As I read a recent ABC News report about a mother being arrested after her son was seen walking alone to the Dollar Store half a mile from home, a story from my childhood came to mind. Brittany Patterson of Mineral Bluff, Ga., was at a doctor's appointment with another child when her nearly 11-year-old boy left the house and was spotted alone. Somebody alerted the police who took the boy home. A few hours later, the cops went to Patterson's address, cuffed her in front of her kids, and dragged her off to the police station for a mugshot. She was charged with willingly and knowingly endangering "her juvenile son's bodily safety." The Division of Family and Child Services demanded that Patterson comply with its safety plan, which required her to download a GPS app to track her son's location. She refused, and soon her "crime" and the debate over "free-range children" became a hot topic on social media.

My Childhood Freedom vs. Today's Paranoia

When I was a kid in the '70s, it was a different and better time. I was free to go all over the place on foot or on my bike, as long as I got home on time for dinner and arrived home at night when the streetlights came on. We kids were on our own all the time, and our parents weren't terrified if we were out of their sight.For example, when I was just 6, I disappeared from my house and took off alone to a mom-and-pop convenience store three blocks away. My older sisters Krissy and Kathy were supposed to be watching me while my mother was downstairs doing laundry. But Krissy gave me a cardboard coin and told me I could get candy with it. My mother was upset when she saw I was missing, but I was found quickly, and no one ratted out my mom to the cops. Back then, there were only three network television channels, and parents' fears weren't being stoked 24/7 by sensationalistic news stories.Despite today's increased parental paranoia, being kidnapped is no more likely for kids now than it was in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. Consider that there are roughly 40 million elementary-school-age children in America today. Each year, about 115 children are kidnapped, according to Child Watch of North America, while nearly 140,000 are injured in car wrecks every year.In spite of this reality, our TV and cable news media have spent decades exaggerating and inflaming fears about the safety of our children. We've evolved into a fearful culture that's afraid to allow our children the freedom to roam and discover on their own. God help any parent today whose 6-year-old might slip out of the house with a paper coin his sister made for him!