At what age does an innocent boy that needs protecting from a big scary man, become a big scary man?

[needanewname]

Discuss.

MIFLAW....shhh Mums are talking on Mumsnet.

TBH I don't think anyone shoulkd be takinbga 3 yo to the toilet.Surely they can go by themselves in a nursery??

When I worked in a 2-5 yo playgroup I can't rmember once haveing to assist a 3 yo?

"MIFLAW....shhh Mums are talking on Mumsnet."

Aah. Would that be "Mumsnet - by parents for parents", which features on its website the quote from The Times "The country's most popular meeting point for parents"? I see.

Now piss off.

Wotnochocs

I can't speak for anyone else but I find that I have to accompany my 3yo to toilets that are not specifically designed for children to help her get on to the toilet and, assuming there is nowhere to hold on, to support her under her arms so she doesn't slip about on it.

Also, she is still learning to wipe her own arse, so I tend to intervene there too.

Is that really not normal or do others do the same?

I would have thought that any 3 yr old could go to the toilet by themselves, but seeing that there was a thread thinking that teachers should be wiping bottoms in a reception class I am obviously wrong. Rather than fussing about who does it, teach them to be self sufficient early.

Things have gone badly wrong if lovely, completely normal family men, would leave a lost DC crying than risk talking to them, or even worse leading them by the hand to find help. I can see the mother snatching them back, deeply suspicious, rather than thanking them profusely.

DS, 3.6 can go to the toilet by himself but has only been toilet trained since he was 3.2 and so needs helping with wiping his bum.
Also he has trouble with full sized toilet seats as well as he has short little legs (still in 2-3 yo trousers!). So I don't think it is unreasonable that some 3yo do need help!

DS, 3.6 can go to the toilet by himself but has only been toilet trained since he was 3.2 and so needs helping with wiping his bum.

Likewise with my DS, although we've had a damn regression this week. On top of that, as a child, I used to be terrible for not wiping properly

Crapola. What the fuck planet are you on. Where have I ever said that?

Crapola and primal you both need help. Seriously you have warped views

Thanks Peanut

MIFLAW - of course it's unfair for anyone to assume a father taking his dd to the loo is an abuser, or that a male nursery worker must be an abuser.

But in some of your posts you seem to be downplaying how common child abuse is. If you ask a group of adults about their childhood experiences, I'd say the majority can usually cite something - a flasher, what we used to call a 'perve' or a groper.

You also seem to be trying to shore up your point by pretending female violence is as common as male. Which is not true at all. You don't have to tell lies to make your point - it's an entirely valid one without them.

If you feel men are being mistreated, or misjudged, argue that case on its own merits, don't turn it into an attack on women.

Btw, MIFLAW, may I add that today, outside my office, four people stopped to help a girl of primary school age who was being beaten up by a grown woman. I'm sure the girl, her friend who witnessed the attack, and her family were all very grateful they stopped to help ? and that the two helpers who were male didn't think 'ooh dear shall we just ignore it because woe-is-us we are poor little men and people will call us paedophiles if we touch an 11yo girl'.

That was reassuring to know that they helped, but they were on much firmer ground, a DD old enough to explain, plenty of witnesses and a clear case of doing the right thing. I think they would be less keen to be the first people to see a lone crying 3 yr old and take them by the hand to find help.

Need.....that's the point of the question, same as yours.

A baseless question.

"But in some of your posts you seem to be downplaying how common child abuse is. If you ask a group of adults about their childhood experiences, I'd say the majority can usually cite something - a flasher, what we used to call a 'perve' or a groper."

I must be the odd one out then - I cannot remember a single person like this. As we all know, both girls and boys get abused, so you would think I would, wouldn't you?

I CAN remember some children baiting a man with severe learning difficulties (and possibly Downs, I can't really remember) who didn't really have the full range of social boundaries to show them his genitals - and then shrieking with outrage when the poor sod gave in - but I don't think any of us would agree that was the same as child abuse, would we? More like abuse of a confused man with learning difficulties.

