"I suppose you could argue that there are more dangers in society now; more creeps out there who want to abduct children. I don't know. But is it really that much worse today than it was back then?"

Seriously Chris open your eyes. I like your post here and agree with you until this last part. Seriously man stop believing in the media that plays up how horrible we are and how dangerous the world is for kids. The world is no more dangerous for kids now than it was 40yrs ago. Crime rates in the US have gone down in the last 20-30yrs not up. Survey after survey shows that perception and fear of crime has gone up. Are you a BL actually saying there are more creeps out there? Come on man, you think there are more BLs born today for some reason than 30yrs ago or 100 or 1000yrs ago? and you call them creeps? I know some of them are bad people but most are not.

To answer your question, no it is not worse. Just worse for the kids who will not have the adventures you had when you were young. A kid kept too safe will grow up afraid of everything.