The XX Factor: What women really think.

Wild Child or Wild World?

Rachael and Emily, like Bonnie, I am of the better-safe-than-sorry school of parenting.

First, I should say, Rachael has two-plus young children, Emily has two, Bonnie's are grown (correct me if I am mistaken), and I am childless by choice.

I am a bit older than Rachael and remember well the freedom of my childhood. I grew up in a semi-rural suburb of Boston, where we used to take off in the morning, go play on the catwalks (yes, the ones that led to the power lines!), go tramping through tick-infested ponds and swamps, trolling for frogs and salamanders, climb sap-covered trees, and come home right before dark with our white socks soaking wet with swamp muck and our hair matted.

We played baseball and softball in the streets until our parents rang bells out their front doors to call us home for dinner. We sought out an adult only when something went wrong: Kevin is stuck in a tree and is too scared to climb down! Kay has a giant bloody tick on her head! Paul smacked Ellen in the leg with a Whiffleball bat and now she's crying!

It was awesome.

But it was only awesome because no one was seriously maimed, abducted, or otherwise traumatized. And this was pure luck.

I do wonder and worry about these poor kids today, who have to be so constantly supervised: strapped into car seats, unable to wander or take off for an afternoon walk to find someone to play with. No more can they just stroll up to a neighbor's house, ring the bell, and say, "Can Kay come out and play?" It's all prescheduled, prearranged, and it's even called a date!

While Rachael says the kid in the story knew where he was going, had a cell phone, and his mom would be at the soccer field a few minutes after him so would know if he had arrived safely, what would she have done if he hadn't arrived safely? What could she have done?

Since I don't have children, maybe I have an unrealistic idea of what could happen, fueled by too many news stories, movies, and my own parents' paranoia (yes, even they who let me run wild as a child were terrified of crazy things). I have no doubt that the kid was capable, self-reliant, knew where he was going, etc., but his abilities are not at issue. Could not someone have driven up and pulled him into a car and driven off? Or is that just my imagination running wild?

I agree with Bonnie: Better safe than sorry.

The only thing I can compare it to is my dog. I now live in the city, in a neighborhood where the park is in one direction and the street on which you can do all your errands is in another. And so it is a constant dilemma for dog owners: walk the dog and then do errands or take the dog on errands even though it will mean having to tie her up outside? (Is it true or an urban legend that people steal dogs and sell them for science experiments?)

I try to never tie her up outside. If I have to, it will only be at stores that I need to run into for less than a minute with glass fronts so I can see her the whole time. Once I did have to run into the bank to get some quarters for laundry and parking, and I tied her up. I had to wait in a slow-moving line and I was a nervous wreck. Why was I doing this? Would $10 worth of quarters be worth losing her over? How would I explain it to my husband if someone took her? And would I ever forgive myself?

Granted, a dog is not a child: She is not my flesh and blood, not human, and I don't have to worry about guiding her toward independence so I can send her off to college and to become a self-sufficient adult.

But if she were taken, if that kid were taken, wouldn't the parent do anything to get back that moment and make a different decision? I know I would.