I’m guessing that a lot of parents today are no longer concerned about keeping their tax deductions, I mean, children, around anymore. I’ve seen parents more concerned about the status of their Amazon package than about their kids’ location. What do I mean by that? Well, look at the number of kids out running around without their parents present.

Granted, I’m an old man, and, as we old men like to say, “Things were a lot different back when I was a kid.” And to be honest with you, they were. I remember when I was 5 years old, I got mad at my Mom, got on my riding toy tractor, and ran away to my Grandparents’ house, which was roughly a mile away. Back then, you didn’t worry about your child being taken by a pedophile; you worried more about whether the dumb little shit got hit by a car.

I can remember being in the 6^th or 7^th grade and riding my bike from my house to the mall, which was 3 miles away. Granted, I usually went with my buddies, but my parents never once went with me on my bike rides. Why, I can remember when I was, like, in the 8th or 9th grade, a friend of mine and I rode our bikes from my house all the way to Mt. Rubidoux, which was about 8 miles one way. We rode there, rode up it, then rode back, which was almost 20 miles round trip (I was in much better shape back then). When I was older, the high school I went to in 9^th grade was about 2 miles away, but when we moved in the 10th grade, the new school was only about 1.3 miles away. (Thanks for the upgrade, Mom and Dad.)

Again, no parents to transport us; even when it was raining, we still sucked it up and walked or biked alone. But again, it was a different time back then.

Fast forward about 20, 30, or even 40 years, and that is no longer the society we live in.

Today, we live in an environment where the sick are considered normal. We have people who think Halloween is a 365-day event and dress in clothing they are not supposed to wear, along with the corresponding face paint, just so they can enter a bathroom where my daughter is also using. Where anyone with a bizarre sexual preference is standing up and claiming “Equal Rights” under the Alphabet Soup of LGBTQ (and pick your other letter or mathematical symbol and insert it here).

Now we live in an era where parents, at least the good ones, are worried about what is happening or could happen to their prodigy, including when they send them to school. How many times have we seen on social media or turned on the TV to read or hear about a story of a missing child? According to some of the estimates I’ve read online, there are tens of thousands of kids who have gone missing every year since the 1980’s. And that is a very conservative estimate.

I’m looking around today, and I’ve honestly asked myself, “Do these people actually give a rat’s ass about their kids?”

Currently, thanks to the workings of our wonderful government for the past umpteen years (thank you both Republicans and Democrats), I’ve been working a side gig, in addition to my main job with a county government, at a 7-11. It’s not a lot, just a couple of days a week. Still, I need the extra money just to survive and pay off some bills (which isn’t happening as I’d like, but that’s another story for another time). But what I see coming into the store really has me worried about the future of our society and, quite frankly, our country.

Now, where I live and where my side job is, is located in one of the safest areas of the city to live and work in. We do not have a homeless problem, per se; our crime rate is the best in the city. (And no, I’m not going to tell you where I live because I don’t want the lowlifes coming to my area and screwing it up for the rest of us). But it doesn’t mean you tempt fate by letting your kids run free. And what I mean by “running free” is that they are not at your house but out on the streets.

These “free-running kids” are not out causing trouble in the neighborhood. These are just kids coming into the neighborhood store without their parents. Again, I’m not talking about high school kids. I’m talking about kids, and I’m not kidding here, who are like 8 years old.

Now, before you think I made that shit up, believe me, I didn’t. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had young kids, as young as 8, come into my store unattended and walk across a major street with tons of traffic to get there. Given the street and location of the store, it would be no problem for someone to drive up and just grab one of these kids, take them away, head down the street, hop on the freeway, before anyone could call the cops to let them know what happened.

I just don’t get it. Like I said, it’s not like when I was growing up, and parents today should be more vigilant about where their kids are. And speaking of being vigilant, I’m thinking that parents need to be more concerned about what their kids, especially their daughters, are going out in public dressed as.

Now, speaking as a father of 5 daughters (and one son), I am pretty well-versed in what is permissible and what is not for a young lady to wear when she leaves the house. Well, at least I thought I did, because what I’m seeing these young girls wearing would have gotten them covered up at the least, or maybe even arrested for indecent exposure just a few years ago.

I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but when I’m seeing elementary and junior high school girls come in to the store dressed, or should I say partway dressed, like their favorite social media slut, it gets certain sick assholes to start thinking about grabbing these girls.

How many times have we seen young children, mainly girls, taken off the streets and are either molested and then left for dead or are taken and then sold into a sex slavery scenario? And what do you think the chances are of these kids ever being recovered? Granted, more than 97% of the kids abducted across this country are recovered. But what kind of mental and physical shape are they in when they are found? But what about that 3%? That’s 3% too much! I know it’s not possible, but in a perfect world, none of our children would be snatched off the streets. We can do what we can to keep that number as low as possible. And as of late 2025, AMBER Alerts alone have directly led to over 1,292 successful recoveries, but that’s 1,292 kids that shouldn’t have been abducted in the first place.

Parents, put down your damn phone and go with your kids to the store. If you are letting an elementary, hell, even a junior high kid, out in public alone like that, you are begging for heartache. If you are letting your daughter head out of the house looking like a Kardashian, then, again, trouble will find her and you.