Cell phones aren't a problem.  People who use - or rather, misuse - them
often are.

Joy

I grew up in a very small town of the type most people - even people who
grew up there when I did - think of as idyllic and safe. Nevertheless,
there was graffiti. There was drunkeness, and other drugs had begun to
move in. There were suicides, bullying, wife-beating (one memorable bit
of gossip I overheard as a child was along the lines of condemning one
husband, not because he hit is wife, but because he did so in view of
the community in front of the living room kitchen window while she was
pregnant!), and an attempt or two to burn down the school. Child sexual
abuse wasn't unknown, although it was certainly only whispered about.

Now, obviously, there are neighbourhoods today - like a big city one I
visit relatives in regularly - that have larger numbers of drug and
alcohol offenders and more outright killings than any small town. Some
of them even have larger *percentages* of people engaged in violent
crime. But even there, most people don't participate in and are not
victimized by these things, and my relatives are inured to although of
course not pleased by the regular police visits in their area. The worst
any of them suffered from crime was purse-snatching - something that
happens here; in any city. In small towns in this region where the young
 thugs might be known on sight to their victims, there isn't much
purse-snatching. The criminals break into the houses at night and steal
purses and wallets - from the bedside table, sometimes.

There never was a time or place when life was *guaranteed* safe. When I
was a child given a good bit of freedom, I could have suffered worse
than bullying at the hands of the local toughs, or encountered someone I
should have avoided in the woods, or even grown up and married someone
who would proceed to try to treat me as his father had treated his
mother. I learned to deal with dangers gradually. I suspect that many of
the fears many people have of their towns are based on a misjudgement of
the real risks - and that what risks exist are increased somewhat by the
reluctance of people to spend time outside in public areas.

I've seen something of this in my own city. It's a small one with quite
a low crime rate. That's not to say we don't have crime. But the
reactions of people vary. I consider it perfectly safe to go anywhere in
the city in the daytime. There are a few areas I wouldn't walk alone
late at night, especially when the bars are letting out. Some people
refuse to live or walk anywhere alone for fear of the crime. These two
responses can't both be reasonable responses to the same situation!

Cheryl

I used to work with someone who had problems at home - they ended in
divorce, but the most obvious signs of problems before that were her
lengthy (and impossible not to notice in a fairly open-plan office)
arguments with her children, who appeared to be on the phone from the
time they got home until the time she got home. I think sometimes she
ended up being co-opted into sibling battles; other times, she was
trying long distance to ensure they did homework etc. It was annoying at
first, but eventually I felt sorry for her. I wouldn't have wanted to
live with a family like that for anything! And when I heard about the
impending divorce, I figured that explained a lot - between the kids,
her job, and whatever was leading to the divorce, she can hardly have
had time or energy to do something like take one of those parenting courses.

My mother worked outside the home briefly when I was a teenager, and I
don't think anything less than the house burning down around my ears
would have justified calling her at work - and my parents never did have
much time for the he said/she said type of sibling battles - mostly they
expected us to treat each other reasonably decently, and settle our own
disagreements.

Cheryl