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Until she was about 11 or 12 I let myself and my daughter become crime victims. I restricted her outside play to when I (or another trusted mom or dad) could be right there, watching like a hawk. Granted, I grew up in the country outside a very small town, and she grew up in city neighborhoods. But even in the city people weren’t so fearful 15 or 20 years ago, were they?
Our entire society has succumbed to the fears of numerous terrors and so we stopped trusting our neighbors. We stopped trusting until given a reason not to. We stopped counting on each other to "keep an eye out."
Therefore, you may not "loiter" in the park but the government may read your emails and listen to your phone calls because you might be guilty.
Even I was a suspect. I was glared at, accused without words, by a dad who tore out of his house and yelled at his 3 or 4-year-old daughter when I stopped to comment on her chalk drawing.
We are reminded daily by a sensationalistic media that children are abducted by sociopaths or secretly abused by pedophiles. Through 24/7 media we come to know the abusers as if they were our neighbors. We are told we should be afraid. Stay behind closed doors. Block out other children and all of our neighbors. Instead, turn on the TV and computer and let them mold our consciousness. And for God's sake, stay out of the park!
