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CNN Live At Daybreak

Parenting Paranoia in Today's Times

Aired June 06, 2002 - 06:19   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Now parents have more to worry about these days or so it seems.

CNN's Anne McDermott counts the reasons why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNE MCDERMOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Back in the '50s, there was one real fear and some families built bomb shelters. They don't do that anymore. But parents today have plenty to be paranoid about, everything from toys to tornadoes. OK, so maybe you never knew a kid on a milk carton, but you did know about Polly Klaas and how she was taken from her home while her mother slept and was killed. Eight years later, it happened again. The victim this time, Danielle van Dam.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I still go through the house and I look and I hope that she's going to be there.

MCDERMOTT: And now it seems it's happened again to a girl in Salt Lake City.

Or how's this for scary, you drop your son off at a pool party, come to pick him up and nobody knows where he is and two days later they find him in the pool?

We see this and shutter, even though chances are this will never happen to our children, never happen to anyone we know because our children are safe, they're in school. Oh yes, it happens there, too.

So what is it? Are times just more dangerous? Psychologist Susan Perry says yes, because our population has grown.

SUSAN PERRY, PARENTING EXPERT: Well, I think there are more predators out now.

MCDERMOTT: And thanks to the media, we hear about it live around the clock.

Sure sometimes over the years we've worried about the unthinkable, but sometimes the unthinkable happened.

Anne McDermott, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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