's where they shopped, too, except on the weekends when the family car was home.

That described the situation I grew up in in west Yonkers -- urban but without transit (aside from the one bus that wheezed up Nodine Hill). My wife as well, in Levittown, after having left Brooklyn. Places developed since then are only possible with, and make necessary, that second car.

But I understand that it's much easier to explain to concerned friends that you're doing X, Y, Z to mitigate an optional risk than to pull out a chart to say there actually isn't enough risk to worry about. It's a long path from the over-protective, TV-news-'informed' parenting that many of grew up under to a state of emotional health that is at the same time more traditional and more scientific; any movement in that direction is simply wonderful.

People are afraid of death by: plane crash, terrorism, violent attacker, poisonous spiders, falling in the train tracks, nuclear weapons, asteroids, and disease outbreaks such as SARS and Swine Flu, and they will frequently make important lifestyle to avoid these dangers.

People are typically not very afraid of: cigarette smoke, car accidents, AIDS, obesity and poor diet, alcohol and legal/illegal drug abuse, salmonella, or influenza, and they frequently do not make lifestyle changes to avoid these leading causes of death.

I don't know why that is but I'm sure there are studies. Sensible lifestyles should be a full-blown movement in this country because people are making really poor, ignorant choices when it comes to their health (and parenting, and finances, etc.).

So even if it might be as be safe, statistically, for kids to walk or bike to school today as it was a decade or two ago, it certainly appears less safe. And appearance almost always overrides statistics, which is why more people are afraid of flying than driving.

Our brains, while easily frightened by the media's "abduction of the week" stories, also make judgments based on what we see in our communities. Even separated from the media, I think parents can see that things don't appear to be as safe as they used to be. The idealized town center, with a school and a a park close by, is a thing of the past that never was in many parts of the country.

We'll never stop the media from playing up the sensational, but if we build more pedestrian friendly communities, parents will feel safer still. They'll send their kids out on their own because they know there will be more eyes on the street and areas where they'll be separated from traffic. We need a fundamental restructuring of cities and towns in order for this to happen.