to find it so very sad that if a man shows geunuine affection towards a child he must be a peadophile?

[mamazon]

yes there is a current thread that has promted this but this is not aimed at the Op, this is something that has bothered me for quite some time.

i keep hearing of people being "concerned" about teh man who works at the nursary, or the guy who plays with all his kids friends when they are at the park, or the guy who runs teh football team...etc etc.

why is it we cannto accept that these are just grown men who want to enrich teh lives of children. that they find it enjoyable to show affection and respect to people yet to reach adulthood.

we are forever complaining about our men who refuse to play with little johny, or wont spare any time for the children.. and yet when we find a man who activly encourages childrent o interact with him we dive to the conclusion that there is somethign more sinister going on.

Obviously i would always tell a parent to trust their instincts but i feel that our previously good parental judgment has been tarred by the media's constant scare mongering about sex offenders.

so, am i right in thinking we should maybe give these guys the respect they deserve for wanting to entertain our children or AIBU?

so kerrymum are you saying most men are going to abuse a child? Yes woman rarely rape/abuse a child, but it does happen...

oops i agree

kerrymum your past experiances would make anyone distrustfull so i think your cautiousness is pefectly reasonable.
But even those who have raped a child i think the number is stil incredibly low. probably less than 1% of the male population has ever sexually harmed a child.

i used to work with a guy who had always wanted to work with children as a teacher but he decided to train as a youth counciler instead as it was less controvercial. this was a man with a real talent for getting inot a childs head and understanding them, he would have made a brillaint teacher (he was a bloody fantastic counciler) but he felt he couldn't work with the attitiudes he got from parents whilst he was training

men do these nasty things an awful lot more
three wmen in a room today - abuse came up in convo- one said she had been - another said so had she

2 out of 3

i wont take a risk

Kerrymum, I'm not judging the woman, we all do what we think is right by our children, but I do know this family, and without going into the whys and wherefores, consider this point of view to be from the scaremongering Mamazon is referring to, rather than being subject to abuse.

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I agree with you mamazon, it is a sad, sad sign of the times that people immediately asume that its wrong for a bloke to show too much attention or affection to a child. I am a childminder and all my children absolutely adore my dh. He works from home and I spend a lot of time indoors trying to stop them bothering him. He is obviously a wonderful, child friendly person, BUT if we are in the park and someones child speaks to him, he backs right off, in case someone suspects him of something sinister.

tbh i would feel more trusting of a gay bloke than straight!

what has being gay got to do with this overly hyped view that any man who likes children is a peadophile

Funny this as last Sunday I was in the park with my kids (In the play area) and a young girl fell off her bike and hurt herself and was really crying. (Outside the play area) I really wanted to go and comfort her as I could not see her parents (As it was she was with her Grandmother who was on the other side of the park) I really wanted to go over and comfort her but at the back of mind is that feeling of what will people think. If my wife had been with me I would have told her to go ober and see the poor girl.
Sorry to say but as a bloke I think twice before putting myself in a situation where people will question your motives.
I am not proud of it either really.

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And I know alot of other blokes think the same way as I do.
As for my children though I will show them affection regardless and do not give a toss what anybody thinks.

BGD, thats so sad, but so true for many men sadly.

absolutly BGD. i have a friend who wears swimming trunks in the bath just in case his dd comes in.

she is 2.

yes Kerry its still so taboo - people would feel differently if they knew how prevalent it is. So so sad. Changes your veiw on life

not just men these days. I have been trying to do something about the lack of activities for older teens locally. The local youth service met this with total hostility and practically accused me of being a paedophile. I'm already CRB checked but that "just means you haven't been caught yet". Doesn't matter that I have kids of my own, their friends come for sleepovers here (infrequently as they wear me out) and that includes the children of some of the local police! If you want to do anything voluntarily for children you are seen as a threat to their jobs and therefore have to be discouraged.

Actually one of the local (male) youth workers makes my flesh creep. No way am I allowing my children anywhere near such unpleasant and manipulative people.

My partner once offered to give a talk to some local girls ( almost all known to us already) about one of his hobbies. It was to be in the presence of 3 adult women but they had a long debate about whether it was acceptable without a CRB check. Sanity prevailed!

I am lucky that my kids have lots of male role models in their lives, their dad, uncles, my cousins, DH's friends, but I think its sad that a man can not be a nursery nurse, entertainer, etetc without being labelled 'strange' DH really wanted to go into nursery work with special needs children (as we have lots of experience of SN with our kids) but he felt that he couldn't

mine father

the thing is otter and kerrymum - i have worked with Peadophiles, i have dealt with children who have suffered abuse, i have even sat in on a child giving her statement of abuse through play.

it was one of the most harrowing moments of my life.

But that doesn't mean that all men are capable of such harm. I feel that the men who have commited these crimes are very sick and i have very dark thoughts about them, but i dont look at every man who plays with a child as a peadophile.

obviously your own experiances will cloud your judgments, i guess its like a child who wakes up with a spider on her face will no doubt have arachnaphobia as an adult, those who have suffered abuse will look at all men in a similar light and that is understandable.

But i am talkign about people who have no real basis for tehir conclusions other than the fact that it is a male and he enjoys playing with children.

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