Fear-mongering.
Posted
June 15, 2008 at
3:59 am by
Trish
I hardly watch the news on television anymore. I don’t like the tabloid-spin most news networks are putting on their stories, and I don’t like being surprised by stories about children who have been abducted or women who have been violated or any of those other happenings that I can’t forget about for days afterwards. I prefer to just read the headlines and make a decision about whether or not I need to know all the horrid details. I also don’t like being fed this notion that I need to be afraid that any of this bad stuff is going to happen to my family, and that I should be super-vigilant any time I leave the safety of my fortified house. And that I should have a fortified house. And know karate. In some countries, I might be encouraged to carry a gun, to protect myself from the madness that I see on the news every night.
I don’t like being scared and worried. And as a parent you give birth to worry. The list of things you can add to your list of things to worry about doubles when you have kids. What am I saying? Doubles? How about increases by a factor of a zillion. I try very hard not to think about the things that can happen to them but I have an active imagination and I’m usually pretty quick to jump to the worst possible conclusion. I’m 37 in a couple of weeks and my head is covered in grey hair. You can’t tell unless you look at the roots, but it’s there. Very, very grey. Grey like Bill O’Reilly’s hair. OK, grey like Anderson Cooper’s.
The problem is that the kids, my two otherwise perfectly innocent little girls, occasionally do things that give me reason to worry. And although they may see their little adventures as just that - an adventure - I see it as the story on the evening news, complete with graphic images and adjectives in bright scary-red capitals. I don’t want to be one of those parents who wont let their kids out of their sight, but I also don’t want to be one of those parents who wish they had been more vigilant. Where or how do we draw the line?
My seven year old went to a birthday party in a park yesterday afternoon. I dropped her off and she ran across the park to join a bunch of girls from her class who were playing under the low-hanging branches of a big tree. There were about thirty kids, a handful of parents, and two teenage girls who had been roped in to help out with kiddy crowd control. So, I left. What’s the rule about staying at a party? Do you hang around for two long hours, making small talk with the other parents, keeping an eye on the kids’ sugar consumption? Or do you take the opportunity to go and do some grocery shopping, unencumbered by your child? I never invite the parents to stay at parties. To be honest, I can’t be bothered catering for all the kids and all the adults. I tell them to go away, enjoy their afternoon, come back later when I’ve made their child sick with chocolate and ruined their party clothes with facepaints and craft glue.
When I arrived back at the park, two hours later, Ella’s friends were back under the tree. I wandered over, expecting to see her emerge from the shrubs, but she didn’t seem to be there. I called her name a couple of times, and then I asked one of her friends if she knew where Ella was. She told me that Ella had wandered off, ages ago, with a dog. Where did she go? I don’t know, she went that way, maybe.
I went over to where the party food and games were set up, hoping to find here there amongst the other kids who were getting ready to leave. She wasn’t there. By this time I was starting to get quite worried. I ran back to the tree and asked the girls again if they might be able to remember where Ella had gone; they told me again about the dog that had been coming over to the park, but they didn’t know where it or Ella had gone.
Just as I started to get that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach (the same feeling I got when I lost her for ten minutes in Commonwealth Park on Australia Day) I spotted her in the front yard of a house across the road and down a little way. She was heading down the driveway to the fence into the backyard, and she was with a man I had never seen before. My heart stopped.
I called out her name and ran over to get her. She walked back towards me, and the man came too. I saw the dog, a great big black mangy thing. The kind of dog that you see on the news, right after it has eaten some poor toddler who inadvertently wandered into its yard. The house was one of the few on the street that hadn’t been renovated - overgrown front yard, bits of old cars and some old chairs covered with faded bedspreads on the front porch. The kind of house you see on the news, fairly typical old cottage with the skeletons of five teenagers who had gone missing back in the 1970’s. The man? He was disheveled and middle aged and about six foot three. He looked like he didn’t have an owner. He looked like the guy on the news, the one who the police had picked up the night before on suspicion of being involved in the abduction of that woman from her car in broad daylight.
“Who are you? What are you doing with Ella?” She was carrying something, a navy blue jacket. She gave it back to him as he wandered over to where we were standing on the footpath.
“I’m Mark, I’m Joey’s stepfather. Do you want to see some photo ID?”
He said it with what seemed to be a tinge of sarcasm. I was completely flummoxed, I was so upset to find my child in the front yard of a strange house with a strange man that I could barely form a sentence. I wanted to slap him across the face and ask him if he thought it was a good idea to leave the park with someone else’s little girl, and to wander off towards a strange and dangerous looking house.
“We just came over here to bring the dog back.”
