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?

Well now you do know treacle.

Not something you're that bothered about clearly MoreCoffee

What a remarkably stupid and paranoid thing to say. I supervised my DCs whoever was in the playground. That's how to keep them safe. Not suspect random strangers of ulterior motives. As I said. Your DCs are far more in danger of abuse from your friends and family than random strangers.

MoreCoffee, what is your opinion of advice given to women not to walk home alone late at night?

I haven't heard that advice since the 70s. I ignored it then and I would now.

So it's really not odd to go to an enclosed children's play area, as a lone adult and wander around the equipment talking to, playing with and touching the children?

On s side note I would never lift a child I don't know into a piece of equipment. What if they fell off?! I would help them off if they were stuck, but would bever lift someone else's child up.

People like watching children play.

Yes.

And I actually like to swing on a swung, or climb a climbing frame. I'm 50-something. Obviously, to most of you, I'm a potential criminal. Some of the attitudes on this thread are very depressing.

Oh and as for trusting dads more than non-dads. I was abused twice as a child. Both time by "friends" of the family who were fathers themselves.

Actually Sparrowhawk, that wasn't obvious at all. But I'm beginning to think you're just deliberately riling people. The idea that you're serious is too depressing to contemplate.

TheSparrowhawk why are you being so sarcastic to me? I misunderstood you, I explained how I misunderstood you. I even said I agree with you. And you respond with a snotty comment.

My dh is 80 years old. We have 5 dc and 9 dgc. The playground is on one of the routes he takes if out for a walk and he often sits for a while to watch the children play..he loves children and enjoys watching them having fun. It is interesting that older carers, probably grandparents themselves, will often chat to him and let the children speak to him etc whereas the younger ones are very suspicious and call their little ones away if they approach him.
He once took our two youngest dgc to the park and a random woman asked the 7 year old,"Do you know that man you are talking to?"
The little lad said brightly," That isn't a man its Grandad!"

I am imagine I will still be taking ds as an older teenager, possibly even an adult, to playgrounds. I wonder what people will make of that. If people are worried about other adults around young children in playgrounds, then supervise your children and nothing will happen.

While it's a shame that there's a chance that a man who innocently enjoys sitting watching children in the park could be viewed with suspicion, i don't think the man's rights to enjoy himself trump a parents concern.

I feel it's similar to the man walking behind a lone woman at night scenario. Many men, being aware that their entirely innocent presence may be making her nervous, would slow down a bit, stop for a moment, cross over ect. to lessen the chance they were causing someone anxiety.

Some would say the man has a perfect right to walk down the road behind a woman at night, it's not their fault the woman is frightened, and because they should be able to walk when and how they please they would carry right on.

Whether a man has fathered children is irrelevant. My question would be does he have a legitimate reason to be in in a children's play area - not a park (or a cemetery). Is he supervising his own or someone else's children? If not then I would be asking myself why he was there - and more particularly why he was hanging around the play equipment helping children on and off. That still doesn't make him a paedophile, but it would make me wary.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-32216176
Here's one from 2015 MoreCoffee

I like to eat my lunch on a sunny day in a park if I am working away from home. Why would I sit on the grass in my work clothes when I can sit on a bench. Why wouldn't I sit near where others are and read my book, watch the world go by?

Actually I am going out to meet a group for a walk in about an hour and we will meet in the park - by the kids' play equipment as that is where the benches are. I am a woman and my kids now teens but I still get very hostile looks from certain types of mother in the park. If I were a man I don't think I'd dare go.

In fairness police campaigns like that have been criticised, rightly, for placing the onus on the victim to, well, not be a victim.

I know treacle, the reason I posted it was because MoreCoffee said he/she hadn't heard that advice 'since the 70s' which IMO is total bollocks

morecoffee has also pulled out the ''neurotic woman'' card. Not cool.

thesparrowhawk no it really wasn't clear. Can see no issue with the play area being restricted to parents and children. Parks are for everyone.

Very odd indeed!

I think it's ok to be cautious but not to let it cloud every single movement you make

My Dh felt very shamed last year. He had gone to aldi to pick up something for us all. I was at home with both of our children.

He smiled at a little toddler girl who had smiled at him first. The mother saw, immediately grabbed the child's hand and said as loudly as she could whilst yanking the toddler away "we DONT talk to strange men"

Everyone stopped to turn and stare.

He came home feeling very embarassed and has been very hesitant to interact with children out in public since.

He loves kids. Can't help but try to make them laugh if they are stareing at him. Most people smile and start a conversation. She made him feel like a paedo

Yes, maybe "men not looking at kids" is the new social courtesy Laiste.

Sparrow, I had sort of mentally skipped the "don't walk home alone at night" stuff too, but then I drive everywhere or am with people, and live in a very safe neighbourhood. Some people won't "notice" campaigns.

Also, before you lay into her too much, did you miss the part where coffee mentioned the times it had happened to her?

Like her, the man who abused me was a close family friend (and church member in fact). I can sympathise a little bit with the "strangers are less scary than people we know and trust implicitly".

Laiste - Suggesting a man shouldn't go to a park in case it worries about woman is pretty neurotic in my book.

Soubriquet, it is the thousands of men who abuse children that have created that situation. But best to blame neurotic women eh?

Frankleigh, I don't believe for one second that any woman has escaped being told not to walk home alone by friends/family 'since the 70s.'

Thing is, even if he is a rampant paedo it's not like he turns up at the park and you're going to tell you child to go with the nice man and see his puppies.

What on earth is wrong with being polite, treating people like normal humans, but not putting your child at risk by allowing unsupervised access or photos. You know, general safeguarding.

I go to the park, if I get chatting it is no more than "hi, chat, nice to meet you, bye." No more than that, i'll likely not see them again, and give their motives no more thought.

Dh has been a scout leader for many years, even when he was in his 20's and 30's before the days of crb checks. He likes kids he still is one and likes scouts, simple as that. Should he have been banned until he had his own kids?

I've just thought of the one occasion where I did come across a man, with no children, in a children's playground. And it was specifically a children's playground, it isn't in a park with green spaces etc, it is just a fenced off area in the middle of a housing estate. He made me really uneasy, although he chatted to me as much as the kids. But we didn't stay long. I pointed him out to someone else a few days later and she told me he had a drink problem and was desperately lonely but was well known in the area and no one had ever had any complaints about him behaving inappropriately. Quite soon afterwards, he died a miserable, lonely death, drinking himself to death and lying dead in his house before being found. I do wish I had been a bit more friendly to him that day instead of assuming he meant harm.

The problem is that I didn't know that, and all I could go on were my own instincts, which were that it was odd for a middle aged man to be in a playground.

The problem