Big goof-up! Brid Hehir is a woman!

Can you change the title?

The vast majority of child abductions are done by family members or other NON-strangers, yet we still admonish the STRANGER as bad.
We have already passed the point at which we are causing more damage to 'the children' by instilling these irrational fears of potential or imagined dangers.
Here's one thing about the good old days that was better...adults being able to help a lost/frightened child without becoming a suspect.

A few years ago, I had an aisle seat on a plane across from an extraordinarily self-possessed girl of 10 or 11 or so. She was traveling alone and quietly doing word searches in a book.

Midflight, she struck up a conversation with me about the length of the flight, as an adult might do. After a minute or so, she said she was traveling alone because she was going to a children's hospital at our destination. I expressed sympathy, but she was pretty blase about it, saying she'd made this flight many times on her own.

That was when I realized the person next to me and the person in front of her were listening intently - and, moreover, giving me the look intended to let me know that. Man on a plane! I suppose it made sense on some level, but it was odd; I certainly wouldn't have talked to the girl had she not begun the conversation.

As both stories illustrate, society would prefer that adults (particularly men) who don't know children refrain from interacting with them. Fine with me. But the stats show it's parents, not strangers, who are more likely to molest, injure or kill a child. Perhaps we should reserve the stinkeye for them.

@Kevin: "But the stats show it's parents, not strangers, who are more likely to molest, injure or kill a child. Perhaps we should reserve the stinkeye for them."

Don't give them any ideas.

There is a case making big headlines in NY right now about a little boy that was walking home, got lost and was taken by a sicko who killed him and chopped him up. Its a terrible tragedy but, I believe, a very random thing. The next quieter article is about a stepfather beating his 18 year old step daughter to death with a boot. Not as shocking, I guess. Either way, some of my friends are now posting on FB that they hope their kids understand why they never let them do anything which to me is ridiculous. Their kids are on Twitter, FB, and Formspring talking to strangers all day and all night. That to me is more dangerous than letting my almost 14 year old daughter go to the pizza place with a friend.

People don't want to believe that the big bad wolf is really mom, dad, or Uncle Joe. It has to be some stranger looking to chop their precious baby up and every once in awhile some stranger comes along and does something horrendous validating all of their beliefs that its strangers that are the danger. Personally, I always encouraged my kids to be friendly and polite to everyone which includes strangers although with some of the people that pass for family for us, strangers look better and better each day.

In April a friend, who my wife and I had not seen or spoken to in over six months, was arrested for child pornography. When the Tennessee bureau of investigation finally got around to speaking to my wife and I last month, the two agents involved did everything they could to suggest that I was involved, or knew that this friend had issues with pedophilia. Over the two hour interview they even attempted to make me feel guilty for being a male and for my former occupation of ten years as an employee at a facility for juvenile sex offenders; suggesting that it was a poor career choice for a man.

They did not do this to my wife, who they spoke to separately and over the phone. Her interview lasted a mere 20 minutes and never once did they suggest that she was involved. The agent she spoke to repeatedly assured her that she was not in trouble or under investigation despite the fact that my wife had also worked at the same facility as myself, for a longer period of time and had known this friend for longer than I.

This country has developed a sick obsession with feminism and we are finally reaching the point that the simple act of being born male is reason enough to be feared or suspected.

"As both stories illustrate, society would prefer that adults (particularly men) who don't know children to refrain from interacting with them"

If some man had stopped to interact with Leiby Kletzky as he was wandering lost down 44th Street, he would have been quickly walked back to his waiting parents and all would be well. Instead, he was snatched off the street by a monster who may been waiting for years for the perfect opportunity to do just that.

There's a fatal flaw in the logic of the Strange Man Danger paranoiacs, just as there is with gun control fanatics. Instead of making the streets safer, draconian gun laws that label every gun-owner as a criminal can leave unarmed citizens helpless against actual armed criminals. It's been the biological role of adult men to look out for & protect children in a dangerous world ever since our species evolved. Paranoia about men inhibits them from performing this essential role, and leaves children in greater danger, not safer.

It IS interesting that Brid is a woman, and still got read the stranger danger thing. At least the teacher was consistant between the genders.

It is terribly important that children KNOW which strangers to talk to, ESP. if they are lost or in trouble. Other wise, what do they do, if they are lost or in trouble?

