something there, a feeling that they have to be careful
Of course there is.
For thousands of years humans perpetuated the myth that caring for children came naturally to women, and not to men. So men shouldn't do it.
Both men and women struggle consquently with the learning curve that comes with caring for small breakable tiny humans.
Women put their unease down to not being a proper/natural mother.
Men used to put it down to being a role they were not naturally adapted to and worry thst they would fuck it up and hurt/fail to care for properly the child.
Now there is a considerable push to tie this unease to perversion.
Which we need to robustly combat if we want to move forward and allow men the same holistic connection to children that has always been permited for women.
For the sake of our sons and daughters, as children and future parents themselves.
Maybe what we need to do is less listening to men who have unjustifiable concerns and withdraw and ask them instead to stop making a meal out of their feelings, start thinking and open their ears to the bigger picture.
Becuase they cannot be the priority in this equation.
A child growing up without a fog of perversion colouring their interaction with their parents has to be the priority.
So maybe it is the men who need to listen to what the unintended consequences of their mindset could be, rather than making even more room for them to decend further into an unhealthy mentality.
I'm not a proponant for martydom on the alter of parenthood. I think it is far healthier for kids to know that parents are actually human beings too, with fiobles, needs, want and hurtability.
However there are contexts in which the parent needs to set themselves aside as much as poss, do their risk assessment from more than a just a "personal sensation angle", and manage to conclude that for all thier disquiet it is something they have to work through rather than succumb to, for the sake of their child.
As it stands, when you look at the groups who promote the therory that men are at a hugely elevated risk of false accusations these days, people who trot out examples that only support the argument if you skim the most superfically, the people who claim fear of reprisals for just doing normal parental stuff....it's all about framing the adult as THE victim (potential or actual).
It's not so much thst the child is an afterthought as a victim (potential or actual).
They simply don't get a mention at all.
Read back the thread, much is made of the fall out to the parent who has been accused/could be accused.
No a sausage about the consequences for the child in either of those scenarios.
They appear to be more of a prop in the immagined (or actual) scenarios, rather than an actual human being with just as much, if not more, to lose.
Which speaks volumes about the priorites that inform the over egged risk assessment.