14-year old Boy returns lost 3-year old to mother; Is arrested within minutes

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Magus

Okay, kids aren't stupid, the just totally lack basic knowledge about pretty much everything and haven't had enough experience to learn that strangers are bad.

Gkh!


Okay, I'm going to say this as calmly as possible. Given that 90% of the world are, at heart, decent people, and 90% of even the irredeemable assholes melt like butter when presented with a kid, the idea that strangers are inherently bad is everything wrong with this situation.

Strangers are not bad. Statistically, a stranger is FAR more likely to help a kid than harm one, and when I say "far," I mean that the chances of them meeting a pedophile at random are vanishing at best. Teaching kids that strangers are horrible monsters who are going to rape and murder them reflects the stupidly strong and increasing paranoia that represents one of the worst things wrong with the world today.

[Yumil]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Teaching kids that strangers are horrible monsters who are going to rape and murder them reflects the stupidly strong and increasing paranoia that represents one of the worst things wrong with the world today.

The problem is without teaching them not to trust strangers, if one of those child rapists does show up and the kid trusts him, the kid's fucked(both literally and figuratively).

Teaching your kids not to trust someone till they've earned it(in particular, at that age, pretty much just people you trust yourself) is not a bad thing and will probably help them in life later on when people like to take advantage of people who are far too trusting.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Yumil

The problem is without teaching them not to trust strangers, if one of those child rapists does show up and the kid trusts him, the kid's fucked(both literally and figuratively).

Teaching your kids not to trust someone till they've earned it(in particular, at that age, pretty much just people you trust yourself) is not a bad thing and will probably help them in life later on when people like to take advantage of people who are far too trusting.

While that's partly true, there's a difference between teaching them to be discerning and paralyzing them with fear. What happens when they actually need to ask for help? Maybe it doesn't come up much, but then neither do kidnappings. By teaching them to be discerning, as in knowing what is and isn't appropriate, kind of like we used to when I was a kid, it's more for them to absorb, but it's ultimately better for them because they're not crying themselves to sleep every night over all the bad, bad men that are out to get them.


Edit: Actually, thinking more on it, no, that's not true at all. Not only are you paralyzing them with fear, but you're breeding a policy of mistrust, which probably makes for a very jaded individual and could hamper their ability to make connections for the rest of their lives. After all, if they're taught people are all assholes, they hold no faith in them and you end up with someone like (oh, the irony) me*. The fact of the matter is that pedophiles are incredibly rare, and they don't just stumble across kids to molest. They molest kids in their own families or neighborhoods, or go to places where kids congregate. A kid is more likely to get hit by a bus than meet one randomly walking down the street. By teaching kids when NOT to trust people instead of teaching them when TO trust them, you open up many more possibilities for them to interact, where if you close that all off, you likewise impose a limit on how far they can reach out to other people.


*note: I had other things teach me people could be jerks. My parents actually got the strangers thing right.

[pochercoaster]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

While that's partly true, there's a difference between teaching them to be discerning and paralyzing them with fear. What happens when they actually need to ask for help? Maybe it doesn't come up much, but then neither do kidnappings. By teaching them to be discerning, as in knowing what is and isn't appropriate, kind of like we used to when I was a kid, it's more for them to absorb, but it's ultimately better for them because they're not crying themselves to sleep every night over all the bad, bad men that are out to get them.

QFT

Caution is what kids should be taught. By insulating your children they won't be able to tell the difference between a safe and an unsafe situation, and will either end up trusting everyone or no one. The differences between these situations can be very subtle and if you aren't given an idea of what normal behaviour is, you have nothing to compare them against. Potentially you will blindly walk into danger because of your failure to recognize these cues. On the other end of the spectrum, you will potentially be fearful of people when 99.9% of them don't have ill intentions.

I could go on and on about how this relates to women specifically- about weird mixed messages that tell women to feel guilty if they are not polite and complacent, yet ever vigilant about the variety of rapists and serial killers that lurk around the corner. A common reaction among raped women isn't "how did this happen to me?" but "how did I let this happen to me?" Pretty fucked up that the blame is placed on the woman. Then they (the media) point out that she accepted a drink from a stranger, or wore a skirt on the bus, or whatever, so now it's HER fault for not heeding the sage advice of society to be fearful of everyone and never leave the house. Not very good tools to work with, yeah?

[bluestarultor]

I think this was referenced before, but since Seil was kind enough to provide a link, I'm just going to drop this follow-up essay on the woman who let her kid ride the subway alone:

http://theweek.com/article/index/963...icas-worst-mom

Not an issue: his rape and murder after a year of doing so.