Also? Ms. Schoolteacher doesn't actually know how to interact with other adults either. The actions didn't need to be unpleasant, though it's easier to call them out when they are. IFF the teacher was one of the kid's teachers [that isn't clear to me] she could have sat down with them, and asked if the kid had made a new friend, or involved the kid in some other way to draw her back to the rest of the group... kinda like hearding sheep.

I have been given the 'stinkeye' when out with my daughter, even had a woman ignore me and talk directly to her about where her mother was. The look I gave her made her take a step back. It was very awkward, but the lady knew she had overstepped, and apologised to me... though I'd bet she didn't actually think she was wrong.

What many people don't realise is that the answer to the dilemma is NOT to tell your kids to never speak to a stranger. Rather it is for them to know which stranger to speak to and why...

Because then you actually EMPOWER strangers to protect your kids. If the stranger is afraid of repercussions, they will avoid/ignore a kid who is definitely in trouble, in hopes that somone else will step up and help.

This situation is a lose/lose.

It's all part & parcel of the resentment of masculine nature that makes gay marriage such an adorably smug enterprise for everyone. A generation of made wimpy by parental divorce in childhood will do anything to express its resentment, especially at the masculine nature which most assume to be most to blame... Or at least, toward the party who lives away from the home and never seems to cut enough checks to make Mom happy... And Mom sets the tone for dinner, after all.

I tend to view these problems in larger patterns. As a rule, people are cowardly, lazy shits.

Is there a better way to fuck up a girl's adulthood than to teach her to be reflexively terrified of grown men?

It'll fuck up a boy's adulthood too, as the Catholics have so conclusively proven.

It takes a village to raise a child. But the assumption is that the village is chock full of child molesters, even for a chat in full public view.

I've always said its only a matter of time until women were targeted by his bizzare bias

I do not believe in teaching stranger danger.

To function, we must speak to strangers every day: the cashier, the new teacher, a new student at school, etc.

Most young kids think that "strangers" are mean, bad looking people.

Imagine not having any practice talking to people that you don't know. How are you going to function? What about job interview, customer service, going off to college, etc.? Try doing these things without talking to strangers!

I taught my boys to look for strange "behaviors." such as trying to get them to get out of my line of vision,, asking them for help, wanting them to keep a secret, etc. It didn't matter whether these people were strangers, relatives, or our neighbors.

It is too bad that Levi didn't know not to get in a car with a man. If he did not know to ask a kind (most likely grandmotherly type of person for directions, it just compounds the tragedy.

> too bad that Levi didn't know not to
> get in a car with a man

From what I've heard about the closeness of that particular neighborhood, it might have been the best imaginable risk.

"It is too bad that Levi didn't know not to get in a car with a man. If he did not know to ask a kind (most likely grandmotherly type of person for directions, it just compounds the tragedy."

Levi wouldn't have been warned about this man most likely. He was Hasidic and lived in a Hasidic community. I'm sure the man who killed him was also Hasidic. Levi most likely thought this man was going to take him home after getting lost and didn't know he was in danger until alone with the sicko. This was a crime of opportunity and unfortunately no matter how much we try to protect our kids there will at some point always be an opportunity for a predator who really wants it. I'm sure Levi's parents will kick themselves for a long time for allowing their son to walk home alone but the reality is that at some point you have to let your kids go out. Its not their fault that the day they decide to allow it happens to be the same day some psycho is walking the same path.

My dad drives a delivery truck. He was delivering in downtown Cleveland one day and watched a little boy walk out the front door of a day care facility. He watched for awhile and realized that the kid (about 4 yrs old) was by himself. He caught up with the kid and asked him where he was going. The kid told him, "My brother is in school and I'm gonna go find him." My dad asked him where the school was, and the little guy didn't know. My dad suggested they go back to the daycare to get directions. He was terrified to touch the kid because he didn't want people to think he was a molestor.

When they got back to the daycare, no one had even realized that the kid was missing. How sad is it that my Dad returned the kid (and bitched out the staff), and was worried that people would think he was some kind of killer/kidnapper/child molestor. What if he wouldn't have been there? I bet the staff never felt the need to relate that tidbit of information to the kid's parents.

Why do people try to teach their children to be so afraid of other people? Sometimes they need help and only a kind stranger can help them. They should be teaching them how to differentiate between the kind and the creepy...