Men - Does it bother you that everybody assumes you're a child molester?

[Jragon]

@GorillaMan

I won’t. I’ll talk to your child, treating her as an individual rather than a prized possession.

Unless down the path is in plain view 3 ft away, good luck with that. Playing with the children is fine, leading them to a vague location without permission will look REALLY shady REALLY fast. You may have to explain to the nice officer why you were bringing the little girl behind the bush… out of the playground…

ETA: I see Scylla had a similar argument (okay pretty much the exact same wording) in mind.

On the flipside

@Scylla

Actually, you do. You may not think you do, but you do. If you do not seek it, I am less inclined to extend you the benefit of the doubt, be polite, or cut you slack. I will not have a lot of respect for you because you are not being prudent, and, in my judgement I am going to assume that this lack of prudence and good judgement you are demonstrating is likely to extend into your interraction with my daughter. I may intervene on these grounds alone.

Here’s why. Perhaps my daughter has just eaten a big lunch and an ice cream and is prone to motion sickness. She is currently happy on the merry go round by herself going at 1/4 mile an hour. If you spin her, she is going to feel nauseaus and crappy and have a bad time for the next hour and may even throw up.

If I allow you to procede you will likely simply walk away when this happens, and I will have to clean it up and comfort my daughter, and you will have ruined her day.

If you ask, then I know you are concerned and are seeking knowledge about whether your interraction will be a good thing before you do it. This gives me confidence that it will be.

If you don’t, I assume that it’s really not about what’s best for the kid, as far as you’re concerned. If it was, you’d make the effort to find out first. Since you didn’t, I am likely to intervene.

What if she asks to be pushed? I know she may or may not have the “molestation” senses, but by 8 she has a relatively good feeling of what her body feels like. And most 8 years olds are quite quick to say “too fast! I just ate!” And besides, I can say from experience, both knowing myself when I was that age, parental anecdotes, and just watching. Kids are resilient. I mean DAMN resilient. They’re liable to overreact and cry at FIRST but it takes the smallest ounce of positive reinforcement to make them bounce back from just about anything short of being impaled on a spike. When i was little and I fell I cried, my parents told me to apologize to the ground and I was fine, three seconds later. Throwing up is a bit worse, but it’ll hardly ruin her day completely. At worst she’ll need a change of clothes, and that’ll be a hassle of course. But if you talk right she’ll be fine and dandy by the time that change happens. Assuming she’s a typical 8 year old (you know, aside from being the most beautiful creation ever cutting beam of everlasting light through the darkness that is the world, or whatever).

Also, teaching kids to play a game or adding structure to building castles doesn’t ruin their fun. If they don’t like it, they’ll return to what they were doing or generally “Calvin Ball” the official rules until they’re having fun. Not to mention not only are 8 year olds the most resilient beings on the planet, they also get the honor of being the most frank. They’ll pretty much tell someone, adult or no, if something is boring or unfun (remember how quick your daughter was to point out fly fishing was nof un anymore without a hook and fly?). And that’s not just “rude children” because it’s not being rude, they’re just very quick to point out if it makes them bored. And sometimes the structure the adult offers by jumping in allows them to have more fun with their castle. With the more refined and precise motions of the adult they can add more intricate ornaments to the fun and if they don’t, they tear it down and try again, or tell the adult how to do it better. Any adult who is marginally good with kids will pretty much bend to their will… and let them think they are AWESOME at hide and seek of course.

Granted I don’t entirely blame you for at least confronting the random 40 year old inexplicably playing in the sand box with a friendly “oh, hey”… I’d be a tad creeped out too assuming he’s not already playing with his own relative.

[GorillaMan]

@Jragon

Unless down the path is in plain view 3 ft away, good luck with that. Playing with the children is fine, leading them to a vague location without permission will look REALLY shady REALLY fast. You may have to explain to the nice officer why you were bringing the little girl behind the bush… out of the playground…

ETA: I see Scylla had a similar argument (okay pretty much the exact same wording) in mind.

And my reply to yours is the same.

On the merry-go-round front - if the kid has a tendency to motion sickness, then this would be an exception, requiring close parental supervision whether or not any other adults or children are present. Any other kid, leave them to it.

[Jragon]

@GorillaMan

And my reply to yours is the same.

On the merry-go-round front - if the kid has a tendency to motion sickness, then this would be an exception, requiring close parental supervision whether or not any other adults or children are present. Any other kid, leave them to it.

