Alicia Barlow remembers a childhood of playing in her friend's tree fort that was full of rotting wood and rusty nails. No one ever gave the septic setting a second thought when it came to playtime.

Now a mother of two, she half-jokingly talks about inspecting her children's pristine swing set before play dates to ensure that she won't get sued.

"My childhood was very different, much more easy-going," said Barlow, of Ridgefield, Conn., who has a 7-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son.

The recent recall of nearly 19 million toys made by Mattel offers a stark reminder that we no longer live in those carefree days of unlocked doors and children romping through neighborhoods unwatched for hours on end.

These days the thought of letting one's child spontaneously hop on a bicycle and race off is frightening. Riding one requires donning what amounts to body armor — helmet, elbow pads, knee pads. And you don't just belt a kid into the car anymore — an advanced degree is needed to navigate the car-seat rules for weight and age.

The pitfalls of parenting are ever increasing, and so is frustration. The toy recall, serious though it may be, adds just another thread to a growing tapestry of anxiety, some parents say. And it's yet another sign of how different their kids' lives are from their own.

"Whether it would be sexual predators or abductions or lead-based paint in toy cars it just seems like there is always one other mounting thing," said Greg Swanson, 41, of Davenport, Iowa, and father of four boys ages 2 to 8. "You would think that we would evolve as a society where things would become less of a problem, but they become more of a problem with each passing day with kids."

Watching your child closely on the playground, buying organic foods, over-scheduling structured activities: These are the things that have supplanted the last generation's laissez-faire approach to child rearing. Parents today find themselves spending almost double for a gallon of organic milk and sacrificing precious free time to be diligent protectors.

Much of the added parenting pressure comes from greater awareness. The Internet has given everyone an outlet for expressing opinions and sharing information. With all the alerts, scientific studies and know-it-all bloggers are we becoming victims of our own connectedness?

For Parker Sessions, a 45-year-old mother of twin girls who will be 4 in November, the toy recall doesn't rate as a major concern (not that she didn't check her toy box, mind you). She already tests her children for lead yearly because she lives in an older house. She says you have to draw the line somewhere.

"I'm going to worry about the bigger things — are my children eating a balanced diet?" Sessions said. "I try to feed them organic. I live in Atlanta and the air quality is horrible. I'm more worried about that frankly. ... They both have asthma and allergies and when the air quality is bad I don't let them go out midday because we get smog alerts and ozone alerts."

But many parents see toys as a safe haven, spending extra to buy from trusted companies. Still, the boxes are covered with warning labels and age recommendations. Message boards are inundated with reviews.

"What's very unfortunate about this is this is one place you don't think you need to worry," said Sheri Gurock, the mother of two girls, 3 and 5, and the owner of Magic Beans, a kids gear and toy store in Brookline, Mass. "I think you feel like you go into any reputable store in the United States and you should feel like if you're purchasing something that's for your child that it has already passed all the necessary safety tests."

"To some degree this is a real violation of trust for parents," she added.

On the day the second Mattel recall made news, Barlow and several friends gathered for a preplanned "ladies night out" in New York City. Free of parental responsibility for a few hours and the campy new Broadway show "Xanadu" on the agenda, the pretheater dinner conversation still turned to toys. The consensus: throw all the toys out.

James Swartz, a director of World Against Toys Causing Harm (W.A.T.C.H), the organization that puts out the annual "10 Worst Toys" list said Barlow and her friends might not be too far off base.

Swartz said this recall is getting heavy play because it's so large, but what's more alarming is millions of units of toys have been recalled for the same reasons over the past few years to little fanfare. A search of the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission's Web site lists 39 recall-related press releases so far this year.

"What you do is become as educated as you can about the types of hazards out there," Swartz said.

Of course, there seems to be more hazards about which to be educated: Worries over tainted seafood from China, and salmonella-contaminated Veggie Booty snacks.

Jenny Lauck, 34-year-old mother of three and author of the blog threekidcircus.com, called the recent recalls an especially "big blow." And it's only partly because of trust. She sees it as the severing of yet another link between the childhood she had and the one her children have now.

As a child she played with the same toys from Fisher-Price, a unit of Mattel that pulled several toys from its shelves two week ago, that her kids enjoyed now. She bought them in part because of the fond memories of her own days of pulling them from the toy box. Now, they're garbage.

It's just one more step, one more layer that separates us from our own childhoods.