Never trust a man
Aug 24
That seems to be the general sentiment of child welfare advocates and the police. Lost children are advised to find a safe adult – and all the example safe adults are women. Airlines only seat unaccompanied minors next to women. Even John Walsh, host of America’s Most Wanted, advises against ever hiring a male babysitter.
The truth (not that anybody cares about that anymore) doesn’t support the policy.
“The number of men who will hurt a child is tiny compared to the population,” says Benjamin Radford, who researches statistics on predators and is managing editor of the science magazine Skeptical Inquirer. “Virtually all of the time, if a child is lost or in trouble, he will be safe going to the nearest male stranger.”
Yeah, but of tiny amount of people (strangers) who will hurt a child, aren’t they overwhelmingly male? So aren’t you playing THOSE odds when you tell a child to go to an unknown woman, rather than an unknown man?
But the odds are so minuscule is it worth the negative message to the kids? If the stats showed that black men are even more likely then the overall population of men to harm children, can imagine any respectable organization advising kids to avoid black men? It would never happen.
The odds are so minuscule that any random male will harm a child that the advice does more harm than good IMO. They are teaching kids not to trust men.
Gavin de Becker has been saying this for years, and it’s what I teach my own kids: If you are lost, find another mom to ask for help, and if you don’t see any other mothers, find a woman.
Why? Women are:
1) Statistically less likely to be predators than men.
2) More likely to stick with the child until the situation is resolved, rather than just saying, “The information desk is right over there.”
Of course, children are less likely to pick a predator to ask for help than a predator is to pick a vulnerable looking child, so simply by virtue of teaching the child to ask for help, you’re improving their odds of getting *help*.
But it’s exactly those attitudes that contribute to a tragic feedback loop — perfectly safe men (the vast majority out there) now have to weigh whether ever to offer help, or even interact at all with a child, for fear of false accusation or worse.
I agree that it’s not right to instill the assumption that men are not safe into our children. Upon reading this, I recognise that I have done that same thing as well. In my own defense though, it was instilled in me to be paranoid of men. It’s a very hard mindset to change.
I’ve pounded into our boys’ heads the idea that if they become lost, the person to ask for help is a woman with children–and, failing that, a man with children or a woman without children. On the one occasion we’ve actually misplaced a littlun (at a book signing at Borders), he found a mom with three kids, she took him up to the checkout counter and we were paged right away.
I’m sure the number of childless men who would hurt a child is “miniscule compared to the population.” But I’m also sure that it’s enormous compared to the population of childless women who would do the same. And it’s never occurred to me to tell my children to seek out a helpful adult of one race over another; I’ve never seen anything to suggest that any racial background is more prevalent among child molesters than another, while statistics absolutely bear out the notion that men are more likely to be child molestors/abductors than are women.
There it is: my evil, sexist attitude right out there on display. I’ll probably keep it up…
…OK, after reading the WSJ article to which you linked, I must say that the ad campaign described (with the billboard of the man holding a little girl’s hand, coupled with the caption “It just doesn’t feel right when I see them together”) is sick, disgusting and wrong.
That said, I pretty much take anything these “father’s rights” groups say with a shakerful or two of salt…
I always told my kids to find a mommy or daddy. (kid talk for adult with children) I would hate to think they would be scared and lost any longer than they had to be because they were afraid to approach a father.
I also hate to think that a lost kid could be found by a dangerous adult because they were told not to talk to my husband.
As a single father, I’d have to say to RedMolly, thanks for taking all of the heartful desires of dads out there with a grain of salt. It is not yet politically incorrect to blow off a father’s needs.
Now, on this issue. I have no doubt that the percentage of men who would harm child are miniscule. And as ImPerceptible says, it would be best for a child to approach an adult to ask for help then get no help at all. Ulrike makes that point but illogically seems to think that waiting to find a mom or a women.
While I agree that a woman, on the average, is more likely to stay with a child. the most important thing is for a child to get help. Sure, first look for a woman, but we shouldn’t, as Tim says, make children afraid of men.