Firstly, its parents’ responsibility to protect their children. Many parents worry about dangers their children face. The problem is that we have a hard time evaluating danger. Its often easier for parents to place the most suspicion on the least familar person exposed to their kids- that guy who always reads a book by the playground, or the man who works at ghe preschool next to your office. The parent doesn’t know these men, which makes them “dangerous”. Its easier for them to err on the side of caution regarding the safety of their children than be complacent and risk something happening.
The problem is the place parents place the least suspicion are the people statistically most likely to molest kids- Step parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, close family friends. There is this misconceptiom that someone close or trusted is less of a threat, but the reality is the opposite. Realistically, people in a position of trust fly under a parent’s radar- genuinely creepy behavior is handwaved while mom is worrying about Creepy Single Man At The Grocery Store.
But for guys given the stink eye- it seems like even when treated with suspicion, not much is coming of it. So some mom thinks you’re creepy, so what? Short of genuinely losing one’s job over it (which I would assume could be contested) I dont see it as a major issue. Particularly if you stack up all the other unfair privleges men get over women, its small potatoes.
More of an example of a corporate attitude gone bad:
The last place I worked, a male employee was accused of sexual assault on a woman employee. He was escorted off the property, accused, convicted and fired all in a single day. He was (still is as far as I know) a solid family man, honest and friendly - never was in trouble of any kind in the 15+ years I worked there.
What did he do: While standing talking to a friend on break, she backed into him, and accused him of grabbing her ass.
She later recanted, admitting that he did nothing wrong. He got his job back, but no back pay of the lost weeks*. She was told not to do that again, no warning, no discipline.
Although to be complete, he got a lawyer and got the back pay later.
*Personally, *I believe she should have been fired for the hell she caused this poor guy.
Not the 12 year olds so much but the little ones in 1st grade learning how to read and count. I guess not too much kissing on the cheek but I’m not paying too much attention. Definitely a lot of hugging and latching themselves onto legs and other things little kids do.
It’s also super uncomfortable dealing with the 12 year old girls who are professing their love for Harry Potter vs Ron, or Team Peeta or Team other-hunger-games-guy, or The werewolf vs the vampire of twilight because of how “hot” they are.
Also, I agree with respect to the kids in the supermarket but you can be damn sure that if it was a mid-20’s woman leading that kid back to lost and found the lady would be less incensed and more apologetic.
The guy being asked to move on the plane is ridiculous. But I still don’t think a man has to worry about every single interaction with a child. I wouldn’t recommend one work as a babysitter to a young child but some of these examples do seem overboard.
My daughter’s first grade teacher and preschool co-teacher were men and to my knowledge, no one had a problem with it. I certainly didn’t, but I wouldn’t hire a male babysitter for my young kid. Maybe that’s bad, but I don’t really think so. There’s cautious and then there’s paranoid. I would be hesitant to trust a female I didn’t know well to babysit my kid (thankfully I never had to), and the risk is that much greater with a male.
I also never trusted boyfriends alone with my kid, because I think stats say single moms’ boyfriends are the most likely to molest kids. As much as I never thought any of them would do that, so would most other mothers who did leave their boyfriend to babysit and something did happen.
There was one girl who wasn’t allowed to spend the night at our house after her mom happened to meet my boyfriend. She was just dropping my daughter off, it wasn’t even when her daughter was at my house. I don’t really blame her though I guess. I knew for sure that she had nothing to worry about, but how could she know that?
I babysat as a kid but only other boys. It makes sense since some young kids still need baths or help using the bathroom. I never really thought of parents of girls not soliciting me as a molestation issue.
Why is it that when a man raises an issue it always seems to come down to, “Women have it worse so whatever men complain about doesn’t matter”?
I think there’s a remarkable lack of empathy when it comes to male issues, I agree that its difficult to be a woman but that doesn’t mean its easy to be a man.
There are literally 498,054,197 other threads where we can have the discussion about how being a woman sucks/no it doesn’t being a man sucks/nuh-uh. This doesn’t need to be another one of them.
