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.The same held true for widely publicizedcrimes by and against children, such as the random murder of aChicago boy by Leopold and Loeb in the 1920s.By the 1970s, runawaysand disappearances brought another reminder of how the social envi-ronment might overwhelm parental control.The milk carton campaign,featuring pictures of lost children, began in 1979, after an appealingNew York boy was abducted (he was never found).Soon, campaignswere claiming that fifty-thousand abductions by strangers took placeeach year (the actual figure was between two and three hundred).Hy-perbole and deep fear combined, and the faces of lost children on milkcartons and postcards drove the point home: the world was not securefor children.In urban and suburban settings, fears could push parentsto restrict their children s freedom of movement, as it became unclearhow to get children safely from one place to another unless parentsthemselves provided the transportation.Here was another area, as well,in which children s natural impulses, for example in responding tostrangers, were unreliable, another area where vulnerability had to bematched by new levels of parental vigilance.Similar panics developedTHE VULNERABLE CHILD 35at several points in the 20th century (the decades from the 1950s to the1970s were the main exception) about sexual predators who targetedchildren, with greatly exaggerated accounts of pedophile rings andother threats from outsiders.A University of Pennsylvania study in2001 contended that one child in 220 was sexually exploited, the au-thors claiming that there was an epidemic in a well-intentioned attemptto jolt parents and policymakers into action.But the report provedhastily done, the figures apparently involving significant double count-ing.The shock was administered, another vulnerability to worry about,but the actuality and the longer-term results were cloudier, in what be-came a characteristic zigzag pattern.The dramatic conversion of Halloween from a chance for childrento revel in their spontaneity to a new and anxiety- provoking parentalresponsibility showed the new fear of the outside world in this case,including neighbors.Reports spread widely in 1982 about poisonedcandy and razorblade-filled apples given to children when they weretrick-or-treating.It was not clear that any of the poisoning reports weretrue, though there were three cases of pins stuck in candy bars in theLong Island area.But accuracy was not the point where children s vul-nerability was concerned.Parents began dutifully going with their kidson trick-or-treat outings, while cities increasing regulated them.Thenew pattern was going strong a quarter- century later, the anxieties asfresh as when the rumors were first launched.What was happening here, obviously, was an interaction betweenassumptions of vulnerability and the new range and immediacy ofmedia accounts.Rumors about dangers to children are common inmany societies, but their frequency is limited by the fact that theyspread within particular regions.Now, with the press, radio, and, soon,television at the ready, any predation, anywhere in the United States,became grist for the anxiety mill.Events like the Leopold and Loebmurder became coast-to-coast reality, vividly detailed, demonstratinghow children might fall victim to random crime.Parental grief could bedisseminated as never before, and it could prove contagious.It was the growing threat of accidents, however, that most clearlyshowed the gap between children s vulnerability and their surround-ings in modern society.Here, too, media accounts had a key role, butthere were new realities, as well.While teenage driving did not becomewidespread until after World War II, except in rural areas, the potentialboth for cars and for the growing array of home appliances, electrical36 ANXIOUS PARENTSoutlets, chemicals, and medicines to cause damage to children emergedclearly by the second decade of the 20th century.Here, obviously, thenew emphasis on children s frailty focused on changes in the home andneighborhood, not on some new weakness on the part of children them-selves.But, in combination with other new concerns about vulnerabil-ity and the coincidence in timing, it all added up to a powerful package.In 1922, fifteen thousand New York children were paraded up FifthAvenue to honor a new Child Memorial constructed to memorializevictims of street accidents.A special division of 1,054 boys representedan equal number of children accidentally killed during 1921, while fiftymothers who had lost their offspring marched behind.The city s HealthCommissioner intoned:  We are here to dedicate a monument to themartyrs of civilization to the helpless little ones who have met deaththrough the agencies of modern life. Safety campaigns urged mothersto be more attentive, while teaching children basic pedestrian rules.By1932, 86 percent of all schools had safety training, in what became atruly emotional community focus (in contrast to more diffuse efforts di-rected toward road safety more generally).Many families responded,where resources permitted, by reducing the time children spent on thestreet and building indoor play facilities, including formal playrooms,to diminish children s vulnerability.Park playgrounds served much thesame function in disciplining and constricting fragile children.Urbanchildren, particularly, were kept close to home.16But home had its own problems.The National Safety Council,formed in 1914, soon began to issue regular reports on domestic injuriesand fatalities to children [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]