DH didn't help little girl

[Whatshisface]

My DH was in a shopping center.

He was about to go down an escalator, but in front was a man on his phone and what he assumes was his 3/4 year old daughter.

The man was still talking away on his phone, his daughter was a step or two behind him when the dad got on the escalator.

The daughter hesitated and just stood at the top; DH then is next to the little one, who reaches out her hand to DH --- my DH didn't take it, but instead got on the escalator himself.

The man then shouted up to the girl 'stay there, stay there' as he had to walk to the opposite end of the center to get to the 'up' escalator.

DH said he looked up and a woman had stopped to stay with the little one.

I was really mortified DH hadn't either 1) taken her hand to take her down with him, or 2) stayed with her until her dad came back.

But DH said, as a male, and it being a little girl, he 100% didn't feel comfortable with either scenario.

Did he do the right thing?

I'd have instinctively taken the little one's hand and been reassuring and kind to her, taking her to her dad at the bottom. and would have resisted telling the dad what an idiot he his

It's really the child's dad who needs criticism here (not the OP whose post has formatted strangely for some posters but looks fine to me). Why would he think it was ok to let a 3 or 4 year old get on an escalator without holding her hand? I think a good rule of thumb is that if the child isn't old enough to reach the handrail, then they need to get on first with an adult holding their hand or being able to reach out to hold them.

It's really sad that your DH and others feel unable to help a child in danger. My brother had a similar experience when a child had a fit in the road. Luckily someone else walked past almost a second later so they could put the child into the recovery position and call an ambulance.

For me, the child's physical safety would take priority but that's easier to say as a middle aged woman.

The net effect is quite obviously to make kids less safe.

More children will be injured in preventable accidents than would have been harmed by men with malicious intent.

@justfiveminutes exactly my point. I couldn’t override my instinct to help anyway. It’s a split second thing.

And I always remember that little child who drowned because a man was too afraid to stop her when he saw her on the streets alone. She drowned in a neighbour pond about five minutes later.
Do you put a tiny child first or yourself?

And yet so many on this thread are fine with that as long as their precious husbands don’t get looked at funny.

There were loads of options for him that didn't involve just completely ignoring a child in danger, walking off and letting it be somebody else's problem.

It was callous and potentially very dangerous.

How was his life going to be ruined in the two minutes it took to take her down to her dad, or to stand with her whilst he shouted down to her dad ‘you left her, I’ll wait whilst you come back up’. In public - not leading her anywhere or trying to take her away? And even if someone did spring out of nowhere in that brief time and demand to know what he was doing, he could say ‘she got separated from her dad, he’s just there, I’m waiting whilst her dad comes back’.

I definitely wouldn’t leave a small child in a dangerous situation (top of an escalator) on the off chance that someone might think I was up to no good. I’d be upset if my husband did too.

I think the talk of everyone suspecting him and ‘men must never come within ten feet of a child not their own or their lives will
be RUINED’ is as hysterical as the pedo hysteria they are claiming exists. And I really hope that if my dd ever found herself in a dangerous situation that good people of whatever sex would not just stand by and let it happen because they were worried what people would think.

@EarringsandLipstick

Well, if MN fixed the site, maybe I could read the entire thread before replying, but as it is, it's (marginally)easier to reply to posts as you go.

it's not like it was the OP on a serious thread, just someone trying to dictate how someone else should post & that they shouldn't use functions MN provide.

There was once an social experiment take place where a child was in the public with the view they was lost and alone, the percentage of men that stopped to helped compared to woman was incredibly small. Men are afraid to approach a child because it can be seen to be inappropriate and they are scared of the accusations that can come from it. Shame but that's how it is

I was really mortified
made me feel so sad/mortified!

Why are you embarrassed? I'd be quite upset if my partner decided my actions when they weren't with me, had caused them embarrassment... Him helping or not has no reflection on you, surely - there's no need for you to feel it reflects badly on you?

It really is no big deal!

I wouldn’t have given it a second thought if I was your or your husband

I think you should always do what is appropriate to help the child and not walk away, regardless of concerns of how a parent might react. Ultimately it's the child's safety that matters more, not that you might get some abuse from a gobshite. On a much more awful level, there are too many cases where children have suffered because people adopted a 'not my child, not my place' attitude.

In your husband's case, I think staying with her at the top would have been the right thing to do, just to make sure she didn't panic and tumble down the escalator or something. I totally get that men feel nervous, but staying with her and not touching her would be appropriate. If the dad mouths off he mouths off. At least the girl wouldn't have fallen down the escalator or something.

He didn't 'keep an eye though'. Well, I suppose he did, in one way, but not in a way that would have made a blind bit of difference to her safety!

You’ve missed the point.

