just because they are telling you to be? what kind of life will you live like that? what kind of peace of mind will you or your kids have? we shouldn't have to live nervous that the worst is going to happen every day.

that does not mean i don't believe in being careful. i liken it to living in the city. when people ask silly questions like "aren't you scared to live ____?" i tell them, no more scared than i would be living anywhere else. things happen. anywhere and to anyone. the best thing you can do is walk through life with your eyes wide open and don't let anyone you don't know get too close to you.

oh and if the stats and info about how many kids get abducted a year scare you, consider the overwhelming number of kids that are safe every year. things happen, sure. but they are the exception, not the rule... right?

I largely agree with you, but living in New York for the past 22 years and having escaped the WTC twice now I always find it interesting that we take comfort in statistical anonymity. Yes, most kids don’t get abducted. One of the things I notice though is that despite the conspiracy theorists life is just so terribly random.

The only reason I escaped my appointment on 9-11 on the 105th floor of Tower 1 is I was running late for my morning appointment. My friend lost her son to Leukemia—also random. The reality is that tragedy is a random thing.

So, I have a chip in my car. Most cars don’t get stolen either, but it seems a simple enough precaution to take and even if it provides an insurance discount along with some peace of mind. Which leads me back to my question—if that’s a simple enough precaution to take with a car and if I teach my children not to go with anyone or appropriate versus inappropriate behavior from grownups and hoe to recite their address and phone numbers and all the other basic procedures, is this one so over the line in the cost/benefit analysis?

I don’t really know the answer to be honest. But if my car gets stolen I’ll be really glad that chip is in there. And if my child were ever abducted or missing (and the numbers that go missing in this part of the country are larger than you’d think and pretty scary) I don’t know how I’d live with the fact that I was willing to protect a car more than a child?

I don’t really know. But the randomness of how tragedy strikes coupled with the fact that we don’t get to control these things seems (sometimes) to mean that taking what measures you can might not be such a terrible thing.

In my spare time I like to scuba dive and became a rescue diver. Years ago I bought a ‘pony bottle’ –a spare half a tank and a second regulator with a gauge on it (about 30 cubic feet of air) thinking if I never used it I’d be glad of it and it was a sensible measure. It saved my life once out off of Montauk Point in a strong current.

Sometimes a precaution you hope never to need isn’t a bad idea to look into.

I’m still not sure—I have misgivings, but it does prey on a parent’s worst fear. Check the sex offender registry and see what lives within 5 miles of you. It makes you think twice… especially when you see the statistics on what happened to the children abducted.

Taking what precautions you can doesn’t mean you live in fear every day. I have a first aid kit in my car too—it doesn’t mean I think I’m going to bleed every day.

unless i was super rich. hell, i wish i weren't here without being super rich! but to address what you said, i think more people want and have easy access to your car than for your kid. i have no proof of that. just a LOT of people want to steal cars whereas only crazies steal kids. granted, there's a shocking amt of crazy out there, but you can't sit and live in fear of it all your life. i would be more inclined to keep my kids with me at all times, then to delude myself that putting a chip in them will do anything more than let me know where their body is. and i don't want to know where the kid's body is, i want to know where the kid is, alive and safe. so i get your concern, but i don't think tagging the kids are going to help all that much. maybe .02% (random number) of cases and i have more confidence that i won't end up in the sitch in the first place.

by your talk of scuba diving, i notice you're a thrill seeker. noone forced you to dive, and you take a risk every time you go down there. but you don't stop even after your close call. and there's nothing wrong with any of that. my point is that you aren't living in so much fear that you wouldnt take a chance diving. there's no reason in living in so much fear with your kids that your family can't enjoy each other. I say, be thoughtful, be careful, but don't live scared.

Hey D2,

Mine's 6 now and we're at the stage where it's time to start giving her a little more freedom, and I'm beside myself. I know how truly small and vulnerable she is, how innocent and unsuspecting, how intelligent but naïve. She seems to have a genuine care for others (musta picked that up from her mother!), and I know that the people I fear most will use that to manipulate her, despite all my warnings to her about it.