There was also a child abuser, apparently, at a judo club I attended as a teenager - but I only found this out years later, and I think it was actually his own children he abused, making him much more typical (i.e. parents are the main culprits rather than those who work with children.)

But all this overshadows the main point, which you practically make for me - most of us can remember "someone". Of all the adults we crossed between the age of 4 (when memory typically starts) and 18 (when we can't really be considered a child any more) most of us can remember one person. And not even one each - most of us can remember one person per community.

How many people do you think that adds up to in the community? And when you then separate the flashers - who, by nature, are very open about what they are doing, so that their abuse is very much a known quantity - from those who abuse children in secret, the number is much, much smaller than this thread might make you think, no?

"You also seem to be trying to shore up your point by pretending female violence is as common as male. Which is not true at all. You don't have to tell lies to make your point - it's an entirely valid one without them." This is mad shit. I defy you to show me where I have said anything of the sort. I have even gone to great lengths to agree with the opposite, i.e. that males are more disposed to violence than women. What I HAVE said is that female abuse is almost certainly a lot more common than the stats alone suggest because I believe it is under-reported and under-investigated, not least because many people believe that abuse is the preserve of men - "perves" that "we can all cite", for example.

As you say, "You don't have to tell lies to make your point - it's an entirely valid one without them."

"Btw, MIFLAW, may I add that today, outside my office, four people stopped to help a girl of primary school age who was being beaten up by a grown woman. I'm sure the girl, her friend who witnessed the attack, and her family were all very grateful they stopped to help ? and that the two helpers who were male didn't think 'ooh dear shall we just ignore it because woe-is-us we are poor little men and people will call us paedophiles if we touch an 11yo girl'."

I don't know if I have long enough to explain all the ways this is irrelevant, but i'll try to keep it brief.

1. the assault was public - that is very different from accosting a crying child when, to an onlooker, you could be the cause of the problem as much as the solution

2. the child was 11 and so can be relied on to explain the truth if anyone does ask why the men are involved

3. four people are involved and can corroborate each other's stories

4. the family were present and saw the whole thing - whereas, when you help a crying child, the family are typically absent, hence the child's tears

5. the assault was physical and direct - a lot of men are hard-wired to defend others physically and to get praised for doing so, which overrides the fear of someone getting the wrong idea

6. they didn't need to interact with the child, just with her (adult) attacker

Even with all that said, I think most men would eventually intervene if they saw a crying child - but first, as others have said on the thread that prompted this one, they would try to find a woman to intervene because they fear the repercussions of a misunderstanding. This is not about "poor man" - this is about "poor child" who, while the man is looking for someone else, is still crying, or still terrified, or still thinking she has been abandoned, or is pissing or shitting in her knickers because she needs the toilet and cannot go on her own.

And it is still the same child who, on returning home, will be absorbing the message from society that her own dad, brother, uncle and grandfather are not to be trusted and are somehow "dangerous".

The family weren't present. It was the mother of another child who assaulted the 11yo victim, who was walking to school on her own with her friend. And yes, four people did help, but the lollipop lady and every other passer by didn't - the four were unusual. And one of the men was concerned about intervening - he did it because it was the right thing but said he was worried about laying hands on someone else's child (the two blokes had to pull the woman and girl apart - by the time people had got to them, they each had hold of each other's hair - chunks were pulled out).

I'm assuming the victim was 11, btw, my colleague who helped thought she was 13 but she was in primary uniform so obviously not.

And I think you are wrong about the prevalence of child abuse. I can think of half a dozen examples of the kind I mentioned off the top of my head. And dh and most of my friends the same. Children didn't tell in the 70s and 80s - fortunately almost all of it was low-level stuff like flashing or groping but today it would be recognised as not only wrong but something that has to be dealt with, rather than just staying away from the strange man. A couple were very serious, though, including the teacher at dh's school who is now in prison.

Dh says he was amazed when that came out, if he'd had to guess which teacher was an abuser there would be two others far higher up the list - they used to play a game where the class teacher would send a boy they considered attractive to the bursar to ask for a rubber. All the boys knew what the game meant, but no-one told their parents.