No one is saying there wasn’t a glitch, just that it’s obvious it was a glitch and to just let it go, instead of harassing OP.

I'm with your husband here op you,as a female,would not have felt the concerns he had of being accused of wrong doing.Put yourself in his shoes.
Very sad this is the way the world is but it is what it is.

It doesn't have to be like that though surely. It's not like that in other countries. We just need to regain some perspective.

It's obvious that children are more at risk if 50% of the population would ignore them when they were in danger, than they are from abduction.

I suppose it would starts with women, mothers, not accusing every man who looks at their child of being a threat. Based on mn alone, it feels like we're a long way from that. We're our own worst enemies. Even on this thread, so many women thinking it would have been wrong of a man to help.

It's really sad that men feel like this. I remember when I was 14 ish on holiday in Devon (40 odd years ago) my dad came back from collecting a take away to say he'd seen a girl my age ish crying walking down country lane so made me go back out with him to check as he didn't want to frighten her more 😢

Why the ‘world’? The world hasn’t done anything. It’s the many bad men who have caused this and lots of other men just watching it happen. Even so, good men don’t watch and do nothing when a child is in trouble. My DH, father etc would and have helped kids.

@AliasGrape ‘ what people may think’ is a very dangerous thing in this age of social media witch hunts.
Accusations don’t have to be true, once there’s a report or anything made there’s be a full investigation. And everyone assumed guilt.
You only have to look at Twitter, FB etc to see that things spread like wildfire out of context.

Negligent parents are also the sort likely to accuse strangers of wanting to harm their child, instead of thanking them. In order to cover up their own shoddy parenting.

Nobody has ANY obligation to help under any circumstances. It’s nice if people help. But ‘not helping’ isn’t a crime. It’s the parents’ fault if anything happens to the kid.

You are NOT being unreasonable. This is everything that's wrong with this bizarre paedo hysteria on Mumsnet and elsewhere in the UK these days. I feel so sorry for men that they feel this way. I'm SO glad I now live in a country that is not like this, where men feel able to appreciate and interact with children without fear of hysterical people labelling them a paedo for just smiling/talking/interacting with a child.

I was with my two children and my son was fine going down some escalators until we got half way down some and then needed to go down another set and he suddenly decided he didn’t want to go on them anymore, I was stuck in the middle of two escalators with 2 children and a buggy unable to get them all down. I was standing there talking to him trying to convince him when some man must have saw what was happening and came over and asked if there was anyway he could help (this was a tube station in London so usually everyone just rush she’s past) he ended up taking my sons hand and holding it down the escalators, I was so grateful! I hadn’t asked anyone for help he just saw the situation and stopped, but that is different and I can understand how your DH felt and why he didn’t grab the little girls hand he had what sounds like a couple of seconds to make a decision, men are wary of approaching children and tbh I’m also not sure I would have taken the child’s hand either I would have waited at the top with her if I could see there was no way up but most escalators have one going up and one going down right next to each other. I don’t know how you can be mad at him for this.

It’s not the way the world is, it’s us, here, now. In most countries there’s still the (correct) assumption that the vast majority of people have good intentions, and nobody would think twice about helping a child in difficulty. Neither would we in this country 30 or 40 years ago. We prop this madness up by supporting the idea that good people should do nothing for fear of being condemned by the ignorant. It needs to change.

I wouldn’t mind if a man helped my child. I certainly wouldn’t accuse him of anything, I’d be mortified at why my child needed help in the first place because I’m responsible for them! And this situation shouldn’t arise!

I’ve had men help carry heavy bags (when they saw me struggling), help push my aged granddad’s wheelchair up a hill, etc. All good.

However I cannot guarantee that other people aren’t accusation happy. ESPECIALLY negligent parents. If they lack the basic common sense to parent their own child, they seem like the hysterical sort to accuse someone just to cover up their idiocy and deny any liability.

It’s a double edged sword. Other countries may sweep accusations under the carpet, so men can do anything they like. We report it, and it’s taken seriously as it rightly should. But in these cases evidence isn’t always easy to come by so people prefer to err on the side of caution and not associate with anybody who has even been accused.

I've heard people say nobody should take missing children anywhere so maybe not even fine for OP to have done it.
I don't know what I'd do if I found a missing child to be honest. Just staying there with them would not help anything would it if I couldn't take them to an info point or staff desk or anything.

I would probably do the same as your DH. He had a split second to react and he was going into escalator himself, a woman who was approaching had more time to read the situation and react. Also I suspect the little girl raised her hand rather instinctively and could be upset if not a parent would take it.
I wouldn’t have any criticism towards my partner in this situation. The only person I would be cross with was that Dad who was talking over phone instead of looking after his child in a busy shopping centre and especially near the escalator. What on earth he was thinking about??? Has he got any brains at all???