We moved from the city to a more rural area. Suddenly no one wore bicycle helmets, kids climbed trees and swung from ropes, kids ran barefoot, even if occassionally getting a cut or into something yucky. Children weren't corralled for mandatory sunscreen sessions, they drank water out of the hose and they wrestle and horseplay in the yard.
Took some getting used to, but I like it.
My childhood left me and my sisters with plenty of battle scars but I wouldn't change a thing.
What about the dad factor? DH lets the kids do stuff that scares the stuffing out of me, but he laughts it off. Maybe it takes the balance of Mom and Dad -- Mom the scaredy-cat and Dad saying, "Hey, I got a job for you ..."
The scariest moments I've had have involved DS1 -- DH let him drive the tractor while we loaded the wagon with hay. Watching him start the tractor on a hill using the clutch and brakes kind of scared me. DS1 was 8 at the time.
That said ... the school canceled two days last week ... because it was too cold. Never happened for us!
Maybe there were just as many pedophiles then. Some neighbor did try to molest my cousin, a guy exposed himself to us kids walking home from school down on the railroad tracks. I did tell my mother about that one, and she called he police which I didn't know until much later. I thought he was just doing you know. We went to the bathroom behind trees all the time.
The worst thing I heard of was in sixth grade. We had a tv personality who played the guitar, a kid show, Cowboy Blank (in case it really didn't happen). Anyway, they had him at a kid party, and he took a little girl home. She was excited to get a ride home with Cowboy Blank. He raped her. She was so traumatized she couldn't talk for days my mom said. The story was he left town.
But my father was very safety conscious, always lecturing me. My mom was more laid back. One summer I carried home a snake and came to the side screen door. "Mom, guess what I've got". "Blank, if you've go a snake out there (don't know how she guessed) and bring it in the house, I'll knock your block off!".
And my mom was a freak about health stuff, don't want to go into it. I was just telling my daughter about some stuff. I got pneumonia and didn't tell anybody until I couldn't hide it any longer. Three days I was so weak and sick I could hardly walk, kept going, ended up in the hospital, shots round the clock, think the new drug streptomyacin saved me, penicillin wasn't doing a thing. There are a lot of things I never told my parents, some kids tried to push me off a bridge, I don't know why I was like that. So many things happened I never told until I got past 50 or so, too late to tell my parents.