When I was 12 my friends and I were walking to the train station, getting on a train into the city (we lived in the suburbs), walking around the shops in the city, then getting the train home again. Everywhere we went was busy with people, and we went everywhere together.

When I was 15 I was getting the train to a really rough bit of the city by myself, as I was doing work experience there. I was sensible and I was fine. When I was 16 I had a weekend job in town... and again was perfectly capable of getting there by myself.

Kids will never learn to be responsible if they don't get the freedom to learn.

I never walked to school by myself. My mom or dad always took my brother and I by car or walked with us. I don't let my 7 year old walk to school with his friends. I walk him to school or take him by car. You can never be too careful these days. It's scary out there and I want my son to be safe.

Seeing as I live in Florida, I hear this almost every morning on the radio talk shows, its all over the news, all day. It's very sad. I found this on one of the radio shows websites....

ORANGE PARK, Fla. - Investigators searching for a 7-year-old Florida girl that disappeared while walking home from school said Wednesday that a child's body had been found in a landfill, and the girl's father said it was likely his daughter.

The partially covered body was found in a Georgia landfill near the Florida state line, after investigators followed garbage trucks leaving from the neighborhood where Somer Thompson disappeared Monday.


Sheriff Rick Beseler said investigators searched through 100 tons of garbage before finding the body. He first said the body was female, then corrected himself to say he could not confirm the gender.


The girl's father, Samuel Thompson, said he was told by detectives that the body found in the landfill has a circular birthmark on its leg that matches the "odd-shaped" birthmark on his daughter's left shin, the Florida Times-Union reported.


"I'm angry. I'm so angry. I'm so hurt," Thompson told the newspaper as he wept. "My baby daughter laying in trash. Discarded like a piece of trash. God help the sons of bitches who hurt my daughter. They better find them."


Few other details about the body, such as a possible cause of death, were released. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation planned an autopsy Thursday.
That was on mjmorningshow.com

Also on the website, they talked about how there were more than 150 registered sex offenders in the 5 mile radius where the little girl was last seen. I can understand that maybe the parents had busy schedules and what not, but at least find some sort of transportation for your kids. Especially that young. I know that the buses don't pick up kids if they live under a certain distance away from the school. But damn, find a neighborhood carpool or something!!!

I was never allowed to walk that far especially at that age. Even as I got older and living in a relatively small, safe town my mom still didn't allow me to walk far from home. Every once in awhile she'd have me walk down to the store which was just a few blocks away and I was never allowed to walk alone. One time I had gone to the store with a friend and on our way there some guy was sitting underneath a tree and was trying to talk to us. It was still scary even though nothing happened. I'm 26 now and even though it really doesn't seem like that long ago, times really have changed in just the short amount time that has passed. My town is small and a retirement town and really nothing bad happens here but I still don't feel safe. Sad but true.