This is obviously a few years later, but xanderma I cannot seriously understand parents like yourself. I am 26 myself now, but I think back whenever someone mentions of X age child walking home by themselves or doing anything without their parent as if it is such an achievement or as if they are taking a hugesecurity risk. Think back to your own childhood, how old were you when you started to be on your own? I don't mean moving out, I mean going places on your own. For me, I would say I was around 7.. and that is not just walking home from school. That is the streetto friend. Around the neighborhood, and so on. That is simple stuff, but still you said your daughter walking home by herself at 12 is a security issue... By 10 I was walking around Harvard University campus by myself, no I don't mean to sound like a bigshot, my dad worked, funny enough, security in their libraries. That is also an understatement, because I would also take the subway system myself, walk around a number of areas accessible by subways, and then return to take a commuter train home, and get a cab the rest of the way, which waitring on a cab is like 20 minutes at 8pm.. what kind of horrible place must the world be 16 years later that a twelve year old cannot walk home by herself likely a similar way you did at nine? It is parents like this that make kids so screwed up these days, over-protective, shadowing, have to be there every moment, every person you do not know will lure you into a van and take you away. The world is only bad because of how you fear anything outside your home walls, that does not make the world bad or dangerous, that makes you paranoid. How is the world outside so bad when so many people are good people, not everyone is out to get your kids...