I have no idea what I said to him, and in fact now as I try to remember the situation I can’t recall saying anything to him. Instead I focussed on my daughter, taking her by the hand and leading her back to the party, away from this strange man and this strange house and this unimaginable almost-nightmare. I started to cry, I had come completely undone. Ella was asking me whether she was in trouble, and I couldn’t speak other than to tell her that we were leaving.
We went home, and eventually I calmed down. She didn’t seem to think she had done anything wrong. She was just taking the dog back to its house. With a responsible adult to help her cross the road.
I told Ella to tell Madeleine (her older sister) what had happened, and as soon as she got to the part about going to the house with the man, Madeleine burst into tears and asked her why she would do something so stupid. There, that’s the reaction I was hoping for - I wanted my seven year old to hear it from her ten year old sister. You stupid, stupid girl.
Everyone was crying.
My husband arrived home, and he talked to her in her room. They talked about Stranger Danger. She told him about the dog and about Joey’s stepfather. Meanwhile I called the mother of the birthday boy to ask her if she knew Mark, and if she knew that my daughter had left the party. Left the party while she was in your care, lady.
I had to leave a message, she wasn’t there.
My husband came out and told me that Ella had taken the dog back to Hannah’s house, and that it was Hannah’s dog, and it kept coming over, and some of the other parents had already taken the dog back over there three times because it kept coming out and wanting to eat the birthday cake. And she went over there with Mark because she was worried that the dog wouldn’t be able to cross the road by itself and she knew to cross with an adult.
The birthday boy’s mother returned my call, and confirmed Ella’s story about the nuisance dog. And yes, she knew Mark. He’d been very helpful at the party, helping with games and handing out balloons and such. She apologised to me, she said she could understand that I had been scared by what seemed to be happening. We both agreed that perhaps on this occasion Mark’s judgment was a bit off but all in all, no harm was done.
I took a deep breath and cursed the six o’clock news and the fear-merchants who tell me that statistics show that child abductions are up when really? They’re down.
I really hate that I instantly felt scared that Ella was being abducted. I hate that this was my first assumption. I hate that I scared my ten year old with the story of my seven year old wandering off with some strange man. I hate that I called the mother of the birthday boy, ready to ask her how she allowed a child to wander off from the party like that. I hate that I am helping to create a society that assumes the worst of people because someone on the news told me that I should be afraid. I hate feeling this way.
I wish there was some way to protect my kids from all of life’s evils, without actually having to tell them about all life’s evils.
I wish I could let go of the sensation in the pit of my stomach. It will go, eventually, perhaps in a few days.
Tags: Family, News-&-Politics, Parenting, Social Issues |
13 Responses to “Fear-mongering.”
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1. Jessica said:
June 15, 2008 @ 10:57 am
I would still rather side on the side of caution and paranoia than have my child live in ignorant bliss though. There are just too many adults out there hunting for children and preying on them.
While the majority of people are inately good (I hope), a child can no longer be naive. The sad reality is, that people that hurt children, victimize them in more than one way. Even if a child never encounters such danger, they have already taken much of their innocence away because they’ve forced children to understand the evils of human beings and that there are people out there that want to hurt them.
Again though, I think parents would be remiss if they didn’t set certain expectations about strangers. Look at Internet dangers and the gamble some parents took and lost when it came to turning a blind eye to the dangers on the Internet.
2. Rita said:
June 15, 2008 @ 11:15 am
OK, but, wait a minute….
“When I arrived back at the park, two hours later, Ella’s friends were back under the tree. I wandered over, expecting to see her emerge from the shrubs, but she didn’t seem to be there. I called her name a couple of times, and then I asked one of her friends if she knew where Ella was. She told me that Ella had wandered off, ages ago, with a dog. Where did she go? I don’t know, she went that way, maybe.
I went over to where the party food and games were set up, hoping to find here there amongst the other kids who were getting ready to leave. She wasn’t there. By this time I was starting to get quite worried. I ran back to the tree and asked the girls again if they might be able to remember where Ella had gone; they told me again about the dog that had been coming over to the park, but they didn’t know where it or Ella had gone.”
WHERE WERE THE PARENTS???? Seriously, why wasn’t the mother (or the father) there to see off your daughter? Why didn’t they greet you when you came to pick up your kid? Your daughter’s friends didn’t say, “She went off with so-and-so’s dad to take a dog back home that’s been bugging us all day.” They said she left ages ago with some guy.
See, the reason that your body was sending off these alarms wasn’t because of a reaction to too much bad news from the media, it’s because it was receiving cues that something was amiss. And it was. This scene is off for a 7 year-old, Trish. Then you say:
“I called out her name and ran over to get her. She walked back towards me, and the man came too.”
