Posted on 09/08/2007 2:52:54 PM PDT by decimon
These days, if Rian Romoli accidentally bumps into a child, he quickly raises his hands above his shoulders. "I don't want to give even the slightest indication that any inadvertent touching occurred," says Mr. Romoli, an economist in La Cañada Flintridge, Calif.
Ted Wallis, a doctor in Austin, Texas, recently came upon a lost child in tears in a mall. His first instinct was to help, but he feared people might consider him a predator. He walked away. "Being male," he explains, "I am guilty until proven innocent."
In San Diego, retiree Ralph Castro says he won't allow himself to be alone with a child -- even in an elevator.
Cont...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Re: your post 328.
The operative word being “child.” Children can tell very little (and please, none of that crap about the “wisdom of children.”). The vast majority of children are unable to pick up on the clues that would distinguish a bad guy from a good guy.
“Do you tell them that they should consider men to be more dangerous or not?”
All men...no.
certain types of men? yes.
I tell them the boys at school who do drugs are more dangerous.
I tell them that a strange man who is pushy about wanting to spend time alone with them COULD be dangerous. (notice the COULD)
I’ve told my older son to never give anyone online personal information about himself, or to assume the person he is talking to is telling the truth that “she” is a hot 15 yr. old cheerleader -and let’s meet sometime at the mall.
I really don’t think I’m doing anything different than most of the dads here would do with their own kids.
I really don’t think anyone here is advocating that children should feel comfortable going off with strange men.
“I won’t vote for Rudy either, if I want a Dem in office, I’ll just vote for an openly Dem candidate”
exactly....if I wanted a dem, I’d vote Lieberman.
But I don’t.
The problem the institutional churches have is not that the child abuse happened, but that they tried to sweep it under the rug.
Some of you sound a bit too paranoid and some of the stories sound contrived. It is difficult, for example, to take the freeper who said he walked away from a crying child in a department store seriously. What, there were no salespeople or other customers around? Come on!
That said, I think it is always a good policy to avoid touching other people’s children unless you are in the presense of the parents and the child is welcoming.
I roughhouse with my grand sons and daughters all the time. When I take them to the playground I am always touching them—lifting them up, playing tag or whatever. They address me as PaPa so no one takes any particular notice—at least I’ve not sensed it.
It is sad, as another Freeper has mentioned, being white and male makes you a target of the dysfunctional. Just a way of life these days.
“Perhaps you should re-evaluate how you communicate via the written word so we won’t continue to miss your point.
OR...maybe if people weren’t so eager to be offended, they wouldn’t be so quick to attribute statements to me that I never made.
I don’t have ESP. It is difficult to foresee how someone will “read” something that just isn’t there.
and I still say you assume too much.
“I am truly amazed by that”
Really?
It is standard practice for my male ob/gyn to bring in a female nurse to be present when he performs examinations or other procedures.
I guess I could be offended by that...”this guy thinks I’m going to falsely accuse him of something”
But - he does have to protect himself, and unfortunately the actions of a few whacky women have put male doctors on the defensive.
“I can reasonably assume your husband doesn’t work in the medical field.”
No, but he does work in a heavily female populated profession.
The secretary isn’t actually sitting IN the office..but he leaves his door open, and her desk sits right outside his door.
That way, if anyone wants to accuse him of something - the secretary is there to back him up.
I suppose every female that goes in there could choose to be offended by this, but unfortunately enough jerks have falsely accused others of this type of thing that he has to protect himself.
“You are trotting out the MSM as a source of truth. “
not exactly...I said the MSM has stated the truth about this particular topic.
Even the MSM gets thing right every now and then.
” Use other sources to make your point. There are plenty of them.”
You mean like the sexual offender lists I referred to?
Or statements made by police who investigate online predators that I mentioned?
Or the many notices I receive in the mail concerning local offenders?
Those kind of sources?
“The problem the institutional churches have is not that the child abuse happened, but that they tried to sweep it under the rug.”
that is partially true.
They swept it under the rug, and then they continued to transfer prolific predators to new unsuspecting parishes ensuring fresh sets of victims.
