Ann says: "We had parents who worried, sure, but from a distance. They couldn’t track our whereabouts on weekend evenings, and the tacit ethos was that minimal information probably was better for all concerned. But the Times story suggests a more oppressive development: at this point, kids may have only themselves to blame. It seems we have a market of non-stop networking students, unable to bear being out of the social loop for a minute, to thank for the latest surge in tracking technology. Don’t they see how they’ll come to regret this? It's grist for, what else, yet more self-blaming angst on the part of parents: look at what our hovering has produced—a generation at risk of undervaluing autonomy."

Interestingly, after a weekend of me arguing persistently for minors' access to confidential health care, I disagree with Ann on this one, at least in my gut. Maybe it's because I have a 16-year-old sister who started experimenting with hard drugs when she was 14 and found herself arrested when she was 15 for shoplifting. Sure, compounding factors contributing to that behavior might have been an unstable (divorced) home life, a mother with Borderline Personality Disorder and then the sudden passing of our mother when my sis was 14. Still, if I could have put a tracking device on my sister from the ages of 14-16, I think I would have. I also would have given her breathalizer exams every time she came home at night. It's a good thing she and I don't live in the same state. :)

But seriously. I'm talking about a kid who, yes deals with some psychological and emotional issues, but has also always been well-socialized, intellectually bright, insightful, and aware from a young age about the dangers of alcohol and drug use and falling in with "the wrong crowd." And despite her guardians' strict rules and punishments for breaking them, my sister got caught time and time again doing things that were not only 'against the house rules' but were also downright illegal.

But maybe my gut reaction is because of other things, too, not just my paternalistic feelings towards my sister. Maybe it's because the rates of teen pregnancy , teen drug and alcohol use, and runaways have been on the rise. Plus, man, I cannot tell you how many times my sister has threatened to run away. She's doing well now, but for awhile - let's just say, I would have spent a fortune on a GPS-jacket. Not because I want to put a leash on my sister's healthy assertions of her own independence and autonomy, but because I didn't want her to cross state lines hitchiking to California.

I am bleary-eyed after 30 hours writing a mid-term exam, so I'll stop for now. I'm interested to hear other people's opinions though. Am I being too much of a stickler? Weren't we just - on this forum - arguing for more parental involvement, educating children, keeping them safe?

I guess my question to fellow posters is this: where's the line? Obviously we want parents to nurture their children into being able to make wise (and sometimes stupid) decisions for themselves. But am I being over-protective to think that those of us who live and raise children in urban settings might have good cause to worry about children's safety?