From Stephen Pinker “The Better Angels of Our Nature”
we are far more worried about the incredibly remote possibility that our children will be abducted by strangers that we drive them everywhere (in a population as large as the US there really are so few stranger abductions that end badly- on the other hand far far more chances of being run over from all the other parents dropping picking up their kids at school.
In the 60s Europe my mom walked me to school the first day but after that I went myself, crossing busy traffic (that would admittedly freak me out with my own kids) and yet my father was actually kidnapped as a toddler in the 1930s and taken across town and left on the train platform because he was probably crying too much.
A friend growing up in 60s Ontario, was walked to the school by the family dog -because the dog “knew all about traffic”.
No, there is a difference. You are at the grocery store buying groceries. You are with your friend at the pub to have dinner. You are not in a space where there are a lot of children all by yourself simply to seek out their company.
Well, “good” is highly subjective here; I don’t think that there was any harm in what he was doing, and extremely little chance that he’d try something in such a public space, but the commenter above is arguing that it doesn’t justify arousing his/her protective instinct.
Waetherman - thanks for pursuing this. It’s not easy, but well worth the effort, to sort through the stats for a reasonable intuitive interpretation. Esp. with the ambiguity of the original data. I wish author Glenn Fleishman would weigh in with a rewrite of the paragraph that begins “Of nonfamily abductions…”. I can read it in different contradictory ways, but I’m pretty sure your interpretation is correct.
While it’s certainly overblown, there are still times and situations that require more caution. For example, just based on your geographic location lighting becomes significantly more dangerous. http://geology.com/articles/lightning-map/lightning-map.gif … If you’re in Seattle, lighting is pretty much a non-issue. If you’re in Miami, you know to get the hell out of the water and inside during the not uncommon thunderstorms. While the statistics are not going to be enough to keep swindlers from peddling gps implants for kids, I imagine it’s still worthwhile to have a gameplan or set of rules for dealing with higher risk scenarios… So… No matter what kind of candy that guy is offering, do not get into his unmarked white van. On the other hand, mustachioed strangers are going to get for your children in the corners of the grocery store, and the only way to prevent this is to buy my magical charm, er GPS device, to ward off the danger.
It’s an obvious point, but while I don’t like getting the feeling that some mothers consider me a potential paedophile just for being a man anywhere near their kids, they may well have experienced men acting sexually aggressive toward them multiple times in their lives. Some of these men may have been trusted friends or family members, or they may have been random guys in a bar or on the street. I’ve never experienced anything like that, so it’s very easy for me to say “he’s probably fine. Statistically…”. There’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t end up in statistics, so I can’t really blame people who are instinctively more cautious (although sometimes the efforts to provide security do get ridiculous and disproportionate).
