To trust dads, more than men without children, at parks? :(

[debson]

I feel bad about this, but I have no clue if it's a normal way to feel and I can normally guess what Mumsnet would say so don't bother, but I really don't know about this.

I was in the park earlier with DC (5 and 9) I always sit on the bench closest to the only exist.

There have been a couple of times when a father (who clearly has DC at the park) help youngest DD onto the monkey bars for example, then just go with their kids on to a different bit of equipment. We are a friendly village and do tend to interact with the DC (if it's obvious they go to same school, etc.)

However, I've had it once where (and this is with 9 year old DD and no contact involved) a man was pointing to bits of the rope that DD should put her foot onto (you know, to help her get to the top) and I went over and made casual convo and he had no children there

Is it wrong to have not even thought for a second about that dad, but felt uneasy about that man for the rest of the time while we were there?

If men are sooo sad about how women view them around children, what are they doing about it?

The majority of them are not harming children. What else can they do?

My grandfather used to love sitting in the park watching children play. He'd been a teacher before he retired and missed the hubbub of children at play. Most days he used to go for a "constitutional" and half way on his route he'd have a sit down for a rest and watch the children playing for a while before going home. He's been dead for a long time but I hate to think that overly suspicious people would be judging him.

Look to the family and friendship group for people harming children. Stranger abuse is much rarer.

My friend had to report a guy at a local park as he was filming lots of different DC on his phone

In the UK it's not illegal to photograph children in a public area, whether they are your own or not. So unless the park has a no photography restriction the man did nothing legally wrong.

If men are sooo sad about how women view them around children, what are they doing about it?

What do you expect them to do? Seriously, I'm curious?

In the UK it's not illegal to photograph children in a public area, whether they are your own or not. So unless the park has a no photography restriction the man did nothing legally wrong.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that is a restriction that can be applied if someone has already been convicted of offences. They can also have restrictions not to go within so many metres of a school/park etc.
So actually whilst you might think they're not doing anything illegal, for all you know they could be.

Thanks for that insightful comment oh my.

A good start would be for men to understand that women have legitimate worries about lone men in parks and so avoid hanging around them.

Morecoffeenow,

Your grandad sounds lovely.

Captain Coram who founded the Foundling Hospital and through it saved the lives of hundreds of children did the same in what is now Coram Fields.

A good start would be for men to understand that women have legitimate worries about lone men in parks and so avoid hanging around them.

No! Overly neurotic women need to get a grip. As long as you are supervising your DC they will come to no harm. You cannot ban an entire sex from public areas. Madness.

I would find it bizarre for an adult without a child to be hanging around a playground. It is actually banned in a number of playgrounds here and there are signs saying adults not accompanied by children are not allowed in playgrounds. It is actually strange behaviour to hang around a playground as an adult without a child. However parks on the other hand are much more of a free for all because they are a shared space. So it depends entirely on the layout of the park/playground as to whether this is ok.

I can see both sides of this one, and as a childless woman often used to use the equipment in the children's part of the park as gym equipment with my personal trainer (never keeping children off). Is that acceptable? And is it more or less acceptable than when I was on crutches and had to sit on the bench to rest (only benches in our Park are in the fenced off children's section) to regain the strength to make it home. Never occurred to me before that people might think I had an ulterior motive. Or that it would be OK for me to sit there but not for my -also childless -dh.

I'm always amazed at the lengths people on here will go to claim that these situations are 'completely normal' when they clearly are not. What are you trying to prove?

I mean a childless person could go and sit in a children's play area to interact with children and not be a danger, but ffs it's not a normal situation and is definitely someone to be wary of.

Why do the rights and comfort of 'lonely childless, middle aged men' come before my children?

People who are out to harm children want you to be too scared to comment on their interactions being weird. Nobody knows for sure, just go with your instincts. Luckily for my children I'm more concerned with protecting them, than proving how layed back I am.

