Boy, no matter where you look, there's a news story, article, or personal experience that'll scare the hell out of an expectant parent. I swear, I can't go a day without stumbling across an article about a child abduction or a toy recall or the potential threat of Bovine Growth Hormone. It's a scary world, and I think that's why so many parents do their best to keep their kids on house arrest.

When I was a kid, I had to walk 10 miles to school in the snow, and we couldn't afford shoes. Of course, that's not even close to true, but I did walk to school. And it was about a mile. And I had good, supportive shoes to walk in. I met my friends on the way and it wasn't a scary experience or an unpleasant one, instead it was a time for kids to be kids. Nowadays, I know parents that won't allow their kids to ride the bus to school because of the possible danger lurking in those vinyl-upholstered seats.

There's a big part of me that feels that we're cheating our children. We're trying to protect them from invisible threats, and by doing so, we're making them more isolated, less social, and more afraid of the world around them.

So what's the reality here? Are our kids in constant danger from this cold, cruel world? Or are we increasingly paranoid because now, when a kid gets abducted, we hear about it non-stop on the news? Now, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be coverage of these travesties, I just don't necessarily think that it should change the way we parent. It's not like these terrible scenarios are new. There have been awful people throughout history who have chosen to prey on children. In the "old days", a lot of this was swept under the rug or went completely unreported by the kids or the parents. Was that better? No way. But is it worse now? I'm not sure. I see one big difference from the events of the past and those of today. The internet plays a big role in modern incidents involving children. So are we better off making our kids stay inside on the computer instead of letting them walk to their friends' houses?

This is all very easy to say now while my kid is still basically a concept in my mind. Once I've got a child who can walk and talk and is wrapped in a blanket of innocence, I'll probably have a very different perspective. I'm going to try my best to not rob my child of experience out of fear, but we'll see how that goes.