What’s really ironic about all this emphasis on perverts is that it’s making us think like them.
I’m curious if there are countries where this stranger danger insanity has not (yet) taken hold?
The great irony is that not only does this paranoia make children *less* safe, as the article points out – it’s also a terribly damaging mental attitude to foster in a person. Ask yourself, if a child is raised with the assumption that anyone they don’t know is probably a predator, how are they going to feel about immigrants as they get older? How are they going to feel about being part of an international community? What will they do when their government says they must strip for the porno-scanner or The Strangers (terrorists) will get them?
We raise a generation of distrustful kids at our great peril.
That’s a really interesting question.. about the stranger danger insanity… I don’t remember or perhaps don’t have enough experience with small kids in Germany to give you a feel about the situation there–but I don’t remember people being so weirded out.. I also tend to have the impression that within large urban centers–New York excluded maybe.. (because they’re just dicks..;) )–that it is less of an issue than in the suburbs surrounding them.. I’m also willing to bet that by the time you get to small town, it subsides also–because, you know, everyone actually KNOWS each other… These are all just “hunches” however without any solid data… I do think this falls under the “don’t be dumb rule” of training your kids. Talking to strangers isn’t a problem–getting inside their car when you don’t know them–that’s a problem. It seems pretty easy to me to teach them the difference..