I don't think YABU to be wary. I'm thinking of the parks I used to take my kids in where the play area was quite separate to the rest of the park, fenced off and with a gate to get in and out. If there had been a man there, without children, helping other people's children on and off the equipment I would have thought that odd. Another parent supervising his own children and giving my child a hand is not the same thing at all. It's not because Dad's can't be abusers it just a question of context. A man without children who chooses to loiter in a children's playground, or outside the school gates, or in the family changing rooms at the swimming pool is worthy of suspicion IMO. A man stopping to help a lost child in a supermarket or on the street is an entirely different context though I can understand why some men would feel uncomfortable about doing this.

MoreCoffee - parks are specifically for children. There are plenty of other places adults can go.

I'm always amazed at the lengths people on here will go to claim that these situations are 'completely normal' when they clearly are not.

Because they are completely normal. People like watching children play. It reminds them of their own childhood, of when their DCs were younger, of how they miss their grandchildren who live far away.

I'm childless, and work out and about in the car all day (community nurse). Some lunchtimes I park up next to our local leisure centre, buy a sandwich in the cafe and eat it on the picnic benches in the outdoor playpark.
Once I even dashed over to help a poor little soul who'd tripped over.

Pretty sure I'm not a paedo though.

I work on the basis that people are not weirdo pedophiles. Interacting with other people is normal. People who are in the park talking and engaging with children should be normal.

Hmm. I'm not of the 'everyone is a paedo except me' frame of mind, but tbh I would find it odd for an adult, male or female, to be hanging round a children's playground. Simply because they aren't exactly relaxing places to be! Sitting at the edge of one, relaxing, taking in the sunshine, reading a book, having a coffee, all perfectly normal to me. But wandering through the equipment etc I just think 'well, why? who would actually enjoy that?'.

But then, some pefectly innocent people just don't have very good people skills and can't see why their innocent behaviour might make other people uneasy.

I have no idea really, I would just use my judgement on any individual situation I suppose...

No Albert that's not true. There are known, identifiable factors which make you and your children more vulnerable to abusers. these are part of the risk analysis police/ SS will do if you become known to them. It's a frequently used tool.

If you're going to use stats to analyse the population risk you have to accept others doing so to assess their own don't you?

I sometimes eat my sandwich on a bench in the cemetery too, doesn't make me a raging necrophilia though

Parks are specifically for children?

In what way? Surely parks are public spaces for everyone? Walkers, runners, dogwalkers etc?

Just wondering how all these people can tell if a man has fathered children just by looking at them.

Wow. Talk about judgy pants oiked to the fucking chin.

Greenfolder, mrssmith, and MoreCoffee, what is your opinion of advice given to women not to walk home alone late at night?, Do you think that's good advice?

Treacle, obviously I mean the part of the park with the children's play equipment, which is what the OP was talking about. But I'm pretty sure you knew that already

Interesting. I'm torn between rage at the idea that someone would look at my (childless) DH when we're out and about (including Legoland sometimes, which I love visiting even as an adult, and he sometimes tolerates), and think "paedophile!" - and utter rage at the thought of any person approaching a child with that kind of intent.

There has to be a balance somehow doesn't there? One that doesn't over-criminalise the massive male population who genuinely wouldn't hurt a kid (including the very boys you're raising right now), and one that watches out for the unpleasant men and women who would.

I just don't know what that is exactly though or where I'd draw the lines. I guess I'm glad we're swinging away from the "no danger anywhere" end of the spectrum, but the other end doesn't seem great either.

It must do be hard to raise a kid with the attitudes of "stranger danger" but also "you need to be able to socialise with people".

thesparrowhawk no, I didn't know that was what you meant, because you said 'park'. I thought you meant that you considered parks to be for children only. If you had said that playgrounds were specifically for children then yes, I agree. I've never heard anyone refer to play equipment as a park, so when you said park I thought you meant a park as in somewhere with green spaces.

(I should probably clarify - I think it's worse that people approach kids then judge blokes! Just saying I have mixed feelings on mass judgement!)