# When did the 'stranger danger' fear begin? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 24, 2014, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165 "2014-05-24T07:07:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2014, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/121 "2014-08-10T05:28:57Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > When I was a kid, I got up on the bus and gave my seat to anyone who looked older than my parents, man or woman, any woman who was pregnant or anyone who had a baby or small child, and anyone with a lot of packages, or who had a cane, a leg in a cast, etc. Kids don’t do this anymore. Kids run past you to get on the elevator when it opens, and sometimes don’t even wait for people to get off first. Funny this: one of my kids (he’s now 30) complained to me about the behaviour of ‘kids’ on public transport just a few days ago, citing your exact issues… And he confessed to me that whilst he might have wanted to stay seated on a bus/train or tram back in the day, it was the vision of ME as his SUPEREGO that made him stand for anybody less able than him!! Bwahahaha And yeah, fuckers that storm into elevators before people have disembarked? Sterilize them, then off to Gitmo for a spell. That would be my humanitarian response…😃 ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2014, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/122 "2014-08-10T05:32:12Z")
Bitties, Biddies, I can’t wait for my in-line spell checker to keep up. ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2014, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/123 "2014-08-10T06:10:54Z")
Biddies is definitely the correct spelling. [Cite](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biddy). As for the origins of Stranger Danger? I don’t know about everyone else, but I can tell you almost exactly when it began in my house: Autumn, 1980, probably October. I was born in 1969, grew up mostly in the country - no worries about strangers there, because no one was a stranger. Our neighbors were all relatives in some form. Our relatives’ neighbors were more distant relatives. Their neighbors were related by marriage. (I’m really not exaggerating.) We kids could roam a pretty far distance, and played in the woods and the creek - between our place, Grandmother’s, Granny’s, Uncle Johnny’s, Aunt Carrie’s, and Uncle Ralph’s, we could range over about 1500 acres (minus the livestock pens, tobacco barns, and the mechanical shop.) We moved into town when I was 7, but it was and is a small and stagnant town - everyone knew everyone, had known everyone for decades and generations. As it turns out, my mother was a little more protective than most of the other moms in our neighborhood - we could roam about 1/4 of a mile in any direction, but the boundaries made sense (railroad track, busy highway, busy highway, woods that belonged to a commercial timber operation.) We moved to another town a year later - I was 8, my brother 9. We walked to and from school (I just mapped it - 1.1 miles each way.) We walked to the corner store, to the park, and maybe once we sneaked into a vacant house just to see what inside a vacant house looked like. Two years later, we moved back to the farm. We still had the same boundaries, but by then, my brother was 11. He wanted to push the boundaries. So one afternoon, after school, my brother rode his bicycle to his friend Ricky’s house. (This wasn’t allowed, because Ricky’s driveway was on a blind curve on the main road - Mr. L had been hit several times while turning into his own driveway, when a speeding driver came around that curve. A kid on a bicycle wouldn’t have stood a chance.) My little sister - then aged 6 - followed, probably on the basis of “if you don’t let me I’ll go tattle.” When my mother realized that she couldn’t find her eldest nor her youngest, she freaked the hell out. She put me by the phone, in case anyone called with a report, and she went looking. And when she found them? She beat the tar out of both of them. Seriously. This was the last autumn of the Atlanta Child Murders, a few months before Wayne Williams was arrested. Never mind that we lived 200 miles away from Atlanta, never mind that neither of my mom’s missing kids fit the profile of the kids disappearing in the state capital. My mother’s immediate fear was that someone had taken her babies. And that’s how we learned about Stranger Danger in my household. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2014, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/124 "2014-08-10T07:28:50Z")
Interesting, **Lacunae**. Reading that, it strikes me that the fundamental motivation for the change in societal consensus may have been an overhyped fear of stranger abduction, but the result was a sharp reduction in more prosaic dangers like being hit by cars on blind corners–not to mention drownings,\* falling from heights, etc. So I still think it is a positive change, even if the underlying motivation can be picked apart or even ridiculed. \*Last summer, a boy drowned in a pond a few miles from here, in a quiet rural area. The previous summer, another boy had drowned in the very same pond. This pond is well off the beaten track, so much so that there are not even any state highways nearby, only a lightly travelled county road. So I think these boys’ parents thought it was safe to let their children wander around unsupervised, due to there being so little vehicle traffic and no strangers to speak of. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2014, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/125 "2014-08-10T10:14:29Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > \*Last summer, a boy drowned in a pond a few miles from here, in a quiet rural area. The previous summer, another boy had drowned in the very same pond. This pond is well off the beaten track, so much so that there are not even any state highways nearby, only a lightly travelled county road. So I think these boys’ parents thought it was safe to let their children wander around unsupervised, due to there being so little vehicle traffic and no strangers to speak of. But neither of those were a stranger danger related death, it was darwin in action - unless you are claiming that a stranger kidapped them and drowned them deliberately? [URL=“[http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/](http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/)”] ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2014, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/126 "2014-08-10T10:20:22Z")
