We’ve already covered two specific “better ways” – 1. the OP could have asked the guy which kid was his (and we established that question is a very typical, chatty, non-suspicious interaction between adults at a playground, so not difficult to do), and 2. the OP could have asked his own kid what the man said at the drum toy. The answer to the second one could sway me on whether or not I felt the man was acting in an inappropriate way.
And for the “so what?” about knowing if the guy had a kid … for me, at least, knowing that gives me more information with which to make any observations. Sometimes parents and kids aren’t right next to each other in a playground, but if you know the parent and kid combo, you might pick up on things like periodic visual checks that would have been hard to track without knowing which specific kid was involved (especially if the kid is moving around among various groups). It might also have colored the OP’s impression of things like talking to kids near the dog – was his own kid in the group of kids? That might have made the interaction seem more typical.
Weirdly, although we’re on page four, I now find myself wondering about the dog. Why would someone leave a dog where unknown kids would try to interact with it? I love dogs, but not all dogs are great with kids, and even the best dog might act out if a strange kid is (accidentally) being too rough. That might be the most problematic part of the story for me.
“Hogwash, several posters have said that they consider the threat of perverts so prevalent they they consider an adult male even speaking to their child as being beyond the pale, something no right thinking person would ever do.”
Change “beyond the pale” to “inappropriate”, and “no right thinking person would ever do” to “that should not be done”, and it is a little less hyperbolic, but is still essentially the same statement, and it’s not far from a quote of what was said by other posters in this thread and the one that was spawned by waxwinged.
So, if your contention is completely about the slight hyperbole of the statement, then it would be fair for him to withdrawl it. If your contention is that this is not the sort of sentiment that is expressed, that it is innaprpriate for an adult male to interact with a child that is not his own, and the reason for tht, beucase all adult men are under suspicion of being child molesters, I would strongly disagree with you.
Change also “an adult male” to “a man that doesn’t know the kid” and “speaking to their child” to “initiating a chatty conversation with their child that serves no purpose except being social,” and you’re much closer. But that’s four different changes.
What’s actually being stated is something far more nuanced than the ridiculous hyperbolic straw man. Pabitel and others are essentially demanding that people defend a straw man or explain exhaustively why it’s not what they said, and that’s unfair and, this is key, exhausting.
If you’re unable to defend your position without caricaturing the opposition, maybe take a minute to reconsider what the opposition is saying and ask yourself whether they might have a point after all.
It seems to me that the opposition is saying that a strange man talking to children at a public park warrants the cops being called on him and that a man talking to children at a public park just isn’t done in today’s society.
(and by children, I mean children that are not related to him, nor associated with him)
The difference, Pabitel, is that the me who is a dancing monkey would explain this for you again, but the real me won’t. If you don’t understand by now, I have no interest in trying further.
Edit: I know I said I’d do it, but since then, I’ve done it.
That’s a strange response after you just finished posting this:
and this:
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
I mean, if you’re serious, I’ll do it, but I’m having trouble believing that you’ve looked at those statements and seriously can’t see the substantial differences
[/QUOTE]
I have written hundreds of words explaining these differences to you and others, without the slightest indication that any of you have read them or considered them. I have already gone far above and beyond what is reasonable here. If you’re not going to show any sign that you’ve considered what I’ve written, I see no reason to waster further effort on the cause.
I think your changes are unnecessary. But if it makes you feel better, I will sum up what I feel the position is, without snark or hyperbole.
“If you are an adult male, in any public situation with children involved, you will be under automatic suspicion of malfeasance. It is your own responsibility to ensure that no one perceives you as awkward, atypical, or in any way out of place. If you fail to alleviate the concerns of concerned parents, you should expect to have a chat with the police.”
Please tell me if that is a good enough summation, or if you have any quibbles with that.
Ummm, ignoring your snark, my point is that you can only focus on one thing at a time. In the OP’s story, he talked about focusing on this guy for quite a period of time. During this time, he was not focused on other things. He was not focused on his friend, who, I am sure is a great guy, but statistically is far more likely to be the one molesting his children than an awkward guy at the park.
So, while you have the impressive capability of multitasking, and changing your focus from one thing to another, you still only have eyes in the front of your head, and they can still only focus on a pretty small slice of the world in front of you. The op wasn’t scanning the crowd, he wasn’t watching his friend, he was focused on this one awkward guy, apparently along with a couple other parents. I am very glad the story didn’t go this way, but it very well could have gone, “everyone watched as the police talked to this weird guy, and after the cops left, one of the couples there noticed their child was missing, never to be seen again.” This is because the actual predators are not going to be sticking out. The actual predators are going to be much harder to spot than you would like to believe, and they would absolutely love a distraction like the one the OP describes.
