“Children Are Our Most Precious/Valuable/Vulnerable” blah blah blah

Hi Folks! I have  a new theory: Don’t trust anyone who claims that “children are our most valuable/precious/vulnerable…” anything. They are always out to sell. Like this one. —  L.

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Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m on a couple of e-mail lists for deal-of-the-day promotions. This one showed up today.

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Truthfully, when I think of Groupon and its brethren, I tend to think of, say, $24 worth of cupcakes for $15,  not $240 worth of  “Be Really Frightened and Overreact!” advice for $25.  (Not to mention that an awful lot of the stuff mentioned in this “deal” seems to be stuff one could get for free with a little quality time with Mr. Google, but that’s another problem for another day.)

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The deal is brought to us by “Kids Live Safe,” whose website is a shining example of the parent-frightening industry at its best (worst).  Everything we see could be part of a checklist right from the Scare Parents Into Buying Something Unhelpful That Will Make Them Feel Better But Not Help Their Children:

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    *Photo showing vulnerable child (extra ten points for female child) embraced by loving mommy? Check.

    *Lots of Unnecessary Capital Letters on Frightening Words? Check.

    *Promise of lots of technology to show how up-to-date and cutting edge the service is? Check.

    *Unintentional grammatical errors unwittingly demonstrating how stupid the whole thing really is? Check checkity check!

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The one item in the package that many people might truly benefit from — the FBI crime statistics — is, I suspect, the one item they’re going to look at the least.  But, as you’ve said repeatedly, if folks DID take the time to look, they’d discover that the rate of truly nasty crimes has been dropping in recent memory.  It’s our culture’s relentless quest to keep children perfectly safe (impossible this side of heaven!) that’s been spiraling out of control, not crime.

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So just wanted to say: Keep up the good fight. — Dairy State Mom