I’m pretty disturbed by the idea that a grown man having a conversation with children is, in itself, considered suspicious. The idea that whether or not he has children is relevant to whether he is a legitimate threat just confuses me.
I think if some dude were pinging my ooky meter my inclination would be to keep a firm eye on my own kids, not ruin his day because of a hunch. For damned sure I wouldn’t be inviting him over for Sunday dinner if I thought he might hurt my children. But statistically, any given child has more reason to be afraid of his/her own family than a stranger in the park. A grown man taking an interest in children might be unusual, but it is not a crime. Mostly it’s built on an archaic gender stereotype that holds children are not the purview of men. This is stupid, and probably tragic.
Gedd is on the right track when he traces his issues with pedophilia back to a cousin victimized by a family member, but he is looking at the wrong population to suss out threats. Not that I’m advising random suspicion of family members, either, but the moment we say, ‘‘So-and-so would never do X…’’ is the moment we fail our children. I can’t figure out if I was raised by a uniquely sociopath abuser, or if maybe an element of sociopathology is necessary to molest a child, but at any rate, both of my abusers were well-loved, deceptively normal-behaving people who played me like a Mfing violin without thinking twice. If park guy is a pedophile, he’s an amateur.
The sobering truth is that anyone could be a threat, but we probably won’t be able to identify that person with any measure of accuracy, and it is statistically unlikely that threat will be a complete stranger in the park.
How we choose to view people – as potential threats, or potential allies – is not a minor issue, IMO. I’m no stranger to betrayal by people I was supposed to be able to trust, but I draw the line at waiting expectantly for the next betrayal to come along. I don’t want my children to grow up with all the irrational fears I have. If they grow up erring on the side of risky behavior, I’ll consider myself a success. Because life lived in fear is not life, it is prison.
Here’s some examples of people in this thread saying that. If you go over to the thread that Waxwing started, you would find even more examples of same.
Explanations are in order? Okay.
This is actually pretty simple.
Your first mistake is your second sentence. Not having a kid does not make him a pedophile. Now, being at the park, with no kid of his own does bring up the reason why he is there, of which, pedophile is a possible, but still highly unlikely reason.
If he does have a kid with him, like everyone else, then like everyone else, he is as likely to be a pedophile as everyone else, which is to say, very unlikely.
“I’m not the most observant person, but I noticed a guy who went over to play on some fake drum toy when my son did and was talking to him. I had seen him earlier when my son almost backed into him in the “kids under 5” section.”
I just assumed this was like a kiddie pool swimming area, or maybe like the dog park where you have the large dogs in one area, and small dogs in the other.
It’s not odd that a grown man go to a public swimming pool, but it might be odd if he were swimming in the kiddie pool with no children of his own.
No, actually, none of those are examples of people in this thread saying that, or saying anything even close to that. The fact that you think people are making that claim goes a long way to explaining your outrage.
It’s as if I went into the thread about turkey soup and misunderstood the posters to be talking about the best ways to poison grandma. Of course I’d be outraged–but my outrage wouldn’t have much to do with what other people were actually saying.
Consider a separate situation: a man goes to a park specifically for the purposes of talking with children, but first looks around to make sure that the kids are not closely supervised. Would that bother you?
It would definitely bother me. That ain’t normal behavior, and I think most grown-ass men know it’s not. A man who engaged in that behavior would raise my suspicions.
Consider a different situation: a man takes his child to the park, and while his kid is off playing, another kid comes up and starts telling him all about Spiderman. The man responds by telling the kid how much he loves Spiderman, too. Would that bother you?
It would definitely not bother me. That’s normal behavior, and I think most grown-ass men know that. A man who engaged in that behavior wouldn’t raise my suspicions.
These, I think, are the two extreme edges of behavior we’re discussing here. The devil’s in the details, which is why I say that I can’t judge this particular event’s ooginess without having been there.
FWIW, a woman who engaged in the first scenario behavior would also seem creepy to me.
