Fears and wishes of a mother

I can't even begin to tell you how news like this affect my feelings as a mother.

I have learnt from a very young age that there are very bad people out there. People who would think nothing of hurting an innocent little child in un-imaginable ways.
But still, you hope (or maybe you put yourself in denial) that it will not happen to your child. Perhaps that's the way mothers survive. If we give in to the fear, then we would not give birth. Or we wouldnt let our kids out of the house. We'd be sitting outside their classrooms, follow them wherever they go. In short, we'd prolly give them lives, but not give them a life.

So what can we do to protect our kids, aside from putting a leash on them until they're so old, they're not considered as easy prey anymore?
I teach my kids to never trust a stranger, irregardless of what the stranger say. Not even a stranger in uniform. Not even the security guards. (remember what happened to that little girl?). Trust only your parents. Trust that if you are lost, you can stay put or go to the last place we went and we will come look for you.
I teach my kids to stick together. You are not totally lost if you are not alone.
I teach my kids to put up a fight if somebody bad grabs hold of them. Scream, shout, kick, bite, roll or jump around, call for help in all the languages you know. Say "This is not my parent!" loudly and clearly. Never ever let them bring you to a second site.

Still, I am often afraid.
I mean, they are kids. They don't remember instructions. They get distracted. They want to play. And they are oh so so small and so so easy to be picked up and shut up and bundled away.
Trips out to the mall or places where there are a lot of people become a stressful situation for me. Instead of enjoying their company, I worry and fret. If you see a mom with 4 kids who keeps shouting "stick together!" at their kids, that's me.
When the boys go to the public toilets on their own, my stomach stays in knots until I see them return safely to me. Once I even contemplated going into the men's toilet coz Ilham took so long to do his business.
If one of my kids were to be out of my sight for more than five minutes and I don't know exactly where they are, I'd go frantic. The phrase "I thought he was with you" makes me go ballistic. My sister-who-doesnt-blog was once a witness to my handling of Ilham who went missing on his own for 15 minutes. She said the way I jumped on Ilham when he finally appeared was like a rottweiler going for the jugular.
Well, I'd rather be a rottweiler than a mom lamenting the loss of a child. Or worse, a mother who discovers that your child had been tortured and molested, to death.

I wish that we could change the way we function in our environment. I wish that we are less self absorbed and more aware of the things around us. As a mother of 4 kids, I know how difficult it is to keep an eye on even 2 kids, let alone 4. There are many times when I wished that strangers don't just look on and help keep an eye out for them as well, instead of just tut-tut-ing me when something bad happens.
I wish that when people see a lost child, they will stay with the child till the parent return. I wish that when people see a child being grabbed into a van, they will intervene. Ask what is going on, or take down the registration, at least.
I wish.
I wish to feel safer in an increasingly dangerous world.