Are all fathers creepy?

You treat everyone who engaged in behaviour that's problematic as a safeguarding risk and treat them as having failed to meet safeguarding standards.

There is no 'giving the benefit of the doubt'

Why?

Because giving the benefit of the doubt actively means that behaviour is justified - when it never should be - and that puts children at risk because one justification set a precedent for all future violation of poor behaviour. The whole point is you can't tell the difference between intent of an individual so you eliminate that problematic behaviour instead.

Anyone engaging in behaviour that breaks safeguarding puts ALL children at risk of you start making exceptions and going "well I know Joe/Joanne, he's/she's a good person, just a bit feckless". Because you then set a precedent for others to exploit this logic and your good will.

Safeguarding 101: Anyone who behaves in a manner that a creep would has to be treated like a creep to stop creeps.

This is a poster actively looking for loopholes and gotchas to justify his cause. (See other thread). It's not a case of 'simple mistake'. Anyone who seeks to de-legitimise and undermine safeguarding principles is by definition a risk to safeguarding. It doesn't matter if they are male or female. Anyone 'struggling' to understand this? Well I simply I refer you to the circular argument about behaviour...

That behaviour and faux innocence is a bunch of red flags to anyone who engaged in good faith. Learn from it.

People acting in good faith don't undermine safeguarding principles. Being naive isn't an excuse for an adult who claims to have a child. By the time you have a kid if you don't understand safeguarding 101 you are actively pose a risk to your own child. It's a principle taught everywhere through life. Choosing to ignore it because it doesn't suit your life narrative is an active choice. A choice your child doesnt get.

PS A bag of Maltesers is by definition 100% poo balls.

So, in short, you remain convinced of your entitlement to do what is most convenient for you, and that the women who are cheerleading you to do so are sensible and right, and the ones offering you a perspective that doesn't suit are 'bizarre'?
If that's the way you approach sense checking your opinions and behaviour, you might as well save yourself and everyone else time, and just blunder through life doing as you please, in your delusion that you're always right.
Because however wrong you are, you're going to find some women who will agree with you. Goes with the territory of being a man.

Thus demonstrating that half the respondents are totally thick!

I accused you of wanting to enter women's spaces and using your dd as a tool to do so, and I stand by that given that multiple posts of yours are asking for tips on going into women's changing rooms because you feel like your teen dd will want you there, and you said it's up to her (it isn't)

We see you op.

Dear Alex
So many of us replied in good faith. You insulted one of the brightest women on the board. You've picked up anything you can be defensive and negative about while not indicating that you've taken onboard anything that women have tried to explain about our experiences.
You are coming across as a creepy man.

For your daughter's sake please set a good example of how men should behave around changing rooms etc. Don't be the one to blur her boundaries so that she thinks it's acceptable for other men to do that too. Encourage her to trust her instincts. Encourage her to put her own safety, dignity and privacy before politeness. This is how to be a good father.

Similarly, if one Malteser in a packet is a piece of shit in disguise, would you eat any of them?

OP has a lot of time on his hands to sit and post telling women we’re wrong. Guess the contact schedule is every other weekend?

He can't.

Some of them got deleted for - checks note - breaking moderation guidelines.

Spiderman is climbing the building and unfurling his banner...

Men can take their kids to the playground and their daughters shopping for clothes. They should. What they shouldn’t do is make other people uncomfortable while they do these things. So:

at the playground, don’t appear to be watching other people’s kids beyond a normal amount of keeping an eye on safety. Don’t sneak around and appear to be trying to spy on other people’s children.

at the shops, if the changing rooms are not explicitly mixed sex, you wait outside and your daughter comes out to show you the outfits and/or swap them for different sizes (honestly this is so easy I find it odd that the man in question couldn’t have worked it out. I had boyfriends in the 90s who understood how this worked.)

in changing situations, if you can’t take your child into the changing room for whatever reason, you go to the staff and ask to use the disabled or another facility- eg if you have an older child with additional needs, or a younger child, who’s not the same sex as you and you don’t feel you can bring them into the changing room that matches your sex. Again, this is not hard to work out.

It’s pretty disingenuous to say that women are arguing for fathers to stay out of their kids’ lives and activities. I haven’t seen any posts that suggest that, but perhaps that interpretation lets you off a hook at home?

Read your own posts back.

And you can't demand apologies from me, I'm not one of the poor women in your real life.

MN moderation is so shit these days.

9 Men always know the “real reasons” for everything women do and say.

And again, the focus here is on the thoughts of women, not why women think and feel this way. We think and feel this way because of the behaviour of men. We all have been subjected to the behaviour of creepy men. For most of us, it started well before our teens.

Please stop focussing on women, and instead focus on changing men.

Own up, who put 50p in the meter and started it up again.

🍪

Not all snakes are poisonous but do you want to go around trusting all snakes?