I will agree that there was hyperbole in the post you were responding to, so if it that you are objecting to, fine, but minus the hyperbole, are you really saying that the people I quoted thought it was an okay thing for an adult to interact with an unknown child? Or would you agree that, even in your own comments, it is considered at least inappropriate for an adult to have an interaction with a child?
Speaking of claims, why do you claim I have outrage? I have no outrage, and I have said nothing even close to that. The fact that you think I’m outraged may go a long way to explaining your dismissal.
It’s more like you went into a thread about people being concerned about sexual predators at the park, and misunderstood that they were actually talking about sexual predators at the park. I wouldn’t be outraged, but my non-outrage would have quite a bit to do with what the people were saying.
There is a video that made the rounds of social work training awhile back showing a man molesting a child while sitting in a social worker’s office being interviewed. (The social worker sitting RIGHT THERE was utterly oblivious, but a monitored security camera caught a different angle on the scene.) It happens–sexual abuse doesn’t require removing the child from the scene entirely.
More importantly, grooming a child, or sussing out which children might be vulnerable future targets, can take place in quite open public places. Later, if/when something does happen, the perpetrator isn’t a stranger anymore, and gets counted in the “other acquaintance known to child” category.
Probably not many, given that sex offender registries are mostly products of the last twenty years or so. For example, in my state you won’t be listed on the public sex offender registry unless you were convicted of a crime that occurred after April 1994.
And if you see a day care worker who is behaving in a manner that suggests they might be high, should you ignore them?
You are missing the point of the argument I’m making. It’s not “any man”; it’s “any man behaving in an odd, atypical manner around small children.” See the difference?
You are attempting to argue that sex offenses are so vanishingly rare that suspicious behavior should be ignored, and I think that is a foolish argument, both because they are not so rare AND because suspicious behavior should not be ignored.
I don’t think people are arguing that having a conversation with a child in itself is suspicious (with the possible exception of Waxwinged’s post, although I’m guessing that came out more forcefully than intended). It’s the specifics of the interaction that matters. Based on the little info from the OP, I probably would have kept my eyes open but stopped short of calling the police. But my decision would have been based on all the specifics of the case that no one here is privy to except the OP. As LHOD said, the devil’s in the details.
As for why having children of his own is relevant: it has nothing to do with whether pedophiles have kids or not. The fact that he had a kid gives him a very good reason to be at the park and alleviates that element of suspicion. A grown man hanging out in the under-5 area without kids of his own is definitely odd behavior. I’m all for free-range parenting and letting kids take risks, and I take care to not instill irrational fears in them. I wouldn’t run up and pull my kid away from such a man. But I also wouldn’t think “sweet, that dude is watching my kid, I can go grab a latte.”
Coincidentally, I just received an email blast from our kids’ principal informing us that a group of students were approached this week by a man in a car who offered them money to get in, and a day later a guy pulled up next to a girl waving $5 and asking how old she was. For those who seem to think that any fear of strangers is overwrought, do you think the man was a kindly philanthropist looking to give away his money? Yes, this stuff is rare, but it does happen.
Well, and that’s not the argument. The argument is whether or not you should call the cops to allay your suspicions, or whether it may be more appropriate to investigate the situation a bit yourself before calling in the authorities.
Something gives you reason to take a second look, then by all means, take a second or even a third look. Whatever it takes to make you feel you know the situation you are in.
I just feel that there was no real reason to suspect this guy of malfeasance in a way that should ruin his day. There were better ways of going about lowering suspicions without being as intrusive.
I also feel that the focus on the stranger danger aspect of things does a disservice, as most child sexual abuse does not come from strangers, so while you are watching that slightly awkward guy over there deal with the police that you have called on him, your friend (brother, cousin, uncle, father) is molesting you kid behind your back.
That’s one of the arguments, but there’s more than one going on. I’m not at all convinced calling the cops was appropriate, but my patented Hairy Eyeball might have been.
