No. Their feelings and plans where pretty well calibrated to the actual risks, much better than ours are. Instrumental rationality is clearly on their side.

You may however say their rationale was wrong, but recall that you just read a modern take on their rationale, you aren't talking to or even reading actual thinking done by parents from 1928. Why be so uncharitable? Why didn't you focus on a different take the author claimed was better understood by 1928 America:

A tragedy like this is so rare, our kids are already safe. Not perfectly safe. No one ever is. But safe.

Also distance = difference is a very reasonable heuristic for humans to use.