I was on back-to-school mom-duty every fall for more than two decades, with three children now well into adulthood.

I fulfilled teacher wish lists for 26 years, which meant gathering hundreds of glue sticks, scores of color-coordinated, single-subject notebooks with matching folders, and more than four dozen packages of colored pencils.

Beyond school supplies, I managed instruments and activities, too. Our kids had to play an instrument for at least three years. They had to participate in a sport, or choose between dance, choir, band or musical theater. In addition to school, they attended youth group through church every week.

In our family, we had a lot of directives to “keep our kids safe.”

Yet none of these rules or practices or routines were able to keep them entirely “safe.” They were still........

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