To be a bit shocked by what i saw today.

[TheLadyEvenstar]

I took DS's out today and shortly before we left I let the play in the splash zone.

DS2 had his shorts and t-shirt on as it was very very hot and sunny ds1 was in rolled up tracky bottoms and his t-shirt.

I was a bit shocked by a couple of things I saw.

1 was a little girl running around naked - which tbh made it difficult to take photos of DS1 and DS2 playing although i managed to avoid catching her in all but 1 photo and that one has been editted so she has now got black knickers on.

The other thing was a young girl possible 7yrs old in a tiny bikini who was crouched over the jets of the splash zone gyrating herself everytime the water shot upwards

Now while I wasn't directly watching her I could hear other people talking and finally one mentioned to her parents that this possibly wasn't the best thing for her to do in public.

I have to admit the 2nd thing was more shocking than the little girl running round.

would you mind please responding to my question about how you think your personality/ over anxiousness doesn't affect your children.

what happened to ds1 ?

Because on the whole I keep it away from them. I can calm myself down if i begin to feel anxious over a situation by playing with them or some other form of distraction.

It has never failed me yet.

Ob forget i said that please.

I just know my sons are well looked after and cared for as well as protected. I am not going to run the risk of anyone or anything hurting them.

I don't know what happened to your DS1 TLE. I'm assuming it was something related to the anxieties you express on this thread. If that's the case, I'm sorry.

Have you / your family received counselling?

Hides thread

TM, tbh I don't want to talk about it. DS1 is fine .....

Of course we don't doubt that they are loved and cared for. no one suggested otherwise. but they must be over-protected. not just protected but over-protected.
You must be helicopter parent extreme.
You must be. Your posts confirm this.
Someone back me up here, please.
But you are in denial about this.
One day I hope you get there.

Obl, they are protected yes but not over protected.

I am not a helicopter parent I do not follow them everywhere. I just make sure I am aware of where they are and what they are doing.

My posts confirm simply that I am aware of my children's needs and wants, I am aware of what they are doing and whilst I make sure they are safe they have the freedom on par for their ages 11 and 2 and that is plausible for where we live tbh.

TLE there was a thread last year where you told me what you had been through with DS1 (I'm sorry, I don't remember who started it or what it was exactly, just that it was about phot of children on the net), well as much as you could on an open forum.

As you know (& appreciate) your experience has really affected your view on things like this, but I really think that without explaining in more detail you will always get YABU replies to threads like this because not everyone has had the same experiences as you (thankfully) - so I think you should either post & say why you feel like this, or not post AIBU threads about this kind of thing because until someone has been throgh what you went through your reaction does seem unreasonable

Chippin, yes I remember the thread now and I know the experience has clouded my judgement/feelings.

I am struggling with this again atm i think because it has all been brought up again.

I guess I will always feel a massive guilt and that doesn't help.

I think it's a bit sad that people get so freaked out about anyone wanting to take photographs of their own DC in a public place. There is a general wierd thing going on at the moment where we simultaneously have more and more state surveillance and yet anyone taking photographs who is a private citizen is more and more likely to be harassed or told to stop.

I am finding it a bit odd that you are talking about protecting your children from things you feel are inappropriate, yet you said last week that you let your son read misery lit books about child abuse. I am not bringing this up to have a go at you btw, but do you not think that is a bit inconsistent?

TLE (HUG) Try not to feel guilty, it doesn't help (it only hinders) and it wasn't your fault Has it 'all been brought up again' IRL or from stuff on MN? I think of you when I see situations like this IRL and when I read some threads.... your posts affected my life too - it's a part of who you are now - just try not to let 'the part' get bigger x

"let your son read misery lit books about child abuse"

I assumed the only audience for those was abusers wanting new ideas and/or something to masturbate over. Don't tell me children read them? That's appalling. What sort of parent could worry about blurred bottoms of other people's children and then allow their child to read filth like that?

I completely get where you're coming from. You would expect a little more alliance on a parenting site would you not?

LOL at "Hardly anyone is a paedophile".

what are misery lit books??

Porn for abusers.

They're sold these days under a rubric which makes it clear they're written as porn - they've gone from being true life stories' to tragic life stories', handily sidestepping issues of their factual status.

People who claim to have been horrifically and elaborately abused write extended pieces, in a rather affectless manner, in which they have complete recall of the precise details of every terrible thing that happened to them but a strange lack of clarity over anything that might authenticate their work. Interviews with siblings, searches of social services records, etc, etc used to reveal nothing more than a vivid imagination, but now that claim to truth has been forgotten they're simply written as fiction out of parts of other similar books.

The audience for them is said to be middle-aged women who find them inspiring (struggle over adversity, etc) but because I'm a bad person I assume the audience is actually real and prospective abusers who find them sexually exciting. It's Histoire d'O for violent paedophiles, except Pauline Reage never claimed to be writing auto-biography.

The sine qua non of the genre is Dave Peltzer. For a rather less than convinced view, see here and here.

OP, yanbu, I would have felt uncomfortable with the 7 year old too and would have wanted her parents to tell her that although normal her behaviour wasn't really appropriate in a public place.

I think a lot of the posters in here would have felt the same...but the MN bullies have scented blood, and they're not going to stop till they've made you feel like an overprotective weirdo, and a bad parent. I'd hide this thread if I were you...

I agree with brightlight, I think there's been an over-reaction to your posts. I also agree you over-reacted a bit to the what the children were doing but it is understandable especially if you've got reasons to doubt the trustworthness of other people.

I was sexually abused/assaulted twice as a child and once as an adult, each time by strangers. I also had two near-misses (again involving strangers). My concern about the danger presented by strangers is likely to be higher than the average parent. I try to let my DH be the judge of what's ok or not as I'm aware my own instincts are going to be on the over-protective side.

My worry, probably yours too, is that maybe paedophiles are actually far more common than people think and the only way to protect children from them is to prevent all situations where something terrible could occur, however unlikely.

"I would have felt uncomfortable with the 7 year old too and would have wanted her parents to tell her that although normal her behaviour wasn't really appropriate in a public place."

You might even be right. It's not really a huge thing for a random third party to worry about, though, and the ritual invocation of "there might be paedophiles about" hardly makes it rational.

What I find bizarre is the absurd double-standards over the sexualisation of children. Quite rightly, MN and other places have supported the concept of letting children be children. And yet, as soon as that crosses into "inappropriate" children are expected to have a detailed knowledge of what might be interpreted as overtly, indeed overly, sexual by an adult. Moreover, not merely are they expected to modify their behaviour to meet a particularly narrow view of what the community might think, they are expected to be able to view themselves through the eyes of paedophiles and behave in a way that won't inflame them.

Even accepting, arguendo, that paedophiles lurk on every corner and that things that get them excited present a credible risk to children (which, by the way, I don't), how do you know what the objects of their desire will be? It doesn't seem controversial to say that adult women's legs are attractive to men, and some of those men will be rapists, so it's reasonable to assume that young girls' legs may be similarly interesting to paedophiles. Are women who wear short skirts obligated to cover up to stop rapists from getting excited? And assuming the answer to that is `no', why should children be placed under similar strictures?

Surely if you allow your child to run around naked in public then you accept that they may be seen either in real time or on camera/film in that manner.

Personally I have no problem with my little ones running around naked and was very when approached by undercover police at our local paddling pool "advising" that my DS ought to be covered up (he is 4 I was pulling his pants down and putting his swimming shorts on...peachy bott on display for 5 secs)