Nooo…I stated specifically in the main paragraph of my comment that: > [@SlackerInc](#): > > the fundamental motivation for the change in societal consensus may have been an overhyped fear of stranger abduction, but the result was a sharp reduction in more prosaic dangers like being hit by cars on blind corners–not to mention drownings,\* falling from heights, etc. So I still think it is a positive change, even if the underlying motivation can be picked apart or even ridiculed. My point is: yes, parents are watching their kids more closely than they used to because of a fear of stranger abduction. That fear is exaggerated, but their reaction is having the side benefit of protecting their kids from a lot of other dangers. So it’s still a good thing even if it is based on hyperbole. ETA: Calling these tragic deaths of young children “Darwin in action” is frankly kind of sick. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2014, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/127 "2014-08-10T10:38:42Z")
Okay, okay: I started a [new thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=17625516#post17625516) where it is not off topic to consider the danger not just from strangers, but from falls, fires, drowning, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2014, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/128 "2014-08-10T18:37:56Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Also the school goes to 8th grade? Is there a jr hi or middle school? In our area its either 5th or 6th. I don’t know about anywhere else, but here in New York City, the Catholic school system (which is enormous, with hundreds of schools and tens of thousands of students, and includes schools run by the two Catholic dioceses that cover NYC, as well as schools run by religious orders) doesn’t have middle school, or junior high school. There’s elementary school, which included the first through eighth grades, and there’s high school, which is grades nine through twelve. ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2014, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/129 "2014-08-10T20:37:14Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Interesting, **Lacunae**. Reading that, it strikes me that the fundamental motivation for the change in societal consensus may have been an overhyped fear of stranger abduction, but the result was a sharp reduction in more prosaic dangers like being hit by cars on blind corners–not to mention drownings,\* falling from heights, etc. So I still think it is a positive change, even if the underlying motivation can be picked apart or even ridiculed. > > \*Last summer, a boy drowned in a pond a few miles from here, in a quiet rural area. The previous summer, another boy had drowned in the very same pond. This pond is well off the beaten track, so much so that there are not even any state highways nearby, only a lightly travelled county road. So I think these boys’ parents thought it was safe to let their children wander around unsupervised, due to there being so little vehicle traffic and no strangers to speak of. I get what you’re saying. Around here, I see lots of parents who consider themselves to be conscientious and protective - they’d never even consider letting their “tween” kids walk 3/4 of a mile to the nearest C-store, lest some stranger with candy and a missing puppy, driving a panel van nab them. However, they have no problem letting the same kids ride all over the dirt road and adjacent field on adult-sized ATVs. No helmets, no apparent speed limits, just kids having fun. Needless to say, lots of kids around here are killed or seriously injured in ATV accidents, and I can’t think of the last stranger abduction in this area… ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/130 "2014-08-10T21:25:38Z")
Yeah, that’s a good point. My older kids’ stepdad is into ATVs, and teaches them things like “if you’re not living on the edge, you’re just taking up space”, ugh. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/131 "2014-08-11T03:18:51Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > I don’t know about anywhere else, but here in New York City, the Catholic school system (which is enormous, with hundreds of schools and tens of thousands of students, and includes schools run by the two Catholic dioceses that cover NYC, as well as schools run by religious orders) doesn’t have middle school, or junior high school. > > There’s elementary school, which included the first through eighth grades, and there’s high school, which is grades nine through twelve. That’s the way I remember it in Wilmington DE too. We got a flood of kids from St Helena’s in 9th grade. It was a lot closer to our jr and sr high school than the RC high school which was downtown. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/132 "2014-08-12T15:43:12Z")
\*\*When did the ‘stranger danger’ fear begin? \*\* I’d be willing to guess, quite a long time ago. In several languages, the word for stranger is also the word for enemy. ---
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/133 "2014-08-12T15:46:11Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > Wandering through a bushland reserve today with my kid and grandkids, it occurred to me that when I was a kid it would have been the same trek, but by myself or with a cacophony of other kids…climbing trees, navigating creeks and looking for tadpoles etc. > > So my memories of the late 1960’s and all of the 70’s are pretty clear: weekends and school holidays you were banished from the house (except to come home to eat). Same with after school…you’d dump your bag inside the front door, then piss off to get up to mischief somewhere else. > > All this has changed now obviously. But I wonder when it all changed and what the catalyst was? I truly believe that the world is not more dangerous now than it was back then, but what was the **thing** that triggered parents into keeping their kids uber-safe? Fear based balderdash on TV is what I noticed as my kids were growing up in the 90’s. My wife was terrified that the kids wouldn’t make it another day or so, but I laughed it off, and they are now older than we were then. ---
**Author:** ![MrsTime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@MrsTime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrsTime)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/134 "2014-08-12T16:12:51Z")
In 1945 I was almost 6 years old, when my family moved to a less populated part of what was then our small town. Within days of our move my 2 best friends were lured into a strangers car with promises of puppies or candy, what ever. There was an area where most murders of kidnapped kids occurred. Fortunately a neighbor saw them and called the police who arrived at that site just as the man was taking them out of the car. I learned that lesson from the kidnapping of my friends, and even then I knew that had we not moved I would have been with them that day. It was good luck that the neighbor saw the girls get into the mans car, or it would have been over before their lives even got started. A few years ago some kids about 5 years old were asked to draw a picture of a stranger, most of them drew terrible ugly monsters, not that nice man offering puppies or candies. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165/135 "2014-08-12T17:18:41Z")
Yikes, scary. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-stranger-danger-fear-begin/689165.md?page=6)