[sirsinsalot]

Well yes, but even in the 1990s, I remember talk by parents at the primary school gate along the lines of:

"Did you hear [child Y] tried to get pulled into a van?"

And it was talked about like a casual fact-of-life hazard which just happens sometimes.

In the 1990s I had an absurd amount of freedom to roam, walked myself to school from age 6 and had very little oversight. It wasn't safe, not by a LONG way, as the area was very poor and rough.

It did give me both hugely valuable life tools and an adulthood of inappropriate anxiety and hightened response to small threats.

I feel like we should work to give children the skills without the threat being so high that it causes long-term issues in adulthood. Children need safety to grow well.

[gadders]

I think another difference of then vs now is that adults would look out for other people's kids.