Me (4 back then) & my cousin (5) took off one day from the city where our moms were with us, to our home city (20km - not much) - we walked, ate some grass, kic

Me (4 back then) & my cousin (5) took off one day from the city where our moms were with us, to our home city (20km - not much) - we walked, ate some grass, kicked some signs, tooks two buses - one in right direction, one wrong - total from 9:00AM, uptill 4pm or later we were at the door of my grandmother & grandfather asking for the truck toy (that's why we started, we needed to play in the sand and we were missing an important vehicle). That was in Bulgaria, around 1980s - Yes people were worried, but not much - it might've been the communist era that either did not produce much child related crime, or such were hiddenly took and dealt with (by still spreading that everything is okay). Nowadays (especially was it 2004-2005) - there was whole media frenzy of kids disappearing - for about week or so. I've looked at the statistics - and nothing was different for that week compared to previous years - it's just that media picked it up. It's exactly that - media - not news source - I'm talking about CNN, FOX, MSNBC and the crap that they do. I used to love CNN, I don't think I do anymore... Anyway just my experience. Oh, and later it was no problem for me taking of one part of the city (Burgas) and walking 2 or 3km through couple of streets, just to go to where my grandmother worked, and they go back, and stroll the streets. Hell, our most favourite kid movies were about kids strolling all day streets either at their home cities, or at tourist resort places their parents were staying. But nowadays.. It's just too much, too soft, and too tight at the same time. As the article is saying: "Preaching independence while warning against it."