True, I missed the motion sickness part.

On the mantis note, you have to at least be wary (for different reasons) about wandering off with a child, whether you’re a male, female, teenager, adult, or other child. And at the very least shouldn’t be SURPRISED when the parent at least tags along in the distance while you’re checking the mantis out.

[Scylla]

@GorillaMan

That’s not the thought process going on. This would presuppose that we all see your child primarily as your property.

Not my property. My Responsibility.

[quote]
We see her as a child, a person.

[quote]

That’s what she is

We’re not trying to usurp your authority, it does not and cannot exist over everything that takes place in her life.

It’s not authority, it’s responsibility. At this point in time it is absolute. My responsibility to my daughter is absolute and it extends over everything that takes place in her life.

If it goes bad, it’s my fault. I’m responsible.

It is my job to be infallible with regard to that responsibility, transferring it piece by piece to my daughter as she no longer requires it from me until she is capable of handling the full responsibility for herself.

This is the pact we made with each other 8 1/2 years ago when I held her in my arms as a newborn for the first time, terrified over what I had got myself into.

She told me this, then: She told me that she was utterly helpless and dependent and vulnerable, and that she was counting on me to stop being the normal, average, self-centered dipshit that I had spent my life being, and become the Great and Infallible Hammer of God, and protect her and care for her and keep her safe no matter what, help her grow, and willingly let my heart be broken with every little step towards indpendence and growth that she took, and to be proud of her at each step even as my heart was breaking.

And I promised her I would.

Because it was a caesarian, I got to hold my daughter first while they put my wife back together. In the recovery room my wife held my daughter and apparently my daughter told her something then because my wife said “Everything is different now.”

We are not talking about authority, we are talking about responsibility. We are talking about the promise every father makes his child. That responsibility is both infinite and absolute in the heart of any father worthy of the name and it doesn’t end until that heart stops beating and maybe not even then.

[Kalhoun]

@Scylla

Actually, you do. You may not think you do, but you do. If you do not seek it, I am less inclined to extend you the benefit of the doubt, be polite, or cut you slack. I will not have a lot of respect for you because you are not being prudent, and, in my judgement I am going to assume that this lack of prudence and good judgement you are demonstrating is likely to extend into your interraction with my daughter. I may intervene on these grounds alone.

Here’s why. Perhaps my daughter has just eaten a big lunch and an ice cream and is prone to motion sickness. She is currently happy on the merry go round by herself going at 1/4 mile an hour. If you spin her, she is going to feel nauseaus and crappy and have a bad time for the next hour and may even throw up.

If I allow you to procede you will likely simply walk away when this happens, and I will have to clean it up and comfort my daughter, and you will have ruined her day.

If you ask, then I know you are concerned and are seeking knowledge about whether your interraction will be a good thing before you do it. This gives me confidence that it will be.

If you don’t, I assume that it’s really not about what’s best for the kid, as far as you’re concerned. If it was, you’d make the effort to find out first. Since you didn’t, I am likely to intervene.

No. You do not seem to understand. I am THE HAMMER OF GOD. In such a situation you are misinterpreting my restraint for impotence.

Whether or not you are aware of it, you are being placed under a microscope and being judged.

An unknown adult male, invading the sandbox to play with children not his own is being placed under intense scrutiny. Most every parent is evaluating you, not just me.

You are undergoing the worst form of profiling and suspicion possible, and chances are you have already failed the first major test. If you have not talked to the parents or otherwise presented yourself for examination or permission in some form, your judgement is seriously in question.

In my experience, most people who are good with kids and take pleasure in interracting with them and offering them constructive experiences are pretty considerate and concerned individuals.

They also know that it is a good idea to show and demonstrate their intentions and harmlessness and consideration.

You seem to be skipping this step. It appears to me that you are simultaneously approaching my kids and challenging me while using poor judgement.

Your statement “You can’t stop me,” pretty much confirms the challenge.

How do you appear? What is your demeanor? How do I feel about you? I will be asking myself all these questions. Based on your mistakes so far I am going to question whether or not you know how to play well with kids. Will what you are doing be a participation or an intervention. Maybe the kids are just happy playing by themselves digging a hole and don’t want the structure and control of an adult, and aren’t interested in building a “magnificent sandcastle?” Will you be cognizant and adaptive or ruin it for everybody?

