All right-thinking people, as far as I can tell, agree that Montgomery County is acting in a callous and stupid way by threatening kidnap the children — ages 10 and six — who were allowed to walk a mile home from a local park and by intrusively investigating the parents for this non-crime.
There’s more disagreement, however, on whether the parents acted stupidly or irresponsibly by allowing their two kids to walk home together from the park.
This argument has exploded on moms’ Facebook pages across America, as well as talk radio, cable news and blogs. Every parent will find their own way to parent, and every child is different. But here are two basic facts that ought to inform discussions:
1. Kidnappings by strangers are extremely, extremely rare.
2. Children are extremely unlikely to get hit and killed by a car while walking during the day.
Your elementary school kid being abducted by a stranger is about a one-in-one-million risk
While “an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day,” according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, nearly none of these are your stereotypical kidnapping. A vast minority of those missing reports end up being abductions. Almost all abductions are by family or other friends — and these are not kids snatched off the street or playground.
Your “stereotypical” abduction — a stranger taking a kid — happens about 115 times a year, according to NCMEC. This is one of the worst things that can happen to the parents and the kid, and so it’s a parent’s top fear. But the good news is that this almost never happens.
Look at the chart on page 7 of this report. It estimates that about 24 percent of stereotypical kidnappings are of children ages six to 11 — the range of both of the Silver Spring kids in the story linked above. That’s 27 kids in that age range per year, out of about 23.9 million total children in that age range in the country. So the risk of your six- to- 11-year-old being kidnapped is just barely greater than one in a million.
An elementary school kid walking in daytime has a one-in-a-million chance of being killed by a car
Cars are very heavy machines that go very fast. Putting your child in the backseat and driving 20 miles around the Beltway is one of the most dangerous things you do with your kids.
Georgia Avenue is a big road with lots of cars. That’s scary to imagine kids walking down such a street. Here’s the data, though:
In 2012, 75 pedestrians ages five through nine were killed in traffic accidents, according to federal statistics. Only about 30 percent of all pedestrians killed are killed at nighttime. Do the rough math, and you get about 23 children ages five through nine killed by cars while walking during the daytime every year. That’s awful. But it’s unlikely, given the population of kids that age is about 20 million.
Again, losing your child in any way is awful. But if you’re going to try to protect your kid from every one-in-a-million risk, you’ll find there’s very few things your kid can do. Playing youth baseball, by some estimates, gives your sons a one-in-a-million chance of dying. And again, if you’re afraid of one-in-a-million risks, definitely don’t get on the highway with your kid in the car.
