The kid is probably more likely to be struck by lightning while you're walking around in the park on an overcast day than being abducted by strangers.
But parents of newborns are rarely sensible about their risk assessment, and obsess over amazingly unlikely scenarios while forgetting about the plausible and common ones.
Risk analysis isn't just about probability. It's about the cost of prevention relative to the probability of a bad outcome multiplied by the cost of a bad outcome. Parents worry about children because the cost of losing a child is ruinously high to a parent. Meanwhile, little preventative measures like not leaving them outside are cheaper than putting them in little baby Faraday cages on cloudy days. Hence why parents worry about child abduction and not lightning strikes.
Yes, but they aren't so careful about things like drowning or road safety. I'm not certain about the actual risks (digging through the data is kind of depressing), but in general people tend to over or under estimate risks based on a few factors: malice, familiarity, how dramatic it seems. A crazed gunman is scary. Not looking in your mirror when backing out of the driveway isn't.
Not that long ago some friends were mid argument when we turned up. She was saying that, hypothetically, if she ended up in a river with her baby she would hold it up, save it, and drown if it required that to save it. Her husband was saying save yourself first, you're no good dead and if you drown, the baby drowns too. And they wouldn't shut up. I hadn't seen anything like it before, but now we have a child, and strange crap happens.
Cost of being afraid about possible abduction of your child is extremely underestimated as this fear twists your world view, possibly world view of your child and prevents your child from some things that could be beneficial for him/her.
Conversely cost of not having a pool or a gun is much lower and does more for the actual safety of your child.
As a parent of two small children, I can assure you I obsess over the plausible and common scenarios as well.
If you look at it rationally, having kids is utterly terrifying. We have logically evolved to care very deeply for our offspring. So you have this tiny living organism whose health is critically important for your own happiness. And this organism is physically separate from you, mobile, frail, loud enough to draw attention to itself, unable to protect itself, inquisitive, and completely unaware of danger.
I shared these worries but we parents really need to get over it. It is actually dangerous for kids to have worrying parents. Kids need to build self-confidence, mostly copying yours.
So here are some tips that helped me and my wife to hide or diminish our worries.
kids, even newborns, are actually more resilient and solid than their parents in many respects. If I got half the knocks on the head my boy got this week at school, I'd be in hospital.
Worries and fear are contagious, don't spread it. If your wife is a bit sensitive to the sight of blood, ask her to go in another room when your kid has a little nosebleed. Seeing worries on her face well not help in any way.
Trash immediately all those culpabilizing books on parenting: the best gift you can do to kids is culpability free parents.
Best wishes to her. Fatherhood of a daughter is an awesome responsibility, which I have found often turns into sheer delight. (My daughter was born after we had three sons beforehand. We like them all, but there is definitely something different for the dad about having a girl in the house.) Did you know that the current projection of cohort life expectancy is that a girl born in the developed world since the turn of the century has a better than even chance of living to age 100?
>Did you know that the current projection of cohort life expectancy is that a girl born in the developed world since the turn of the century has a better than even chance of living to age 100?
If I don't drop her on her head. That's the "awesome responsibility" part!
Having a newborn that just came off of 9 days on life-support, I can say without a doubt that having children is the most terrifying thing you'll ever do in your life.
Watching our 3 year old discover his physical limitations is an amazingly ulcer-inducing activity and I find myself constantly expecting the worst.
After witnessing the many falls, bruises, scrapes, and assorted damage that kids endure, I'm constantly amazed they survive into adulthood.
I've really enjoyed talking to my family and strangers about their irrational fears that exist around children. It's incredibly fascinating to me. That said, I have been totally terrified to board an airplane for the last 3 years (use to fly once a month) so I don't have much of a leg to stand on.
The kid is probably more likely to be struck by lightning while you're walking around in the park on an overcast day than being abducted by strangers.
But parents of newborns are rarely sensible about their risk assessment, and obsess over amazingly unlikely scenarios while forgetting about the plausible and common ones.