

Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone - tomohawk
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/maryland-couple-want-free-range-kids-but-not-all-do/2015/01/14/d406c0be-9c0f-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html?tid=trending_strip_1

======
k-mcgrady
Please use the actual title: "Parents investigated for neglect after letting
kids walk home alone"

------
richmarr
I walked ~2 miles to school every day at around that age (during the late
80s). Not sure there's any reason to believe that life is any more dangerous
now that it was then.

~~~
soneil
I can see a reason they believe this. Just not a good one.

'When I were a lad' we got the local paper delivered every afternoon (by
children, ironically enough). We watched the day's national news on TV at 6pm,
followed by the local news at 6:30.

In today's world, even trivial news such as this can reach me, the same day,
over 5000km away. The world feels like a much darker place, because I'm
exposed to so many more evils. And even though the vast majority of them
shouldn't, they do end up interfering with our already poor ability to judge
risk.

Many years from now, when I'm deciding whether or not it's okay for my
hypothetical children to walk to school - this story might vaguely cross my
mind, in that strange way our memory is prone to - and end up factoring in my
choice somehow, despite the irrelevance of some tiny muni half a world away.

Our brains just aren't good at this.