So, you were out there CALLING for your child, again and again at first, and then you spot her and you CALL to her and then you RUN to her and still, no parents come and greet you and explain the situation?
Then you GO HOME, still not having touched base with the party kid’s parents? So, they don’t know who the hell took your kid home. Could have been you, could have been that your daughter just wandered off with some (other) strange man, as far as they know.
There is worrying and there is reacting to stimulus. I’d say that you reacted to the situation. The scene was giving you cues and your body was reading them–correctly–this was not a safe environment for a seven-year-old. Nothing bad happened, and that’s good! But, it still doesn’t mean she was *safe* there. There was totally inadequate supervision for that age group and environment, Trish.
The best book in the world for putting unwarranted worries to rest and listening to your genuine danger reactions is called “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin DeBecker. He wrote a sequel, specifically for parents called Protecting the Gift. But, read the first one first. It really puts everything in perspective and is so very logical.
3. Rita said:
June 15, 2008 @ 11:20 am
[quote comment="170461"]I would still rather side on the side of caution and paranoia than have my child live in ignorant bliss though. There are just too many adults out there hunting for children and preying on them.
[/quote]
You should read the Gavin DeBecker book. Seriously, so much of what we do is so worthless in actually preventing anything bad. Teaching them to fear strangers is counter productive, actually. And being afraid of everything blocks our ability to react to specific situations.
The truth is that very, very few adults are out there waiting to prey on children. It’s just that it’s the most horrible thing we can imagine happening, so the fear of it is so huge. Most children are hurt and/or abducted by people very close to them. Strangers approaching and hurting kids happens very rarely.
4. Jessica said:
June 15, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
[quote comment="170470"]
You should read the Gavin DeBecker book. Seriously, so much of what we do is so worthless in actually preventing anything bad. Teaching them to fear strangers is counter productive, actually. And being afraid of everything blocks our ability to react to specific situations.
The truth is that very, very few adults are out there waiting to prey on children. It’s just that it’s the most horrible thing we can imagine happening, so the fear of it is so huge. Most children are hurt and/or abducted by people very close to them. Strangers approaching and hurting kids happens very rarely.[/quote]
It’s not about living in fear, it’s about teaching kids about situations that have to be taught, because they wouldn’t know otherwise. For example, I have gone over with my older son, since he was able to understand, the ploys that adults might make in order to get them alone. And, it isn’t just about strangers, although the Internet is causing stranger abductions, rape and molestations to rise amongst children, it’s about being savvy and aware of situations.
I have read from numerous law enforcement/FBI/advocacy sites that nearly 30% of all children have been sexually abused. Even if most of them are by someone they know, they need to know what is appropriate and what’s not and that it’s okay to question adults intentions, especially when they feel uncomfortable.
While only 10% of child molestations are comitted by strangers, I think even one child being raped or molested by *anyone* is one too many and that it never hurts to educate children as to the possible dangers. Everyone can use an education about the ways in which sexual predators work, IMO.
5. Rita said:
June 15, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
[quote comment="170481"] Even if most of them are by someone they know, they need to know what is appropriate and what’s not and that it’s okay to question adults intentions, especially when they feel uncomfortable.
While only 10% of child molestations are comitted by strangers, I think even one child being raped or molested by *anyone* is one too many and that it never hurts to educate children as to the possible dangers. Everyone can use an education about the ways in which sexual predators work, IMO.[/quote]
I agree with all of that. Absolutely.
6. John Esberg said:
June 15, 2008 @ 1:11 pm
What you focus on becomes your reality. If you worry about something so much that it distracts you from where you need to go, it can drive you straight into it. It’s a psychological principal that’s been proven to work time and time again.
7. Kymberly Foster Seabolt said:
June 15, 2008 @ 2:17 pm
Excellent article just chockful of appropriate and thought-provoking points.
As my son has turned eleven I really struggle with my knowledge that I *have* to give him more freedom (he is clearly too old to come into the ladies room with me) yet, for example, I know of only ONE instance where a boy was slain in a men’s room while his Aunt waited outside the door and yet … even that I know he’s statistically in greater danger when we hop in our car to DRIVE to wherever we are, everytime he walks into some large (or heck, small) public restroom I think of that slain child, throat slit and molested while his aunt waited outside the freakin’ door. I believe the story said she even nodded a polite hello at the man who ducked out past her later (who would turn out to be the molester/murderer but she didn’t know that … yet).