On the one hand, this technology seems to be essential. But my old self, the me that existed before I had a kid, would certainly bluster at the idea of implanting locating devices in one's children. Our society seems to be on a divergent course with at least some aspects of true fascism, and I do worry about overreaching government or overreaching elements within the government.

I don't consider myself a part of the "black helicopters" crowd, but I do have a healthy distrust of authority. I'm not even sure how this technology might be abused, but if my experience (and this Bush administration) has taught me anything, it's that whatever can be abused by government, will be abused by government.

I really don't know how to reconcile the two. Perhaps my old theoretical self must admit that pragmatically, this is a useful tool. Perhaps my newfound self must admit that the danger isn't as prevalent as the MSM would have me believe.

Are our children really in more danger than we were at that age? I'm not convinced that they are, and in any case, I'm not sure these chips would really make them any safer. It doesn't prevent abduction, it comes into play AFTER they've been abducted. By the time police are able to track them down, the damage will likely have already been done.

Now, give her a chip that sounds a high-decibel alarm when someone tries to grab her and let's her shoot lightning bolts out of her fingers to protect herself, and I'm all for it. Except I'll probably have to re-think the whole parental discipline thingie in the name of self-preservation.

It's a conundrum for sure. And one that I really can't get a good handle on.

We can spend all kinds of time elegantly discussing the dangers to our children (Ok, not MINE, I don't happen to have any) and how much or how little freedom we should give them at what age, and so forth, but please check earlier in the thread--these chips are USELESS for tracking. Chips that broadcast don't seem to exist, at least for people. Now maybe we could start tagging our children with tracking devices (say, in an earring of some sort?) but that's not what this particular discussion is about. These are strictly for identification, and are passive--and therefore useless for safekeeping of your child. PLEASE keep that in mind.

Managed Risk…

I don’t think I’m suggesting that anyone should live in fear—quite the contrary, I have a high tolerance for risk and manage it for a living, but there’s a difference between risk mitigation and stupidity.

You rightly point out I dive—and here, but when I do so I have fully redundant systems and gear and I’m very well trained. I manage the risk factors and it would be damn near impossible to get in a situation I can’t extricate myself from. That’s different than going down with one regulator and no backups and ignoring multiple risk factors like a strong current, low visibility and penetrating a shaky wreck.

Anyway, my point is you can’t keep your kids around you 100% of the time—there is school and work and all sorts of real life out there—and there are more crazies than you would think. IF the technology get perfected and if it’s available I don’t know what I’d do—but I’d have to seriously think about it. I think a lot of parents would.

Managing the risks isn't the same thing as being scared.

I wasn't very clear.

I was actually talking more theoretically about a chip somewhere down the line that actually does allow tracking. And while the broadcast chip is still officially on the drawing board, I don't think it will be very long before they've actually perfected one.

And it's still a valid philosophical discussion: Where is that line where parental concern becomes overprotection?

I was wondering when an all caps rabid "mark of the beast" xtian would post.

Actually, since I don't get all this xtian mumbo jumbo non-sense, wasn't social security numbers supposed to be the "mark"?

Heleva, Osama talked a lot of mumbo jumbo islamic non-sense. We didn't get it, then people died.

As for social security numbers, the potential for abuse is astounding. They'd be an excellent tool for an antichrist wannabe.

I'm not afraid of the antichrist, who is probably not real, but I am afraid of his fans, who most certainly are.

Personally I think that if people cant afford to have one parent stay home with their children or have them in a daycare until whatever the legal age to leave them alone is here I believe its 14 they shouldnt have children or be allowed to have children. Next parents should take kids where ever the kids are going or have another trusted adult take them and make sure there are going to be enough trusted adults watching them if they are our in public. It can be dangerous in large or small towns I know from personal experience. The parent just has to MANAGE their kids like they do their job. Let me say this tho IF SOMEONE DOES MOLEST OR ABDUCT YOUR CHILD AND YOU DID EVERYTHING YOU POSSIBLY COULD IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT IT IS NOT GODS FAULT IT IS THE FAULT OF THE MOLESTER OR ABDUCTER. THE CHIPS THEY HAVE TODAY WOULD BE FOUND AND CUT OUT PERIOD.