~From Meadow Lark’s Blog~
 
Okay, now my first reaction is to ask why you’re apparently spying on kids around town, but Mom always says to just look at the facts of things and don’t get distracted off topic. So I guess we’ll do it her way.
 
Yeah, I’m a kid, but that doesn’t mean I need a foalsitter every time I’m outside of Mom’s field of vision. Me and other kids my age have a lot of freedom to take care of ourselves and, no, we’re not always being supervised directly by a foalsitter, teacher, or relative. I mean, the Cutie Mark Crusaders have their own private clubhouse, for goodness’ sake. Ponyville is a pretty small town overall and it’s very safe, so there’s not a lot of need to have kids constantly monitored like in big cities.
 
Now, that’s not to say kids are just left to run wild. There’s also the grapevine to consider. Everypony knows everypony else here; if I’m running around Sugarcube Corner after school with my friends, it is guaranteed that word is going to get to Mom back home before I do. Gossip travels like lightning and a lot of Ponies consider it their neighborly duty to look out for each other. Mom’s actually on the forefront of that sort of thing – a cafe is, like, gossip central right up there with the Spa. Further, even I get a foalsitter if Mom is going to be away for an extended period of time for whatever reason. But if she’s just stepping out for a few hours in the evening? Yeah, I think I can handle myself just fine, thanks. Just because I’m not a grown-up doesn’t mean I’m going to do something irresponsible, and my Mom trusting me to be able to behave on my own does not make her an irresponsible parent. I actually value my Mom’s trust and I don’t want to do anything that would betray it.
 
I’d also like to mention, even if it is a tad to the side, that she wouldn’t have gone out tonight if someponies hadn’t been pestering her about a touchy personal topic.
 
But back on topic…
 
As for Ponyville being a safe, boring town? It totally is. I live here; I should know. Now we have had a number of freaky situations come along, but those really got blown out of proportion for the most part. You also need to look at things with a sense of perspective. A lot of the noteworthy events that have hit our town all happened within about a two-or-three year period following when Miss Sparkle moved to town, and there really weren’t that many of them to begin with. So dot those few events across all the other days of the years that don’t feature Dragons or Parasprites? And all the uneventful years before Miss Sparkle came along? Yeah, this town is pretty quiet.
 
Nightmare Moon - That one was pretty confusing, to be honest. We’re all gathered at town hall to see Princess Celestia, but then the fall holiday mascot shows up instead. A lot of us thought it was some kind of show at first, especially when the Mayor and the Guards got in on it. Then the sun didn’t come up for a couple of hours and it seemed like Princess Celestia really was in trouble, but there wasn’t really anything anypony could do. We all just kind of fretted around town hall or tried sending letters to Canterlot. But then the sun came up a little while later and everything was just fine. We didn’t even hear about what all had happened until Miss Sparkle debriefed the town at a meeting later that afternoon. But hey, we got a new Princess Luna out of the deal, so whatever.
 
Discord - I actually wasn’t around for that one. Me and Mom were visiting my grandparents in Manehatten when all this went down, but from what I heard afterward, it was pretty scary. I’m sort of glad I missed it. But apparently everything was only all crazy for a couple of hours before Discord got sealed up again. The school field trip didn’t even have time to make it all the way back from Canterlot to Ponyville by train before the whole thing was wrapped up. By the time me and Mom got back to town, it was old news. I’m not saying it wasn’t bad, but it could have been much worse. I’m just happy nopony was hurt.
 
Ursa Minor, Parasprites, and the Everfree Forest - The Everfree Forest is really dangerous and full of monsters, sure, but that’s why everypony is told not to go in there. Some do anyway, but that’s their decision. I keep far away from it, myself. Thankfully stuff usually doesn’t come out of the forest on its own. Unless some stupid Ponies go and lure some big nasty monster out themselves, which has happened. Thankfully when the Ursa Minor attacked town, Miss Sparkle was able to stop it in a few minutes. There was very little damage to the town and it was really localized, so most of us didn’t even know anything at all had happened until the gossip mill got going the next morning. I slept through the whole thing… which sucks, ‘cause that would’ve been awesome to see!
 
Parasprites apparently got brought into town too, and that ended up really badly. That was probably one of the worst things to hit town in, like, ever. But there was an infestation of the nasty little bugs going around other towns and cities too, so it’s not like we were the only ones hit. We were just the only ones that had our town eaten up instead of all our food. Thanks Miss Sparkle. Mom just put up a force field around our entire building and we hunkered down until everything blew over along with any other Ponies who came to us for cover. The destruction only lasted for an hour or two, but rebuilding took a few weeks. That really sucked. They ate the arcade!
 
Hydra - What Hyrdra?
 
Cerberus - What about it? Cerberus is a guardian against evil who wandered into town for a few minutes. I mean, yeah, he chewed on some rooftops, but nopony was hurt and Miss Sparkle took him back to Tartarus right away. What’s the big deal?
 
Dragon - Ooh, there was this one time a giant purple Dragon attacked town. That was pretty scary, especially when it kidnapped Miss Rarity and headed into the mountains. It was only in town long enough to smash some stuff, ruin our water tower, and steal whatever it could get its claws on. The Wonderbolts showed up pretty quickly though and I guess they took care of it. I don’t really know the details there, but there’s no more Dragon, so that’s good enough for me. Plus The Cakes’ insurance covered Dragon Attacks, surprisingly. I guess they really didn’t want to take any chances.
 
Too Many Pinkies - A whole bunch of Pinkie Pie clones rampaged all over town a while back too. I… I don’t really know what to say about that, to be honest. They caused a big mess and ate a lot of food, but they got taken care off in a couple of hours. It reminded me a lot of the whole Parasprite thing, including when Mom made sure we were hunkered down under a force field again. It’s sort of her go-to-response when trouble comes to town. We’re actually pretty good friends with Pinkie Pie, so that was really weird to deal with.
 
Trixie - I’ll give you that one. It was pretty freaky, especially when Trixie locked down the entire town under a dome and caged the Mayor. Trixie was really warped in the head by that amulet thing… I guess it wasn’t really her fault, but she had to go find that thing in the first place, so she’s still responsible for what she did. Mom made sure to keep me far away from that whole thing. She locked down the cafe under a force field again, but I’m not sure she could have kept Trixie out if it had really come down to it. Thankfully, Trixie never noticed since she spent most of her time at town hall or picking on Snips and Snails.
 
So, yeah, there have been some pretty freaky events to come into town. But they were all short-lived and just having a few problems over the course of several years of peacefulness doesn’t make Ponyville unsafe. Under normal, day-to-day circumstances? It’s a cozy little place safe in the shadow of Canterlot, with its own District Guard, plus the Elements of Harmony all living here together. Not to mention my Mom. Even when stuff does go down, it gets resolved really fast and nopony is ever really in that much danger.
 
*Author’s Note  
Rather than bury y’all under a wall’o’text with only an arbitrary picture, I felt it better to place this particular bit of world building as a text post. I may do this again in the future for the sake of brevity.