But Keep Them Locked Up Just In Case

Rare bit of sanity on "threats" to the little ones.

Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s data reveal that the likelihood that a car wreck will take the life of someone before age 18 is about one in 10,000. Take away teen drivers, it’s about three in 100,000 for children 14 and younger.

Child abduction by a stranger, perhaps a parent’s worst fear?

“Of all the dangers to children, this is the one most alarming and the most frightening and probably the least likely to ever happen,” said Paula S. Fass, a University of California-Berkeley professor who wrote “Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America.”

The odds are about 1.5 in a million.

“We live in a nation where dramatic things capture our attention” Fass said of our fears about children. “They are sensationalized by the media and by our imaginations.