Question: am I only allowed one way to try to keep my kids safe? If so, I choose seat belts, thank you. But if I can try to keep my kids safe in the many different circumstances they’ll find themselves in, you’ve offered a false choice.
But according to the OP, he took a second/third look, talked to the guy, and STILL felt he didn’t know what situation he was in. At what point should he say, “this is beyond me, and it’s time to call the folks who have more training in figuring out what the situation is”?
I’m not sure I know what those better ways are. Our OP watched the guy long enough that he was pretty sure the guy was unaccompanied–it turns out that was a false belief, but the very fact that he developed that notion may be reasonable evidence that the guy was not acting like somebody with a kid on the playground. Even if the OP had asked and been told which kid was the guy’s, so what? The guy was still, in the OP’s view, not acting like somebody with a kid on the playground.
No, most does not come from strangers. However, some does, and some comes from casual acquaintances, people the child “knows” by familiarity. Some adult the child sees and talks to on a recurring basis at the playground is not a stranger to the child, and would not be counted as a stranger in the statistics, even if he is a stranger to the parent(s). (In the instant case, of course, there’s no “recurring” feature, yet.)
You can take many measures to prevent many dangers, sure. But you can only focus on one thing. Which is my point, by focusing in on this one thing, you may be missing dangers closer to home.
Maybe I am just more comfortable talking to stranger. It did not seem that the Op actually confronted and talked to this guy, but had some offhanded remarks that probably made the guy think the OP was the one acting weird.
I made some examples of opening lines to suss this guy out unintrusivley upthread. That’s just a beginning. If you aren’t comfortable talking to strangers, then I don’t know what to do. I guess just call the cops on anyone who seems to be suspicious.
The simple fact that Gedd felt compelled to post this thread at all pretty much tells the story. It would be nice to know if he/she learned a good lesson.
It’s also interesting to know there appears to be a subset of Dopers with similar hangups.
Seriously? I can only focus on one thing at a time. At different times, I can focus on different things. Are you misremembering something from Psych 101 here, or what?
In any case, this is hardly my focus. This is my response to a thread in IMHO.
No, not that. The original claim was that people “consider an adult male even speaking to their child as being beyond the pale, something no right thinking person would ever do.”
You quoted Waxwinged asking, “What adult willingly engages in conversation with unrelated young kids that they are not in direct responsibility over (teacher, babysitter, etc)?”
I guess you genuinely need the differences laid out here, so here goes:
Waxwinged qualified his question by mentioning unrelated kids and kids not under direct supervision. Pábitel’s statement included no such qualifications.
Waxwinged didn’t suggest it was something beyond the pale. Pábitel did.
Waxwinged said “engages in.” While that phrase is admittedly ambiguous, in context it’s clear s/he is talking about initiating conversation, not what Pábitel talked about.
and this is super important–Waxwinged asked a flippin question out of curiosity. Pábitel was making an absurd declaration. [Edit–oops, I had it confused with the OP of the other thread. His question was actually rhetorical, I think. The rest of the points stand.]
I am surprised you see that question as equivalent to Pabitel’s statement at all.
My issue is that from my reading of the OP - which could be wrong, the OP is lacking details - it appeared that the guy was NOT playing with his kid but going out of his way to chat with other kids.
That being said, I think the guy was right to talk to the police but I would have taken his picture or video showing his behavior and gone to the police station as a “I think you should know.” sort of thing. But then again if it looked like the guy positioned himself so my son “accidently” backed into him I can’t say I wouldn’t ask for a cop to drop by and observe.
And I don’t think we should attribute the overreaction of the cops with 3 squad cars to the OP. I thought he was just suggesting that someone might just want to cruise by and see what was happening. But I will ding the OP for not asking his son what the guy was talking to him about. “My son love this toy.” is a helluva lot different than “Do you ever play here by yourself.”
Just like a subset that interprets the point of an adult going out of their way to initiate a conversation with a kid as referring to any adult talking to any kid under any circumstances.
Seriously? You need me to break down for you how your hyperbolic straw man is different from what you quoted? For real?
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.