To trust my gut instincts

[JayneAusten]

I have an eight year old daughter. I don't like one of her friends' dads. I have absolutely no reason for disliking him except that he gives me the creeps. I don't know why, and there is no specific evidence that I can pinpoint at all in the slightest. My daughter has been in his care once. The mum arranged a playdate and didn't tell me it would be the dad looking after them so I was slightly taken aback and checked in with my daughter that all had been ok with this man (a stranger to her) and I'm confident that all was fine. So I genuinely have no reason but my gut instinct tells me to keep my daughter away from him, to the extent that I am slightly standing in the way of her friendship with his daughter by refusing invites in case the dad is there and not the mum again.

What do you think - trust your gut or tell your gut to stop being stupid, you have no evidence and you can't go around judging people just because something about their manner makes you feel uncomfortable, but you can't pinpoint what?

A comment on the merits of trusting your gut/the hairs on the back of your neck.

I lived on a fairly remote property once that had a total of two homes on it , and two families of four. Twice a year a shearing crew would work there for up to two weeks. There was this one shearer, a fairly physically attractive bloke who was married and lived sort of locally, but he travelled a lot for the shearing work. He would regularly come to both my door and the door of the other house, ostensibly to speak with our husbands( who were never there at the time)while he was worked our place. The hairs on the back of my neck used to stand up and my guts would twist every time I spoke to him. Couldn't explain why butI would never let him wait inside my house, or unlatch the security screen when talking to him.
The other SAHM on the property had the very same reaction to him all the time.He creeped her out too. Neither of our husbands could figure out what it was about him that caused this feeling, they thought he was an okay guy. But there was something off about him.

Turns out, several years after we moved away we heard his wife had divorced him following his arrest for a series of previously unsolved rapes that had taken place in areas near were he had been working.

Trust your gut.

Currently clearing up the aftermath of not trusting my (usually spot on) instincts and finding myself on the radar of someone with no conscience.
We're primitive beings still, as much as we'd love to think we're not, and our unconscious picks up on things we can't always articulate, or even consciously notice.
Suffice to say, I wish I'd trusted my initial reactions, and learned the lesson the hard way. No children involved, or csa, totally different scenario, but yes, I do believe our instinct/gut, whatever you want to call it, is a protective mechanism, and we ignore it at our peril.

Of course men are bad. I'm a little shocked that you let your DD go around when you knew there was even a chance of the two of them having contact.

Your gut instinct is your brain picking up a large number of small signs and comparing them to your experience of people.
Yes, it may be prejudice in some cases. But I'd rather go worst case scenario and not have to actually deal with a worst case.

For all you disdaining the advice to trust your gut, allowing an adult access to a child is not the default. The parents have to feel comfortable with it, and OP isn't. That really is all.

I have similar OP....one of my DD"s friends is a lovely boy. He lives alone with his Mum but something about her is just "off".

A couple of times I let DD play there and though she showed no signs of unhappiness, I still felt off about sending her there.

I have NO issues with any of her other friend's parents....just this one woman.

So I've decided to turn down all invitations from now on....I'll still let him come here if the Mother doesn't mind but in all honesty, I'd rather not encourage more closeness than needed as it might get awkward.

On the one hand, totally trust your gut. On the other, I'm imagining someone thinking the same about me or my husband and I'd be upset/offended if that were the case.

You'd never forgive yourself if you ignored the gut feeling and something happened, so trust it of course, but still be nice obviously. Focus on activities that allow the kids to play together but perhaps not alone. The park for example.

As other people had stories, I do too. A friends dad tickled me once under the arms, and there was something about it, it was quick but it made me uncomfortable. I still went to the friends house but we played outside and he wasn't around. Came out he was sexually abusing his 2 daughters and step-daughter. When their mum died it all came out and he was jailed for it. Mum was horrified of course and "subtly" asked me if anything had happened that I wanted to talk about but something about my response had her realise we weren't abused. I told her a few years ago about the tickle and talked about how kids sometimes have a feeling too.

It might be a good idea to talk to your daughter about protecting herself, no means no, she can talk to you about anything etc, just in case.

Another vote here for trust your gut..

I would have said trust your gut up until a few years ago when someone I like and who I'd have been happy leaving my children to play with his with him there was convicted of having images of child abuse and jailed.

It's the clichéd he was such a nice family man, you never would have thought it possible.

So, since then I haven't trusted my gut feelings so much.

Sounds like he has social issues. He sounds very like a friend of ours who is on the autistic spectrum. I'm not a huge fan of people trusting their gut, tbh.

That way lies bigotry and prejudice.

Sounds like he has social issues. He sounds very like a friend of ours who is on the autistic spectrum.

How can you say anything like that from what the OP wrote?
She has actually met him.