We all bear responsibility--of course. I've used this example before. My 14 year old gets very, very angry with me because I will not let him leave the subdivision when all of his friends can.
He is a good boy and generally obeys me. But, he is 14. It is part of his job description (ha-ha) to test the limits and to see if he can get away with leaving on his bike with his friends. They usually swim in the lake, a big no-no for my son as no adults are present. I always find out about it and he is always punished.
If, God forbid, something happened to him I would hate to see a thread on Freerepublic blaming me for letting him wander or reading posts like "how can he be so stupid?"
(the older ones were not much different when they were 14 or 18).
The only way we can protect our kids from themselves is if we lock them up. You do the best you can and pray that at some point in their transition from late teen to early adult something sticks.
Being a parent is no different. I can look back on raising the boys and say "If I knew then what I know now." I have been able to do it with the 14 year old. When he was little I would look at him and say "Been there, done that and those tears won't work on me anymore." He is somewhat more responsible than his 2 older brothers, but he can still be a stupid (and I mean that as only a loving parent can mean it) 14 year old.
You can't protect kids from themselves, but you can teach kids how to protect themselves from bad people. That begins by offering them a bit of ugly truth early on and not pretending the world is all sunshine and light.
Oh, that's nonsense. I might be older than dirt, but my folks told me, from the time I was able to understand (and maybe before), to never, ever go someplace with a stranger. I can't even imagine getting into a car with three men, and she should not have been able to, either. That, my friend, is bad judgment, and it likely led to tragedy.