No More Hugs
Randye Hoder writes in the LA Times about the new rules for camp counselors; they basically amount to "Don't go anywhere near the children!"
He quotes Karen Goldberg, director of youth and family programs at a local YMCA:
Times have changed. There are more lawsuits, more claims of sexual harassment and abuse. We have to be really careful.
From Hoder's piece:
"Don't hug the campers." That was among a handful of things that my 16-year-old son, Nathaniel, was told when he volunteered this summer at our local YMCA. Oh, and also, "Don't let any kids sit on your lap."He had signed up to help shepherd and supervise a gaggle of 7- and 8-year-olds from the swimming pool to the arts and crafts studio to the playground to the basketball court.
Since everyone knows that kids naturally like to give and get hugs, Nathaniel was presented the directive to refrain with a visual demonstration. The director of the camp showed him how, if a cute little tyke came running at him with arms wide open in expectation of a hug, he was to pivot so as to be standing sideways toward the camper, put up his hand up and say, "High five!" The "high five," the director explained, was the best way to avoid torso-to-torso contact without hurting the camper's feelings.
... At our Y, the counselor in charge can't go and help her because the camper is now naked. Actually, it is two female counselors who cannot help her because of the rule that says no camper is ever to be left alone with just one. They have to try to talk her back into the suit -- a feat that, as any parent of young children can attest, has roughly the same odds of success as having her try to program a supercomputer. If, ultimately, the counselors have no choice but to lend a hand, they will have to fill out a report and the Y will notify a parent so that no misunderstanding about an inadvertent touch of the tush ensues.
What is most confounding, perhaps, is that we have layered on all this caution even though our kids are no more in danger now than they ever were.
I think this is a divorce-with-kids thing. A couple generations of kids were raised in a mobile society without a loving father, or without even much middle-family (cousins) in the neighborhood. Single mothers have learned to count on Obama for money. But having no experience with loving men (or any gentle affection from others) in their own childhoods, they're paranoid about abusers... And also a little offended that their kids would look to any other person for learning how to live. After all, the fantasy is that single motherhood is just another kind of family.
So social detachment spirals and compounds....
Pretty soon (like, two blog posts from now), people will be afraid of getting laid while wearing condoms, or whatever, because strangers are so scary....
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at August 27, 2014 12:32 AM
So, the implication is it "could be" seen as sexual harrasment?
If you look at 7- or 8-year old kids hugging a counselor (or teacher, etc.) and think 'sexual' anything, you might be the problem.
But I forgot THINK OF THE CHILDRENS!!!
drcos at August 27, 2014 3:59 AM
Since most sexual abuse of children is done by someone they know or in thier own homes by family members, I find these precautions laughable.
I use to 'eat' my share of baby and toddler tummies when I was a nanny with nary a complaint from a parent. Now, I'd be willing to bet anything that if I'd stayed in that profession, and someone saw me doing that, I'd be hauled off for sexual abuse.
No wonder kids today are affection and attention starved. Kids today never learn how to give, recieve, or how to say "no" to physical affection. The people who are supossed to care for them and make them feel loved while their parents are away are practically forced to deny them any affection at all. If this is the future of child care, why not just hire robots?
Sabrina at August 27, 2014 6:43 AM
I just used "kids today" twice.
I'm officially a cranky old lady.
Sabrina at August 27, 2014 6:45 AM
Yeah, but the real problem isn't "kids today"; it's parents today.
Cousin Dave at August 27, 2014 7:02 AM
Well, parents today and government today. The parents stupidly run to the government over every little problem. But there is far too much government for them to run to.
If we fired, say, 95% of all government employees, the remaining 5% wouldn't have time to deal with cr*p - they would actually have to concentrate on the essential stuff. And the citizens would have to take responsibility themselves, making sure that their neighborhoods functioned, that their schools were supported, and so forth. Or not, as the case may be, but that would be up to the locals.
a_random_guy at August 27, 2014 7:17 AM
Stranger Danger grew with explicit help from feminism and corrupt prosecutors and lawyers aiming to win an election or make a buck.
The connection to feminism is here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/1999/10/26/katha-s-silence/
OCTOBER 26, 1999
The last time I saw Katha Pollitt was on a Nation cruise in the Caribbean just under a year ago. By the second day Katha was making it clear that all was not well between us. Soon it came out that by quoting some of her off-the-cuff remarks in the New York Press I’d transgressed […]
Katha’s Silence
by Alexander Cockburn
The last time I saw Katha Pollitt was on a Nation cruise in the Caribbean just under a year ago. By the second day Katha was making it clear that all was not well between us. Soon it came out that by quoting some of her off-the-cuff remarks in the New York Press I’d transgressed propriety and decorum. An apology was due, Katha told me testily, before normal social intercourse could resume. I hauled out appropriate expressions of contrition and Katha resumed the wary palaver that has always been the currency of our relationship.
So, Katha, here’s the sequel. This time you owe an apology, and it’s not a matter of some few mumbled words of contrition. You’ve got some serious explaining to do, and among the audience measuring your words are people who are doing hard prison time because influential feminists such as yourself kept your mouths shut when you could have made a difference, possibly even a vital one.