I'm glad that today incidents like the swimming instructor who got us all to swim between his legs and then enjoyed people getting 'stuck' would be tackled. And the head wouldn't be able to just ask the paedophile teacher to leave, nor the LEA ignore the other teacher who made a formal complaint about it. And teachers wouldn't get away with rating boys for their sexual appeal.

Btw, I don't think society does tell children they should be afraid of their fathers or grandfathers. That's just hyperbole. Warnings about safety (what used to be called stranger danger) are about staying safe, not going off with anyone who isn't supposed to collect you from school, being able to say 'no' and telling someone if you feel uncomfortable. No-one says 'all men are evil'.

The 'staying safe' stuff I've mentioned is what ds's school just reminded them about when the local police alerted schools to someone who has been bailed for approaching children (well, I assume he's been charged with something more specific, only the police didn't go into more detail for obvious reasons). The message wasn't 'all men are evil', that would be ridiculous.

Your new precise details don't change any of the points I (and exoticfruits) made though - older (and much more verbal) child, plenty of witnesses, safety in numbers, everyone present knew who the "goodies" and "baddies" were - and, as you then say, a lot of people STILL didn't want to get involved, including one of the MEN who finally acted.

WRT the prevalence of child abuse - I would again say that I CANNOT think of "half a dozen" examples. But even if you're right, and even treating all the people who were sexually interested in kids as potential abusers, that really isn't many people.

Suppose there were 600 children in an area and they all know the same "half a dozen" publicly recognised abusers and potential abusers. That comes to one potential abuser per hundred kids. How many adults do those children, collectively, know? The percentage ends up being tiny. Someone else has crunched the numbers on an entirely different basis further up the thread and the answer is the same - the proportion is tiny.

Now that doesn't mean at all that it is not important. Even one potential abuser per 10,000 kids would be too many and he or she would need to be kept well away from any positions of trust near children.

But that's not what this thread is about. The OP of the thread that inspired this one was essentially saying

1. because of that (average) one potential abuser out of the thousands of adults known to those 100 kids, NO MALE should be trusted alone with children

2. ANY male who wants a job involving the toileting of children is clearly a "wrong 'un"

How is that sane? How is that proportionate? Multiply the numbers by 6 again and it's STILL not a reasonable response. Like I said, if the police are looking for a rapist, of course they should start by investigating men (not women) with a motive or who has met the victim.

But it would be absolutely mad to put in a law saying that men cannot interact with women unsupervised, or that all men should be castrated to remove the risk to women.

MIFLAW...perhaps the point your missing is that many many women can remember inappropriate sexual behaviour from a pervert or over zealous teen during their growing up. For me it's part of the same perception story that men are sexual predators, thankfully most of us have encountered amazing, kind, compassionate and respectful men to dispel the idea that they're all like this.

Noone is saying that men should be castrated, so being so mellow dramatic.

But I absolutely think childcare workers should jump through hoops to ensure they do not have any opportunity to abuse children in their care.

"Btw, I don't think society does tell children they should be afraid of their fathers or grandfathers. That's just hyperbole." No, it's not. Because, while i'm my daughters' father, I'm also someone else's children's "stranger". Indeed, I am YOUR children's stranger. So my daughters are given the message that THEY can trust me but that, in the eyes of everyone else, I am a predator and a threat who will use dishonest means to do harm to them.

Meanwhile, their mother is wholly trustworthy.

And you're right - it's not schools or police spreading this message.

It's mums - the mums who post on threads like the one that inspired this one. The ones who beleive that men's loos are full of paedos waiting to prey on kids having a wee (who really thinks that a self-respecting paedo would lurk in men's loos when the best place for finding children would be, say, a soft play area or a park?) yet this sort of shite regularly gets posted on this site and endorsed by others. So real mums are presumably telling the same thing to their real children. And those real children therefore fear me and men like me.

How is that balanced?

MIFLAW, I'm not disputing that prejudice against men in childcare is a bad thing.

But I do think you just haven't realised how common both child abuse and sexual abuse/violence against women is. Because you are a man and it's not your experience. You've obviously missed a couple of very sad threads on here.