Sean Reiser

It being Halloween, my mind has turned to fear. I'm not talking the fear we feel watching The Mummy or Chiller Theatre, but the perpetual fear we live in these days.

By the time I was 13 I was allowed to hang out with friends without supervision. During the summer I'd get up early (or be woken up by my Mom) bike to the local community pool for swim team practice which started around 7:30AM. Spend the day with friends, playing ball, biking around town (without a helmet), or getting into 13 year old mischief. Maybe we'd turn up at someone's house lunch, or maybe we'd stop by the local pizza place for a slice of pizza. By 6PM we'd all head home for our suppers, by this point we've been away from parental supervision for 10 hours. After dinner we'd often meet up again for a few hours before heading home to bed. This is how we spent the bulk of our summer. If there was a family trip or activity of course I'd do that but otherwise I was out and about most of the summer. For a good 10 to 12 hours a day my parents would know I was out with friends maybe at the local playground, maybe at one of their houses, but not know exactly where I was. It just wasn't my parents, everyone I knew had the same level of freedom.

Oh the other hand, I have a friend who has a boy around 13 years old. He's not allowed to walk down the block from a friend's house without being accompanied, even though there are no streets to cross and they live in a safe neighborhood. When we've discussed this she points out that the world has changed and "you never know what can happen". Her children are rarely alone. I know this is the way most parents act today, I am not picking on her.

I wonder if the problem is this hyper-media, Amber Alert world. I don't believe that these problems have gotten worse. I don't believe people have more knowledge of problems, I do believe that we are hyper-sensitive to the issues. As we are bashed in the head every day we are conditioned to fear and so we over protect to cover for it.