By its very definition the OP of this thread is querying whether there is a double-standard on this issue and if someone makes an assertion I don’t see why it shouldn’t be replied to.
Well, I said I wouldn’t use any babysitter I didn’t know well unless I had to. If I DID have to, I’d pick one as low-risk as possible, and that precludes men, it just does.
Should I also have left her alone with my boyfriends? Actually there are two I would have trusted alone with her if I’d had a reason to, but I never did except once I went to the store and left her with my very serious ex who I am 100% sure would never harm a child. The other, well every time we break up he asks if he can still see my daughter, but I know I know he’s really trying to stay in MY life (although he does really care about her too) and I say no, but I would trust him completely with her. Bad with adults, great with kids.
I think it’s damaging to good men and to the children they could have been good to, and I really care about that, but I care even more about my child being safe. It’s hard to know where to draw the line.
I don’t want to sound judgy but isn’t that a pretty key criterion for you as a single mother in determining boyfriend material?
I’m not saying you can’t have your fun but full fledged BF and you don’t trust him alone with your kid? I understand being overly cautious with strangers but… would you also not let straight men who you weren’t romantically involved with alone with your kid?
Emphasis mine. You have quite accurately captured the essense of this thread. Guys know people think this way, which is why we can be overly cautious to the point of paranoia.
Just to give a personal example where I don’t believe I would have reacted the same way had I been female.
I was at home by myself when a neighbouring boy knocked on the front door, probably aged about 8 or 9, he asked if he could go into my backyard to get a football he’d accidently kicked into it.
Not a problem of course so I told him to go get it, he arrives back at the door about a minute later saying he can’t get the gate open. I’d forgotten that it has to be lifted and swung a certain way is it tends to stick so I went and helped him, open the gate and let him into the backyard. He goes and gets his ball and then as he’s leaving he asks if I can tie his shoelaces for him.
Again, not a problem, so I direct him to sit on the backporch and start tying his laces for him, he’s talking away and asking questions (Do I have a dog? Why don’t I? Typically child stuff) and I’m pretty amused when I suddenly get a chilling realisation, ‘what if somebody saw me go into the yard with him?’, ‘what if he goes home and tells his parents that I took him into the backyard or if he tells someone else’, what I was doing was perfectly innocent of course but all it takes is someone to get the wrong idea.
So I cut the conversation short, quickly finished tying his laces and showed him out. I could tell he was hurt at my sudden change in attitude but how do you explain things like that to a young boy?
Overly paranoid? Possibly, but all it takes is one misconstrued event for a persons reputation to be destroyed.
Its a sad indictment of modern society and I don’t have any good answers for it unfortunately.
Well, most of my boyfriends haven’t been that serious. I’m not saying I NEVER could trust them (as I said, I did trust two of them). But I’ve known a lot of single moms who are, IMO, must too quick to trust a guy they’re dating with their kids.
I know, and it sucks. But what is the solution?
Of course not. Most men would never molest a child, but still a whole lot of children end up being molested. I want to know anyone, male or female, well because I’ll trust them alone with my child. BUT sometimes you have to trust someone you don’t know that well with your child, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to choose a woman for that.
Yeah, I can’t even imagine having to worry about that situation, and it is really sad. Also really sad is the number of children who are sexually abused. I don’t know the answer either. I know it’s not freaking out if a man is sitting on a bench in a park where children are playing. Like anything else, you have to weigh the risks. Your child might also get hurt playing on the jungle gym, but you still have to let them. But you also make them wear a helmet on a bike.
Aaaaand Disposable Hero, this was the Beetlejuice I was referring to earlier. Now it’s the Der Trihs show about how Everybody Hates Men!
Wait until he gets to the part about how all medical science everywhere and all history of everything shows how useless and disposable men are to the human race! I’m sure it’ll be right around the corner.
No, I think that on the whole, men are more likely than women to sexually abuse children. Most men are not dangerous to children. That doesn’t help me if MY child is molested. And if I’d left her alone with all the men I’ve dated in her 13 years of life, she very well could have been.