These are the questions I will be asking myself. Most of all, I will be asking myself how this feels, looking for a twitch or a signal from any of my parental detectors that may signal something not right.

That makes it sound a lot bigger than it is, but that will all occur internally and automatically for me and most of the other parents in about the first 30 seconds.

No matter how I feel, you and I will have a conversation. Likely it will be a very transparent and pleasant conversation. That’s strictly up to you. Regardless of how the conversation goes there will be a subtext which you will need to respond to appropriately.

If you don’t, it will be suggested to you that perhaps this sandbox is for little kids not big adults and as we were here first, would you mind very much letting the kids play by themselves or now, thanks so much.

This isn’t really a request. If we are at this sad point, chances are that there has been some communication between the parents and there is consensus.

Various things can happen from there.

But if you think “He can’t stop me” and act on it, what you are telling me is that you are trying to usurp control over my children.

Considerate well-intentioned adults do not do that.

---

It’s very easy to have very positive experiences that everybody is happy and comfortable with. They are welcomed. I as a parent am grateful for them.

If you are not asking, you are putting yourself at risk. You are running the risk of doing the equivalent of handing a popsicle to a kid with an insulin pump.

I had a long response to your delusional post, but somehow I lost it. In the interest of brevity, I’ll just say that you do not control what goes on in public spaces without good cause. It’s not your call to tell me who I speak to or interact with, and it never will be. If your child is too sick to play on the apparatus, then as a parent, it is within your rights to remove your child from harm’s way. The rest of the park visitors will carry on fine without your kid.

If you ask me to leave because your spidey sense is acting up, I will probably laugh at you. If you start interrogating me, I will ignore you. And if you don’t like it, you can find someplace else to spread the eggshells you choose to walk on, because I guarantee they won’t be under MY feet. Your “hammer of god” routine is of no interest to me. If you start swinging it, you’ll be the one who is removed from the scenario…most likely wearing handcuffs.

[fessie]

Geez, this isn’t a GD question but it begs to be asked:

Scylla, if you just “got” fatherhood with the birth of your second daughter, 8.5 years ago, how did your first girl manage to get through life up until then without your surveillance, and how has she reacted to your new personna? Doesn’t she wonder why you’re so much more concerned about her sister than you were about her?

[Justin_Bailey]

@Scylla

I see that instead of responding to several of the scenarios, you’ve simply rewritten them.

To reflect the reality from the other side of the fence. Your child is not the center of attention in all public spaces. If she wanders off from you (which happens in almost all of your examples), she does not glow with the aura of a golden light to alert the rest of us we’re not to even be near her.

If she’s your “responsibility”, half of your examples never would have happened.

Your response to a 180 kid running full speed at and colliding with a 38 pound girl, and in the process striking her in the head with car keys so that she needs stitches is…

“Boo-hoo.”

Apparently not a big deal, or worthy of concern, huh?

Right you are, it’s not a big deal. When I was 12 I remember playing with a bunch of my cousins at a birthday party (ages 4-12). The 4 year old lost his footing when he was running and rammed head first into an end table. He cut up his head pretty bad and ended up needed 4 stitches.

Did this ruin his life and send him down a path of drugs, pre-marital sex and bank robbery? No, he got the stitches, the stitches came out a few weeks later and the world continued to spin.

Since when are a handful of stitches fatal (or even serious)?

What happens when your daughter goes to school? My father broke his arm wrestling in gym class and required at least 15 stitches to close the wound when the bone ripped through his skin. 25 years later, bam, heart attack and he’s dead. I’ll bet they’re connected right?

I start by thinking how limited in intelligence the average or mean person is. By definition, fully half the people I encounter will not be as smart as even that. Than I realize that most people don’t think very much about what they are doing. Most of the time they are using only a fraction of their limited intellectual potential.

Do not pretend to muse intellectually on the average intellect of a person when we both know you’re calling me stupid without actually “calling” me stupid.

[Kalhoun]

If you haven’t already scared them all away, there may be other children on the merry-go-round. They may ALL be screaming, “Faster! Push us faster!!” Should I refrain from showing the majority a good time because your kid ate too much? Or better yet, if your child is prone to motion sickness, wouldn’t you be lax in your parental duties to even bring the kid to the park in the first place? Shouldn’t she be at home rather than risking she ruin it for everyone else by throwing up on the apparatus?

