Today’s parents counsel their kids about the dangers of talking to strangers from the time a child utters his or her first words, warn high schoolers about the perils of under-age drinking and forbid them to go into unfamiliar neighborhoods alone. In this era of Amber Alerts and GPS trackers for kids, we parents tell ourselves that we have all our bases covered, that we are doing everything we can that we can protect our children from the nameless, faceless boogey men that lurk around the fringes of our structured, orderly existence.
![etan patz age progression etan patz age progression](https://mylifeofcrime.files.wordpress.com/2006/02/jose-antonio-ramos.jpg)
In the afternoon, the ‘car line’ in front of the school begins almost an hour before dismissal when students are ushered to the appropriate waiting mini-van. In my neighborhood in Greenwich, Connecticut, a group of us drive our children to their bus stop just steps away from our homes and wait with them until they are safely in their seats which never takes very long because the bus half empty since most parents drive their children to school. Today, it is unfathomable for most parents to even think about letting their child go anywhere alone. Etan’s story and his vanishing without a trace from his own neighborhood marked the beginning of a new age of parental anxiety where it no longer felt safe to leave children unsupervised.