What's the real story on stranger danger?
I wanted to include an interview of my daughter as a post on the newspaper blog I'm writing. I don't have a huge readership, but I expect it to grow at least a bit over time. In the post I wrote, I identify her by first name only, I don't mention that she's my daughter. The title of the post is "Bicycling to school" and I do say she is a high school junior but not which high school she goes to.
My husband is upset because he feels it is too easy to identify her. I do have a picture in the post. (In the picture she is smiling, so I don't know if anyone can actually recognize her!) (Just kidding, she does smile outside of pictures, but her smiles are a precious commodity and she isn't liberal with them.)
We do live in a small town. I'm sure most kids at school could figure out who she is.
He's worried about the random psycho, which is a fear of his I've always been puzzled about. But he did raise a good point-- what is the real risk of being targeted by random psychos if you have an internet presence? I'm assuming it's very very small, and the risk we put her in every time we let her get in the car with us is much, much greater. But where are the studies, the statistics?
His other fear is friends of the kid who hit her last year. We know very little about the kid, he seemed nice and certainly was very upset about hitting her. But, he's a high school boy, and has friends who are high school boys. So I find that concern more legitimate than his other.
I want him to be happy and I'm ok with changing the post or not posting it if it really upsets him that much, even if I think his fears are unreasonable. I certainly have unreasonable fears of my own. I understand. Still, I'd like to know, especially because I frequently tell people that the risk of being killed by road rage is tiny, the real risk is inattentive drivers. But is that true? Am I telling a lie?
