Cara,
I'm not going to appologize to anyone for their thinking that I'm an overprotective mother and you shouldn't either. The only person who is going to look out for your child above anyone else is you. That your son's friend's parents said that about you shows that they are too lax in their supervision of their child, and would be of yours if you left your son in their care.
Alot can happen in even the best of neighborhoods. It sounds to me that you are trying to justify letting yourself go against your better judgement because of another parent's callous remarks about your parenting skills. You know of five pedophiles in your area. That's five too many. You can't control that the pedophiles are in your neighborhood but you CAN control whether you let your son walk home from school or not, or play out in the yard, and so on. Your police friend has the right idea in my opinion... never let your kids out of your sight when possible.
It seems like we hear on the news at least once a week where a child was nabbed, or there was a failed attempt at a nabbing. Sometimes more than once a week. Times have changed from when we were kids. We no longer live in a world where we can assume our child is safely playing in the yard next to ours. We have to think ahead of "what could happen" in order to keep our children safe. Is this over-protectivness? Yes. Is it uncalled for? No.
We have to look out for our children because there are others out there who are looking at them with perverted thoughts. I'd rather be overprotective of my child and have her safe and sound in her bed at night than to be lax on watching her and have something happen to her. I don't want to ever look back in life and say I didn't do everything I possibly could to keep my child safe. I'm sure you don't want to either.
As for your son's friend's parents. If they're saying negative things about you in front of their son (that you know of) then I wouldn't let my child play at their house. Simply because of the fact that your son might over hear them and you don't want him to get "ideas" in his head that they are better, smarter, whatever than you. If your son wants to play with their son then they can play at your house. That's just my opinion. Parenting is difficult enough without our children hearing other people's opinions about how you decide to parent.
With all of that said, you can't protect your child from everything. I realize that as I'm sure you do too. But, that doesn't mean we can't do everything in our abilities to protect them from what we can protect them from. You have five pedophiles in your neighborhood, one even parked in front of your house to watch children walking home from school... thankfully your neighbor was observant and scared the guy away. You can get your child home safely, away from the possible attempts of a pedophile, by not letting your son walk home.
I'm sorry if I've come across harshly. That is not my intent. But, I cannot stand the fact that other parents feel the necessity to comment about other parents skills as a parent because we choose to do things differently. I'd rather be overprotective, which in my opinion is basically being prepared for anything and not overprotective at all, and have my child home and safe. I could care less what someone else thinks. We only get one shot at doing things right with our children. There are no "do-overs". I'd rather err on the side of caution than not.
Good luck!
Kimberly