[rayiner]

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.

[wisty]

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.

[lostlogin]

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.

[scotty79]

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.

[bjornsing]

Baby Faraday cages, that's the best thing since sliced bread! :)