I have had a post in draft that I thought Dr. Helen would enjoy but I just haven’t found the time to finish it. Today she posted "Every possible form of interaction between an adult and a child is perceived as yet another opportunity for child abuse." and I commented with the story from my post:
We are creating a horrible side affect in the way our children perceive the world. The lack of trust and an understanding that most people are good will impact the choices they make in our future as they become voters and influence laws in our society.
Last year I dropped by the high school band practice to give my daughter some money since she decided to stay from practice to the game instead of coming home. My wife and 3 other children were in the van as I approached the field. The girls on the flag team became concerned because "a creepy stalker guy" was approaching the field. Their response was an immediate jump to the negative.
How strong was the impact of this experience with my daughter? Two days ago I offered to drop by during band camp to offer support to the team and my daughter begged me to stay away. She reminded me specifically that I am “that creepy stalker guy.” Wow. Gee. Thank you society for the hollow feeling you have put in my chest, destroying bonding opportunities between my daughter and me, and embarrassing my daughter in front of her peers.
How can we be raising happy children to become happy adults when we are teaching them to focus only on the negative…and a negative that is highly unlikely?
As a male in our society, I encounter these horrid attitudes more and more frequently particularly as I lead scouts or visit schools. Boy Scouts of America has added training for the adult leaders as well as the children regarding child abuse. Nothing is more uncomfortable than talking to an 8 year old about potential child abuse except maybe talking to a second grader about sexual harassment but that’s a different a story for a different time.
Recently, an adult was asking about how to handle my children while they were at camp and I instructed, "Be firm. Be direct. Tell them they are being annoying." He said he couldn’t do that to another person’s child. You know. We used to say, "it takes a village [to raise a child]." Now everyone in the village is a suspect for an imagined crime that has yet to happen. I believe in the school of hard knocks. I believe in common sense. And I believe in people! Wrong me once, shame on you; wrong me twice, shame on me. I will protect my children within reason. I will not/cannot bubble wrap them and protect them from every sharp corner or hard surface. They will learn more and live fuller lives by me allowing them to fall down or break a bone than by my words and fears. I will teach them trust, and impact upon them common sense.
See also: Slate, 800,000 Missing Kids? Really? Making sense of child abduction statistics.
Well said. I work with kids in my church, and have always been apprehensive about the amount of affection I show them. However, apprehensive does not mean cold and distant, so I don’t really hesitate to show the kind of attention any father might show a child. Knowing their parents helps, of course, but I have no problem speaking with, playing with, or even showing fatherly affection to another child as long as it’s in the open and obvious.
We’re teaching our children that every male is a potential predator (which, I suppose technically is true but there’s potential and there’s potential) which teaches them not to trust anyone, especially male father figures.
Ah! Affection. I totally forgot to mention that. We are creating an atmosphere in which people are afraid to touch one another. Studies have been done with children’s development in the early years which have shown children who are touched less develop slower. Hugs are important! If my child falls down, I want the adults in their lives to know its okay to give them a hug.
I used to carry a “daily hug card” which could be presented to anyone for a hug. It made sense. It read something like “1 hug for happiness. 3 hugs for health. 12 hugs for…” Something like that. We should greet people with hugs instead of handshakes and maybe then the trust will come back.
We have a very loud, very vocal and very hate-filled bunch of people to thank for this mindset that men are evil predators and that women and children are victims. These same people perpetuate the victimhood that has led to several generations of welfare recipients. They have also brought us the growing opinion that the system, aka the government, is responsible for creating the “downtrodden” classes, therefore it now responsible for their upkeep, to include “free” healthcare (which we all will pay for much more painfully than what we have now).
These folks envision a Marxist/Socialist world in which you are told what is good for not only you, but also your children, and if you disagree, you are criminalized. Welcome to the nightmare that the modern feminist movement has brought to all of us.
My dear great- (…) grandmother, the mother of American classic feminism, Abigail Adams is surely rolling in her grave.
The world is making me quite ill these days …
I’m a Boy Scout leader and the changes were made because there were bad ones. Any organization with a lot of kids will attract pedo’s. As a leader I don’t talk to the kids about that stuff, I just put the video on and have the kids watch it with their parent at their side. They can figure out how much to discuss. We’re asking the kids to trust all of the leaders in the organization. While we’re never allowed to be alone with the kids (no one on one interaction) we still need them to know how to avoid the situation. After all, they don’t know what the BSA rules are so any adult could tell them anything and they’d believe it. So, we want the kids and the parents to understand what the rules are and how to avoid being put into a potentially dangerous situation. I still hug my guys and I don’t worry about it because the parents are always there or other adult leaders. The training is a good thing and it helps to blunt the innuendos of others trying to figure out why a grown man would want to spend so much time around boys. Mostly it’s because they’re our sons, but not everyone buys into that.
“These folks envision a Marxist/Socialist world in which you are told what is good for not only you, but also your children, and if you disagree, you are criminalized. Welcome to the nightmare that the modern feminist movement has brought to all of us.”
Ummm no they don’t…. if anything is driving this paranoia it’s the nutty churchgoing bunch. It’s not the feminists … it’s just people who pre-judge without even knowing a person they will classify them as a “stalker type”.
What makes someone a “stalker type” and how can you label someone that without even knowing who they are?