[An_Arky]

Jesus, this thread is further off in the weeds than one of my drives would be, if I played golf.

As I said way back there, your kid’s more likely to be molested by someone you know and “trust”, and this strangerdanger business is fairly preventable with a modicum of mindfulness. Heroics are only needed when somebody screws up (and I’m not talking about the kid) in the first place.

[Scylla]

@fessie

Geez, this isn’t a GD question but it begs to be asked:

Scylla, if you just “got” fatherhood with the birth of your second daughter, 8.5 years ago, how did your first girl manage to get through life up until then without your surveillance, and how has she reacted to your new personna? Doesn’t she wonder why you’re so much more concerned about her sister than you were about her?

I may have caused confusion. My first daughtet is 8 1/2. My second is 4.

[Scylla]

@Kalhoun

I had a long response to your delusional post, but somehow I lost it. In the interest of brevity, I’ll just say that you do not control what goes on in public spaces without good cause

I agree.

It’s not your call to tell me who I speak to or interact with, and it never will be.

It is explicitly my call if it’s my kids.

If you ask me to leave because your spidey sense is acting up, I will probably laugh at you. If you start interrogating me, I will ignore you. And if you don’t like it, you can find someplace else to spread the eggshells you choose to walk on, because I guarantee they won’t be under MY feet.

If it got to that point, it’s not really a request. It is more like a chance that would be offered to you. As I said, at this point there would be consensus with other parents. I would smile, apologize, take my children and go find a policeman and explain to him about the angry and aggressive full-grown man who insists on playing in the sandbox with little children and is making the parents uncomfortable with his insistence that he be allowed to play with their kids. The other parents would confirm what is going on.

What do you think happens next?

Your “hammer of god” routine is of no interest to me. If you start swinging it, you’ll be the one who is removed from the scenario…most likely wearing handcuffs.

Why on earth would I start swinging or get physical? I am seeking to defuse a bad situation, not escalate it.

You would be making a terrible mistake to think that you have some sort of right to interract with other people’s children against the wishes of the guardians.

It just ain’t gonna fly.

[Malthus]

Woah, what a long thread.

In my mind it is all about appropriate use of public spaces. Everyone has a duty to show a minimum of politeness to others. For non-parents, this includes some sensitivity to the natural and reasonable concerns of parents; for parents, this includes some sensitivity towards the disruptions kids can cause for others.

What I see in this debate is people on both sides claiming all sorts of absolute rights for themselves, while decrying the assumption of absolute rights by others. Both sides have polarized into positions which are too extreme.

[Der_Trihs]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

Why is this even a discussion? You are a Dad, you are legally entitled to help bathe your daughter as much as you are to bathe your son.

People that accuse molestation without grounds should be drawn and quartered.

Again with the “should”. The point is they won’t be; that someone can easily ruin a man’s life by accusing him of being a molestor for bathing his children ( I’m told that’s a common practice among women seeking divorce, to photograph their husbands bathing the kids as ammo for a molestation accusation ), while the person making the false accusation won’t suffer at all.

[Kalhoun]

@Scylla

It is explicitly my call if it’s my kids.

No, it’s not. It may be your wish, but you cannot stop me unless you remove your child from the situation. That’s what being part of a free society is all about.

If it got to that point, it’s not really a request. It is more like a chance that would be offered to you. As I said, at this point there would be consensus with other parents. I would smile, apologize, take my children and go find a policeman and explain to him about the angry and aggressive full-grown man who insists on playing in the sandbox with little children and is making the parents uncomfortable with his insistence that he be allowed to play with their kids. The other parents would confirm what is going on.

Oh, I get it. The full grown man has now moved from “interacting” to “angry and agressive” even though he hasn’t said or done anything but play in the sandbox with children in a public park. Umm-hmmm…

What do you think happens next?

What happens next is that the police see that you are the angry and aggressive one. Children aren’t cowering from me and I’m not harming them. You’re the one who doesn’t quite get how to interact with others in a public place.

Why on earth would I start swinging or get physical? I am seeking to defuse a bad situation, not escalate it.

You’re the one that keeps using “hammer” references wapped in a twisted god delusion.

You would be making a terrible mistake to think that you have some sort of right to interract with other people’s children against the wishes of the guardians.

It just ain’t gonna fly.

And you couldn’t be more wrong. If you don’t like it, then as a parent or guardian, you are the one who moves out of the situation; not me.