So when I hear a fellow catholic blaming the Boston Globe, or the MSM, or anti-catholics for the scandel, I have to disagree.
While it is true the MSM relished in the story while ignoring the sex scandals in the schools, that doesn’t mean the abuse didn’t happen.
The responsibilty for that scandal lies with the abusive priests, and with those who enabled them.
If they hadn’t hurt all those kids, there never would have been a scandal, and good priests wouldn’t have to endure suspicion.
” It is difficult, for example, to take the freeper who said he walked away from a crying child in a department store seriously. What, there were no salespeople or other customers around? Come on!”
good point. No one had a cellphone?
“I roughhouse with my grand sons and daughters all the time. When I take them to the playground I am always touching them—lifting them up, playing tag or whatever. They address me as PaPa so no one takes any particular notice—at least I’ve not sensed it.”
I send my kids off to play with their papa too.
He hasn’t noticed anyone looking at him funny.
What at about those young women teachers too? I heard this morning there is another one who had 6 boys on the hook.
Gee, my HS education wasn't as complete as I thought it was. I should have checked out the teachers before signing up for classes:) For a more complete education only, of course:)
We have a password and have told the girls that even friends will know the password if we really sent them. And that they will never get into trouble for not complying in such a situation.
We teach them to kick, bite, flail and scream “Help stranger!”, etc. if they are grabbed, and to run if anyone ever threatens them.
If someone makes you uncomfortable run-away. If they tell you that you will get into trouble if you tell, they are lying.
I will not however be telling my girls that men are likely to be rapists. They aren’t likely to be rapists. I’ll tell them how best to avoid a rapist, and encourage them to keep the company of good men.
It sounds like we share a similar approach!
There is a middle school close where I live. That’s why I stay at work long enough to not get home until after those kids are off the streets. Pain in the butt little scholors. Smoking pot and even drinking after school. One or a few of them is going to get run over some day and I won’t be near there.
sounds like the local police and school administrators are ignoring the problem.
I came across a young boy in an urban area who was crying and sitting outside an apartment. He said that his mother was supposed to be home but no one was answering the door. He seemed to be about 5 or 6. He may have just been dropped off by a school bus. He obviously needed someone to stay with him and comfort him but I could see that if I stayed there it could be misinterpreted.
I went a short distance away and called the apartment managers. They were not helpful. Just when I was about to call the police the mother showed up pushing a baby carriage and seeming unconcerned that her son was in tears and had been waiting all alone. The son was angry with his mother. In retrospect I should have called CSD.
Their parents let them run wild too. Girls too. We need more fathers that take off their belts off and straighten out their kids when they go nuts.
One has to be really sick and over the line to abuse a child. It’s not a male or female thing it’s a sick thing. I suspect the statistics for female abusers is not as accurate as those for males.
It seems to me—no facts to support—that males are far more likely than females to be unjustly accused of any kind of sex crime than women.
I’m retired military. During my career I had the opportunity to supervise male and female civil servants. Women are far more likely than men to make claims of age, gender or race bias than men. I was investigated twice. Two women that I rated did not like my evaluation. They played the age, gender and race cards. They lost, but it took a long time and much expenditure of effort on my part. Sadly there this no sanction in the system for people who bring frivolous or malicious charges against other people—especially supervisors. My strength is my writing ability and diligence in keeping records. Oh, and I never did performance counseling without the presense of another person.
I also have had the opportunity to work with a number of young women over the years. I am not wired to have abused my position of authority or their trust. No reasonably adjusted, thinking person is wired that way.
Had a case in Colorado. A family in two groups is hiking. One 2 or 3 year old leaves the first group and runs back to the second group. Not smart that the family let this happened.
The kid was never found and they think a cougar got him. It was determined that two hunters saw the kid on the trail but didn’t stop to help. Not easy to find a cop on a hiking trail.
Unusual circumstances. To state it another way, it’s not easy to find a cougar in a shopping mall.
To be fair, though, there are also plenty of whacko men. One saving grace is that they're all a minority of the population.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.