From Tablet, Letting Go of Our Kids Isn’t a Form of Neglect:
…Kidnapping by strangers is wildly uncommon; in New York State, for instance, the Division of Criminal Justice Services announced that 20,309 children were reported missing statewide in 2011; exactly one of those children was confirmed abducted by a stranger. Most—94 percent—were runaways, most of them teenagers.
The article is in response to the state of Maryland’s horrified response in relation to the existence of a family which practices “free range” parenting. Free range being what used to be called normal parenting as far back as the 1980s. Looking at the statistics above this is a clear case of moral panic. It will abate. Too many cultural forces, from overtaxed working mothers to libertarians and Christian parents’ rights sorts, object to the dominant ethos. But, I suspect that technology, the ubiquity of phones with GPS and tracking technology, will play a role in the changing of the Zeitgeist.
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