I came to say this same thing. As a parent, I really don't worry about 1-4 on the "shouldn't" list, but drugs is a real issue, especially in a family with evidence of a predisposition towards addiction.

There are also things I can do things about and things I can't, and that impacts what I worry about. I can't control a drunk that decides to cross four lanes of traffic, so beyond driving defensively, I don't worry about that.

On the other hand, I can teach my kids simple things in a way that doesn't have to panic them to keep them safe from unlikely chance they run into "stranger danger". We live in a low crime area, yet there have been a couple of very creepy incidents involving adults following/bother kids walking home from school.

I do wonder about where they got that list, though. I've never heard a single parent I know (and I know a lot of parents) who has said "I sure Johnny makes it home from school today and that the snipers don't get him." WTF?

How likely is it that your child will die from a random drunk crossing four lanes of traffic vs. merely taking a ride with a friend who is unsafe? Or, for that matter, drunk?

Drivers aged 16-19 have auto fatality rates four times higher than other drivers. That's not because they are magnets for middle aged drunk drivers.

1 in 4 teens killed in auto accidents were under the influence of alcohol.

Children are more likely to be molested by family members and friends of the family than by strangers. They are also more likely to die by stepping into the car of a friend than by being hit while driving alone. It's important to instill in your children the skills necessary to deal with the actual threats they are likely to encounter. Indeed, as a ridiculous example, if you told your children that they are not allowed to ride with friends but they are free to hitch-hike with random adult strangers chances are they'd actually be safer.

I could also fireproof and earthquake proof their rooms and never let them out, make sure they constantly wear rubber suits in case they trip, and only feed them formula through a stomach tube so they won't choke.

Yes, teenage drivers are scary. I'm scared every time my son backs out of the driveway (for him and everybody on the sidewalks). We have laws here that prohibit a new driver from having friends in the car without parents, which I think is great. I wish there was more we could do to make people safer and greatly applaud companies like Mercedes who are using technology to help with that.

However, I won't cripple myself or my kids by living for the worst case. I will try to teach and coerce so they worst cases won't happen, but I refuse to be a helicopter.

Yes, quite so. My point wasn't that you should coddle your children, but rather that it's important to understand what the real dangers are and empower your children to deal with them. Being overprotective of your kids from real dangers is a problem too, but being overprotective based on imaginary dangers is just plain dangerous.

I think the point is not that drugs will kill them. The point is drugs can cause serious problems with their lives, and as such still warrant concern. Whether they warrant more concern than something that might kill them is up for debate, but I think it's safe to say if the risk of a certain kind of death is orders of magnitude lower than the risk of drug abuse and life problems because of that abuse, the drugs are more important.

"I can't control a drunk that decides to cross four lanes of traffic, so beyond driving defensively, I don't worry about that."

You can control that risk in a vague, statistical fashion just by driving around less. Of course, you have to cost-benefit that against certain lifestyle choices, but there are actual tradeoffs that would be affected by this. For instance, the actual risk of a child getting abducted on public transit is probably a lot less than the risk of the child getting killed in a car accident, but most parents ignore the car accident risk and drive their kids around instead of letting them take the bus[1]/train/subway/monorail.

[1] Trains in particular, but even buses are likely safer--they're driven by professionals who tend to drive more slowly and conservatively. They also have a higher profile so other vehicles are more likely to see them, and on many buses, passengers are elevated above bumper height. It seems like an ordeal to get the statistics on buses together, though, so if it makes it more convenient for you to understand my point, you can just pretend I didn't mention anything about buses.

I had two theories, but I had to cross one out. The one I dismissed was if she surveyed parents in the DC area around 2003, which there was an active sniper. But I couldn't find any evidence she was from that area.

The other idea is that she means "school shootings" instead of snipers specifically.