Things have changed when I would walk the five miles in the Minnesota snow to get to my third and fourth grade classroom (If I retrace the blocks in my mind, it was probably only 6-7 blocks in reality.) I would not let my own kids at that same age do that walk today on a daily basis. In my mind, I know that the vast majority of abductions and even sexual abuse are that the hands of people who are closest to us and not the hidden pervert on the street corner. About 115 children are kidnapped by strangers each year, according to federal statistics; 250,000 are injured in auto accidents. Still, I fear and try to control the unknown as much as I can.

In this piece in the New York Times, much of what I feel appears to be in the norm.

The fear of abduction by strangers “has become a norm within middle-class parental circles,” said Paula S. Fass, a history professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of “Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America.” “We try to control our fears to the nth degree, so we drop our children off right at school. It’s a confirmation that ‘I’m a good parent.’ ”

In 1969, 41 percent of children either walked or biked to school; by 2001, only 13 percent still did, according to data from the National Household Travel Survey. In many low-income neighborhoods, children have no choice but to walk. During the same period, children either being driven or driving themselves to school rose to 55 percent from 20 percent. Experts say the transition has not only contributed to the rise in pollution, traffic congestion and childhood obesity, but has also hampered children’s ability to navigate the world.

In a study of San Francisco Bay Area parents who drove children ages 10 to 14 to school, published this summer in the Journal of the American Planning Association, half would not allow them to walk without supervision, and 30 percent said fear of strangers governed their decision.

[From The Walk-to-School Fight - NYTimes.com]

I’m surprised that only 41% of kids walked to school in 1969, but I assume that was a function of long distances for a more rural America. In the ’70s, bussing made walking to school a political hot button. Whatever side you were on on that issue, you still had to feel sorry for the kids and families who couldn’t just walk their kids to the neighborhood school. While we all got lectures about taking candy from strangers, I don’t recall much serious worry about the walk to and from school.

In France, our friends regularly let the kids ages 7 or 8 run down to the bakery for a loaf of bread. My daughter at nine doesn’t even like to go to another floor of the house if we’re not there. As much as we’re trying to protect them, I doubt we’re helping them develop life skills by keeping them from doing some things on their own.

You have to love the all-America coda to this story:

Recently, Amy Utzinger, a mother of four in Tucson, Ariz., let her daughter, 7, walk down the block to play with a friend. Five houses. Same side of the street. Afterward, the friend’s mother drove Mrs. Utzinger’s daughter home. “She said, ‘I just drove her back, just in case … you know,’ ” recalled Mrs. Utzinger. “What was I supposed to say? How can you argue against ‘just in case’?”

I understand the mom’s reticence to let the little girl walk home by herself, but I’ll never stop being amazed that someone outside of LA would take the car out to drive five houses away.