Let me take you back to l990. At that time the poisonous hysteria about Satanic ritual abuse was still at full tilt. Even though, on January l8 of that year, after the longest trial in US legal history, a jury in Los Angeles acquitted Ray Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey on 52 counts of molestation, plenty of people had already had their lives destroyed on demented charges of having forced children into having had oral sex with a goat (Wilkes-Barre, Pa); eating a boiled baby (Chicago); committing "repulsively bizarre acts" such as assaulting children with tampons and playing the piano naked (Maplewood, N.J.).
...
Katha, these were the years when a column by you in The Nation could have been enormously influential. Why? You know the answer perfectly well, though even today you cannot really bring yourself to admit it. In the coalition powering the satanic abuse persecutions feminists constituted a powerful component, most conspicuously in the form of Gloria Steinem and Ms. magazine. How did feminism, a movement that grew out of the radical passions of the l960s, navigate itself into this demonic alliance? Charges of perverse abuse of children seemed an inviting line of attack in the larger onslaught on patriarchy, sexual violence and harassment. Social workers and therapists–many of them feminists — became the investigators and effective prosecutors.
...
jerry at August 27, 2014 9:04 AM
Cousin Dave, I agree. But, those kids eventually grow up and become adults. (I dare not say 'responsible and functional adults). These adults then become the voting public.
They also go on to procreate and thier children are brought up in the same, if not moreso, environment lacking effection, accountability and common sense.
So kids today are parents tomorrow.
Sabrina at August 27, 2014 9:13 AM
Affection*
Damn.
Sabrina at August 27, 2014 9:14 AM
Sabrina, you're absolutely right, and we are into the second generation (in some areas, the fourth generation) of children who grow up with the assurance that they need not grow up, because someone will take care of them and watch over them from cradle to grave. To them, "maturity" is just a process of checking days off of the calendar, and the government that governs best is the government that gives them the most free stuff. They need not learn anything about how the world actually works, because that's someone else's responsibility.
These people are now a majority, and barring the possibility of either revolution or a drastic reworking of the Constitution, they will take the U.S. down within the next half century. And, until the day that their swag supply dries up, they won't care. (When that day comes, it's going to make Ferguson look like a mild argument.)
Cousin Dave at August 27, 2014 11:12 AM
Rules against hugging are the single most evil trend in our culture today. If I was religious, I would honestly say that the devil himself could not personally score a greater coup than to convince people to literally ban love and affection for one another.
Lobster at August 27, 2014 11:45 AM
And you have people like lenona claiming these aren't valid concerns. The assault by camp councilor certainly isn't, but the fear of lawsuit is. And not just by men.
Ben at August 27, 2014 1:36 PM
This isn't new, when I was a camp counselor in 2002 we had the exact same rules for against hugging campers or letting them sit in our laps. It was a day camp and I was part of the 5-6 year old group, so there were a lot of times kids tried and I had to stop them. I was a teenaged girl, just for context.
Zoogie2 at August 27, 2014 6:31 PM
"Pretty soon (like, two blog posts from now), people will be afraid of getting laid while wearing condoms, or whatever, because strangers are so scary...."
No Crid the topic was women whom you have intimate relationships for years are scary. You can't ever trust 'em
(And strangers too cuz cum is so precious and rare. Bitches gotta poke holes in used condoms to get the good stuff ya know?)
Open at August 27, 2014 7:09 PM
To Ben: Er, explain?
To Jerry: Maybe, since it's been almost 15 years since this column was written, we should be asking what people like Pollitt are doing NOW to prevent another Buckey or Amirault case? (The Amirault case is mentioned in the above link - I'm reasonably sure we wouldn't let it happen again.)
lenona at August 28, 2014 9:22 AM
"Don't go anywhere near the children!"
Sound advice, indeed. Now stop bringing them into the bar.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at August 28, 2014 11:47 AM
When I was in kindergarten, I and some of the other little girls in my class loved to hug the principal. In my case I think it was because he was a portly man and my parents were thin. It would have been confusing at best if he were to see me coming and perform evasive action.
I teach Bible class for 3-5 year olds, and you can imagine they sometimes need help in the bathroom. I suppose in a few years I'll have to make them wait and fetch their parents.
Damn rules for perverts.
Sosij at August 29, 2014 12:16 AM
Ok. So it is now officially a crime to hug a kid even if the kid wanted it.
Hope it does not become a criminal act to cuddle a dog or a cat soon since they cannot give consent for the same. But the way things are going, I guess that could also happen and even if a cat came and tried to rub against your leg, you would have to move away especially when it is in a public place or when you have others in your house? and if you did not move away you would get hauled to the police station?
redrajesh at August 31, 2014 6:23 AM
Hope it does not become a criminal act to cuddle a dog or a cat soon since they cannot give consent for the same.
I know you are joking, but . . .
http://eileenanddogs.com/2012/08/29/does-your-dog-really-want-to-be-petted/
lujlp at August 31, 2014 2:55 PM
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