[Kalhoun]

@Malthus

Woah, what a long thread.

In my mind it is all about appropriate use of public spaces. Everyone has a duty to show a minimum of politeness to others. For non-parents, this includes some sensitivity to the natural and reasonable concerns of parents; for parents, this includes some sensitivity towards the disruptions kids can cause for others.

What I see in this debate is people on both sides claiming all sorts of absolute rights for themselves, while decrying the assumption of absolute rights by others. Both sides have polarized into positions which are too extreme.

You know what? You’re right. But when some guy with a god complex starts throwing the stink eye at people who *dare * to speak to his children, someone needs to stand up to the bully. His rights don’t trump mine just because he has a child. Period.

[Fear_Itself]

@Kalhoun

You’re the one that keeps using “hammer” references wapped in a twisted god delusion.

It’s a velvet hammer of luv.

[Gozu]

Ah Scylla, you sure made this a lively debate.

First, all due praise goes to your clear dedication to your daughters’ well-being and the tenor of your posts suggests that you are actually doing parenting work, as opposed to a depressingly large amount of procreators.

Your positions are most admirable and your arguments most convincing when you steer away from child rape concerns and towards more general and pressing ones. I shan’t insult your intellectual faculties by listing them to you. I’m sure you’ve done your homework on this years ago.

That said, I must disagree with your view of the world and your role in it. You seem to have a deeply-seated fear of losing control. If I had to go on a limb, I would say you probably don’t enjoy getting high or drunk.

Your actions are understandable and probably “par for the course”. Parents are often overprotective of their first-born and err on the side of caution. I’m willing to bet that any adjustments in your parenting style the second time around were geared towards a less worried attitude.

The problem is that this world is so chaotic, complicated and unpredictable that all your efforts at protection from sexual predators are extremely unlikely to make an iota of difference and that shooting for a 6.5 instead of a 5 is more likely to be detrimental than not, if only because your efforts may have been better directed at looking for other threats, orders of magnitude more severe.

My advice:

Just give your 8yo daughter a small-caliber gun to carry around and teach her how to shoot. Only she can protect herself round’ the clock and an 8 yo who knows martial arts is still no match for a grown man. Guns are the solution! GUNS I SAY!*

*Warning: advice may be bad.

[greatshakes]

I think that it’s a good attitude to have. WTF are you doing around my kids!!! Don’t you have a life of your own? I don’t want to be around your kids. I don’t want to watch anybody else’s. Why should I? I am happy to hear kids when they are having fun, and I might take five seconds or less to see their antics, and be made glad when they are whooping it up and screaming like maniacs. But, that’s the end of it. I have better things to do, like watch TV, read a book, play on the internet, conspire against governments, plan coups, nevermind about the last two. The point is, why hang around somebody else’s kids? Anybody that takes too much of an interest in kids, unless bound by a strong familial tie, can be up to no good, IMHO. If they don’t have evil in mind, they are just idiots, in which case, I don’t want them around my children anyway. If somebody has nothing better to do, they should get a job.

[Kalhoun]

@greatshakes

I think that it’s a good attitude to have. WTF are you doing around my kids!!! Don’t you have a life of your own? I don’t want to be around your kids. I don’t want to watch anybody else’s. Why should I? I am happy to hear kids when they are having fun, and I might take five seconds or less to see their antics, and be made glad when they are whooping it up and screaming like maniacs. But, that’s the end of it. I have better things to do, like watch TV, read a book, play on the internet, conspire against governments, plan coups, nevermind about the last two. The point is, why hang around somebody else’s kids? Anybody that takes too much of an interest in kids, unless bound by a strong familial tie, can be up to no good, IMHO. If they don’t have evil in mind, they are just idiots, in which case, I don’t want them around my children anyway. If somebody has nothing better to do, they should get a job.

And what makes you the end-all arbiter of how someone should spend his free time? If he’s not hurting anyone, why would this upset you so?

[levdrakon]

@greatshakes

Anybody that takes too much of an interest in kids, unless bound by a strong familial tie, can be up to no good, IMHO. If they don’t have evil in mind, they are just idiots, in which case, I don’t want them around my children anyway. If somebody has nothing better to do, they should get a job.

Wow, that’s amazing. I haven’t heard anything like that too many times on the Dope, and believe me, I’ve been around awhile and heard some pretty bizarre stuff.