To be a bit sad at how times have changed?

[Thenotes]

About 40 years ago, as a 14yo I was visiting GPs for Christmas. I was sent to deliver Christmas cards to the neighbours. Grandma was good friends with her neighbours and I knew most of them by sight but we lived 300 miles away so I didn't know them well.

I went to number one where an old man "Bert" with a Father Christmas beard lived.

He saw me approaching and was at the door by the time I got there, insisted I went in and proceeded to ply me with rhubarb wine.

I was quute tipsy and late back for dinner but no one was cross with me because they'd guessed what had happened.

It's a genuinely fond memory of mine, a pleasant afternoon with a nice man who wanted some company, telling me stories of the "olden day's", plus my first experience of the warm happy feeling of being tipsy but not drunk.

But I'm not sure it would/could happen today.

I have dealt with many safeguarding situations throughout my career and i can assure the biggest threat to children was often their Mothers

Can you provide statistics to show that the most dangerous person for a child to be alone with is their mother?

I doubt you have met even one woman who thinks that every man who speaks their child wants to abuse them. I certainly haven't ever seen one post on MN.

It's sad that parents have to take care of their children by checking who they are with and what they are doing but the people who are responsible for that are those abuse children, not those who try to protect them.

Lowlandlucky-Maybe men feel they are being judged by hysterical women (you have to worry about what is going on in their heads).

Are you fucking serious? Did you really just say this? This is a really disgusting statement from someone who is purporting to have knowledge with safeguarding issues in a professional manner! Ridiculing women's mental health. Nice one.

Mephisto as i gave birth to 3 children i can assure you i am female, as goes for my career, safeguarding was a huge part of it. Most children are abused in their own homes, often by men that have been brought into the family home by Mums and sometimes it is the Mothers that commit the abuse.

Lowland that may be true now. In the 1970s I would suggest it was far less common for boyfriends to move into the family home. Pp are saying that OP is viewing the past through rose coloured glasses. She was fortunate in that the man in this case appeared to be genuinely harmless. Plenty of other men wouldn't have been.
Child abuse wasn't invented in the 90s. The means of access predators have to their victims may have changed though. No, I don't have any statistics or academic citations to back that up - just my own personal thoughts.

Most children are abused in their own homes, often by men that have been brought into the family home by Mums

So women are simultaneously at faulty for being hysterical and trying to protect children from abuse and for allowing abusers access to children

On this occasion Bert was harmless but that's good fortune, not an example of how society was better in those days.

Exactly! It was just as bad then.

I have dealt with many safeguarding situations throughout my career and i can assure the biggest threat to children was often their Mothers

I’m the DSLO of a school and I can assure you that this is absolute bollocks.

The biggest risk to children in terms of violence or sexual abuse are male relations, partners or family friends. That is born out with crystal clear clarity by the ONS.

I read it as "I went inside and he persisted to plough me with a rhubarb"

My parents used to often visit an elderly couple throughout my childhood and my brother and I quickly became acquainted with their elderly neighbour who had a lovely Labrador Retriever named, James. The elderly man used to let him roam around the green/park area that was in between the bungalows and the houses to get some exercise and my brother and I including some of the local kids always use to form a group and shadow, James, for about an hour or so before bringing him back. We were all essentially dogs walkers that were getting paid in chocolate/sweets now that I think about it. 🤣

Ah yes, the good ole days. My DH had a neighbour - similarly sweet old man who’d invite the boys in and stick his hand down their pants. That is why things have changed - because not everyone was as ‘lucky’ as you, and were abused by sweet, ‘harmless’ neighbours.