When is close enough?

We as parents try to raise upstanding members for our future communities. We try to instill a balance of righteousness, self preservation, honor and respect in our children. We do this hoping that our children will not grow into thugs, or criminals. but into useful, working members of society, who may try to do the same with their own children. This does not come easy, and with each generation it becomes more difficult. Letting your children walk to school, or go out with their friends is becomming a thing of the past, or a frightful nail biting experience. A few months ago(around my birthday) a young girl Jacinda's age went missing. she was at a mall with her mother, and stormed off when they got into an argument, that child promptly dissapeared.
Now as parents we all feel for any family whose child is missing, but untill you experience that actual panic of your child being missing,you can't fully understand how terrifying this is. I only say this because I felt bad for them, but two weeks after she went missing, I got to experience the real thing with Jacinda. I was walking home from work, and asked her on the phone if she felt like walking down to meet me to walk home with me, which she did, But time passed and I did not see her, finally I made it all the way home, planniung to joke with her about how long it took her to get dressed I discovered she wasn't at home, I walked back down, thinking I had missed her(though quietly starting to panic, my chest constricting with what I felt was me over reacting and being silly). I walked all the way back down to where we were supposed to meet watching both sides of the street, but still no Jacinda. I ran back calling her name, I called her cell phone no answer. I got Jared at his freinds house, no one had seen her, checked at mom's , she wasn't there. Now Panic was setting in full throttle. The other girl(exactly her age) had dissapeared at this exact time of day, and I was starting to freak out. Neighbours were starting to drive around, to check side streets, thinking maybe she got confused. Others walked wondering if the dog(who she was walking) had dragged her the wrong way.
I called Lee but the answering service at his work wouldn't get him(just so everyone knows they were almost fired because of this as they were told his child was missing and didn't tell him) Finally I called 911(it had been over an hour with no sign of her , and I was hysterical. Our whole building was outside, I was pacing the sidewalk in front of our house, and everyone was driving around looking for her, or helping our, or waiting with me in front of the building. Leee had finally called and rushed home, where we sat with the police crying and yelling at everything because nothing seemed to be getting dom=ne quickly enough. The police were checking everywhere, telling us they understood and we had done the right thing calling them, as it was getting dark, and they were going to help us find her.

Out of the blue on of our neighbours got a phone call from someone she babysat for asking what the missing child looked like. Our neighbour described her, and the caller told her that she was looking right at her as they spoke. Her daughter who is baby sat by our neighour is only 4. She loves Jacinda and she was looking out the window of the car and said to her mom" look mommy their is Jacinda everyone is looking for her!" Her mom pulled over and shouted at Jacinda, "Is your name Jacinda?" To which our daughter hesitatingly said yes, the lady told her not to move. This lady turned her car around, and parked at a nearby gas station, and got the attendant to watch her child, and came down to Jacinda. We were all still with our neighbour on the other end of the line, and oure neighbour was shouting, it's her , it's her , We got her! We stayed on, as the police officer with us directed another unit back to her. The police finally arrived where our daughter was, he calmly got out of his squad car and asked our daughter if her name was Jacinda Solomon, to which she said yes, it was. He asked if she knew that she had been missing for over and hour, to which she responded no she didn't. He told her that he needed to get her home because her parents were worried sick about her......

Well all turned out all right for our family( sadly not for the other child whose body has since been found near her home) it turns out Jacinda had simply walked up the street, instead of down(she ended up miles away from home) But It makes me wonder just how close do we need to keep our children, children are being attacked , not just by sick adults antmore, but by sick youth now too. Those old milestones that we used to strive for, are they too freely given now, or does that make us overbearing parents, who suffocate our children. where do we draw the line that we have to let our kids cross on their own?

I think parenting is becoming harder for those who are trying to do right by their kids, letting your child run around all the city without knowing who there with, or where they are going, is doing your child a disservice. All we can do is the bast we can, and hope that it's enough...............