As my position has been stated on several occasions that the OP should have done more to investigate the situation rather than to call the authorities, (as well as giving specific examples as to lines I would use to broach an engaging conversation) and I do not believe that there has really been any sort of real response to my points, I do not believe that it is I, with my “ponies and ice cream” stories, and my “misremembering of psych 101” who is mischaracterizing my opposition.
No, you said “What’s actually being stated is something far more nuanced than the ridiculous hyperbolic straw man…” so I want to know what YOU think is actually being stated. You obviously know so please tell us.
That’s not my view. It’s close enough to what St. Cad said that you’ll have to ask him, but I suspect it’s not accurate.
Not in that situation he’s not.
What evidence do you have that predators are some sort of super-criminals? Other than Wednesday Addams’s serial killer costume, I don’t think you’re onto anything.
I agree that the OP should have done more to investigate. Your idea that at the park the buddy is likelier to commit molestation is very, very silly.
Incidentally, one thing making me uncomfortable about the discussion of stranger danger is how it doesn’t map to my experience. I suspect this thread right now is overwhelmingly male, but if you talk with women about the issue, I think you’ll find significantly more than 1 in 25,000 (or whatever) were sexually assaulted by strangers while prepubescent. A lot of this will consist of being flashed by pervs, or groped by pervs. These are the sorts of things that can happen in public spaces very quickly to children who aren’t being closely watched–happened to me as a kid, happened to my first girlfriend and my second girlfriend, probably happened to a lot more than 1 in 25,000 people.
It’s a lot less serious than abduction or rape, but it’s something I’d really really like to keep from happening to my own kids.
Read the frikkin’ thread. I’ve told you all I’m going to, and if that’s not enough for you, I’ll find a way to sleep at night knowing I’ve disappointed you.
Fair enough–different resources suggest different things, but overall it looks like deliberate prurient indecent exposure doesn’t generally fall under that definition. It’s still something I’d like to protect kids from. Groping, the other part of what I was talking about, is sexual assault, and can happen quickly, and kids may not make a giant fuss about it right away because it’s so weird and confusing, and I suspect it happens far more often than it gets reported to the police.
Fair enough. Not sure what your view is then. Do you not feel that it is the adult male’s responsibilty to put others at ease? Or are you actually saying that it is in fact the parent’s responsibilty to put effort into assessing the situation. If it is the latter, this would be the first time you’ve indicated such. If it is the former, I am not sure what type of space you are trying to put in there between your statement and mine.
I am not sure why. He is an adult male, who the OP never mentioned as even having a kid (I kinda assume he did, otherwise, why is he at the park unremarked, but that is not a detail the OP graced us with), who is a family friend (which is a more likely person to be sexually abusing children than a stranger), and probably had opportunities to be alone with the child without drawing the suspicion of its parents.
And you accuse others of hyperbole? Show me where I said that predators are super-criminals. I only implied that they are competent. My evidence of this is that they are quite rarely caught.
(Of course, you also have the story upthread of the molester doing his thing right in front of a social worker. Without a different camera angle, the social worker, a supposedly trained individual, would have not known about it at all. So, yeah child molesters are going to be pretty good at hiding their activities.)
Except that the statistics would agree with me on that, silly or no. And in case you were confused, your “ponies and ice cream” comment was not about my point that the friend was a statistically greater threat, but that being accosted by police in the park, in front of his kid, may decrease the chances of him taking his kid to the park in the future.
I know many girls who talk about being molested as a child. I have no idea the overall veracity of it, but I have never questioned it, only been supportive. In all of those cases, none talked about being molested by a stranger. It was always a relative, a babysitter, a teacher, or a family friend. Now, you want to include flashers, I don’t know anyone who was ever bothered enough by a flasher that they talked about it in the adulthood like they did for physical acts of molestation, so I don’t know the stats on that, or inappropriate but brief touching that they may not have even noticed themselves. I have never asked a girl what her experiences with sexual abuse was, so I only know what they have told me with no prompting, so I am not making a scientific claim of stats here, but they do seem to line up pretty well with the accepted statistics so I don’t think I’m too far off base.
From the story the OP told, is that what you thought may have been happening here?
