It's interesting. On the one hand, our society is content push its children into situations where the maturity needed to cope with the stress levels is typically beyond their years. Yet on the other hand, we infantilize them. For example, parents often don't let 8- or 9-year-old kids walk home from school alone, play outside alone, or go to the park alone out of an unjustified fear of stranger abductions.
That's not the only fear. I regularly read about child protective services "abducting" children because they were not being supervised as closely as some adult thought they should be. For example, there is a recent story "Maryland family under investigation for letting their kids walk home alone".
Yes, we live in a state of fear, and none of it is based on probabilities. The reason most folks are afraid to swim in the ocean is not due to the fairly high probability that they will drown, but rather the absurdly unlikely case that they are eaten by shark. We are afraid to let our children play outside, but not of childhood obesity. We take antibiotics when we do not need them out of fear of bacteria, but we re not scared enough of antibiotic resistant bacteria we are creating. And, the list goes on.
Disclaimer: When I swim in the ocean I sometimes fear being eaten by shark, so I am not immune to irrational fears.
