Anyone else hyper vigilant that some men may be pedophiles

[Cantgetwarmbrr]

I wasn’t like this before I had my Dd, she’s 5 now and just always in the back of my mind I wonder about people and hate feeling/thinking like this. For example, really nice, married guy neighbour with a son who walks his dogs and chats on to my Dd, which is nice 🤷🏻‍♀️ I even felt on guard when taking her to Santa as one Elf guy kept telling her how beautiful she was. It’s a horrible way to think, it’s just always there at the back of my mind. I can’t ever imagine letting her go to sleepovers etc, but know I’ll have to one day.
Does anyone else have this in the back of their mind sometimes?
I even said to Dh that I’d never leave her with another male, even close friends of ours etc, who I love and have known for years, why am I so paranoid about this? Does anyone feel similar?

@Cantgetwarmbrr Thank you for your kind words. I do want to emphasise that the majority of churches these days have strong safeguarding policies and wouldn’t shield abusers from exposure.

So I’ve never had an issue with leaving our DDs in church children’s groups. (Though it’s helped that the leaders have always been women and the safeguarding policies have been robust.)

I agree with PPs about being wary of men. Not because all men are a danger to children (far from it!) but because, as some PPs have said, there is no obvious type of man that could be a paedophile. My DM, who is a very intelligent woman, had absolutely no idea that the man she’d loved and married was abusing her DC and it devastated her when we told her many years later.

This post FASCINATES me. In part because it backs up my natural instinct that some men are "suspiciously nice" - yeah, I know some people are "just nice" but on the other hand "oooh, I'll look after your kids, oooh I'll take little johnny to the toilet" is just not the way normal men behave (because men are generally more selfish).

Anyway, the thing I really wanted to say was this. A theory. Your description of these paedophiles is a stereotype that could very easily be applied to two other groups - a certain, and not uncommon (stereo-)type, of gay men, and vicars / priests. And presumably the vicar / priest thing is because gay men and paedophiles have historically been attracted to the church for one reason or another.

I cannot help but think that the bigoted, hateful stereotype of "gay men are paedos" might come from an innocent place - people noticing that a certain gay stereotype and a certain paedo stereotype are indistinguishable from each other despite the two groups being completely different.

May I just be clear - I completely believe the PPs who have said all sorts of completely different types of men can be paedophiles, but I also believe that there are probably some stereotypes too.

One of the child sex offenders I’ve known - a very close family friend - was certainly not “suspiciously nice”. A very spikey, reserved individual, definitely not “ooh I’ll look after your kids”, as @AnonnyMouseDave puts it.

There is no type. Often they seem extremely normal. That’s how they get away with it: if they all displayed lots of red flags, they’d all be caught before they could abuse children.

There are steps you can take to reduce the risk of abuse, but it is not the fault of the victim if they are abused and most of the time it is absolutely not the fault of the parents either - I’m so sorry for your experience @LizzieW1969.

Theres an interesting interview with a police officer who worked undercover with paedophiles on James English’s podcast - worth listening to:

Not sure if it's been said already but statistically 1 in 4 little girls are abused, usually by a family member or friend. You don't need to worry about the elf or the bloke down the road. You need to be careful with trusted friends and sadly family. No matter how unlikely they seem, you just make sure the opportunity isn't there. Also ensure your daughter knows what is appropriate and that she can tell you if anything happens that's inappropriate. It's so important as most people are completely unaware these things are happening to their children. They may speak up as young adults or grown ups. They may not remember it if their brains have blocked it. But no you are not unreasonable, they walk amongst us unfortunately.

In the nicest possible way, your hyper vigilance is wasted. The vast majority of paedos are known to the family and often groom parents before the children. Being paranoid about strangers will get you nowhere and your daughter will pick up on your anxiety.

Another thing is that pedophiles are not all exclusively attracted to children. Hence why they're often married with kids etc. I watched a documentary the other day and there is a number of men attracted to children who vow they will never act on it as they don't want to hurt children but they only get help if they've offended. There are pedophiles out there who would like to be helped not to offend in the first place but it's not there for them unless they've harmed a child. So short sighted. Perhaps if help and support was available then less would go on to offend. Also the (understandable) witch hunts that go on, only push them "underground" .

@Untoldhassle 1 in 4 is shocking

I agree OP. You’d be mad not to cautious.

It's slightly less likely for boys. Something like one in 7 but that's still a lot higher than I thought.