So I’m a product of that fear because what do you do? Honestly, as my son has gotten older I fear MORE. While we all cossett our toddlers and preschoolers my mind says my eleven year old is a more likely target than ever. So here in Hooterville I try to “think like a predator” while still allowing him the space and freedom to grow up.
So he gets to do things, and I just hope he doesn’t notice that I hyperventilate through many of them.
I also second Gavin DeBecker’s book. It’s very good.
8. Kymberly Foster Seabolt said:
June 15, 2008 @ 2:20 pm
Excellent and thought-provoking article.
Particularly apropos as my son is older. It’s honestly somewhat easy to protect and infant/toddler but my son, at eleven, is still a likely target for a pedophile and yet, I cannot smother the child. He must be allowed to thrive, and grow and learn to cope in the real world. Which, is, after all very safe and yet …
I love the Gavin DeBecker book. I also believe in following your gut parental instinct.
As Rita (?) pointed out, I’m sorry but something was “off” about that party. The hosts should have known damn well where your child was AND should have seen immediately that this was not a good choice on their part.
9. Rita said:
June 15, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
[quote comment="170481"]Even if most of them are by someone they know, they need to know what is appropriate and what’s not and that it’s okay to question adults intentions, especially when they feel uncomfortable.
While only 10% of child molestations are comitted by strangers, I think even one child being raped or molested by *anyone* is one too many and that it never hurts to educate children as to the possible dangers. Everyone can use an education about the ways in which sexual predators work, IMO.[/quote]
I thought I posted on this, but anyway–yes, I totally agree with all of the above. Absolutely.
10. Grandma frm Ks. said:
June 15, 2008 @ 3:48 pm
No, Trish, do not let that sensation in the pit of your stomach go, Don’t let any thing cause you to become prisioner in your home, but these feelings are there for a reason. Just b/c that women knew Mark, (how well?) don’t mean a darn thing, first and foremost why did she let a little strange girl (to him) leave with him? Why did’nt another adult go instead, or why not her child?, if she knew him that well?. There are way to many questions here, and no matter you don’t know him. I know personally of a very similiar situation, and not a good out come, So that mother that told you, otta be asking you for forgivness for not taking better care of your child. I can not believe how adults are so care free with childrens safety, We just had an 11 and 13 yr old shot to death out in the country, they were only walking a few feet from their own property, Why would any one do this? still have no answers as to why or who, but the girls were just laid to rest on Saturday. God gave us that pit in our stomach for a reason, and when it turns upside down we need to pay attention to it. I don’t care who this man was, he should have known better than to walk away with a little child, I would be questioning his motives also. The worst fear a parent can have is “where is my child” been there ,done that. I don’t like the idea of scaring children, but I think they should know that is okay not to trust everyone, Like Jessica said, it’s usually some one they know or even a family member, and no we can’t judge ppl by how they look but judging him is b/c he took your child from her safe haven, Oh my God I am so mad at that woman, she’d be the one I’d be beating the hell out of, I am so sick of hearing women say of a raped or beaten child, ” I did’nt think he was like that, or I loved him, or he was always so good to the kids” oh give me a break, Yeah JOHN COUEY, he was a good guy to huh? Trish, you ought to print off John Coueys story and personally hand it to that women and then slap the hell out of her. Gosh girls I am sorry but these ppl make me sick, there is no punishment to harsh for them, You know MADD? well I think they ought to let us women handle the pigs that do this to kids , I guarantee rates of child abusment would go down.
11. Kennedy said:
June 15, 2008 @ 9:55 pm
There’s a little boy who lives around the corner from me. He’s five, like one of my sons, and he always wants to come over and play. He stays for HOURS, and his mother just assumes he’s here. One night I told him he’d better be getting home because it was getting a little late. I thought he went home. Well, about 10:00pm there was a knock at the door. Some older man asked if he (the child) was here. I said no. So he started looking for him and found him at this park by our house. He yelled at him that he better get home right now and that he was late. Like a 5 year old knows about time and being late. I couldn’t believe that at 10:00 they just finally decided to look for him! He’s 5! Some parents make me so angry. Anyone could have taken him.
12. momof3 said:
June 15, 2008 @ 10:20 pm
I live in fear everyday of my life when it comes to my children and their safety! I hate it but I cant help it! I didnt have a great childhood and want to make sure that my kids do! When it comes to stranger danger…its so hard to teach children about that b/c its not only strangers that will hurt chilren. Sometimes it the person you least expect!
I dont blame you for freaking out! I cant imagine any mother with the info you were given that wouldnt! I cant believe that the mother didnt come over and have a small discussion with you and your daughter before you left though! Sounds like she was very neglegent with the children. I try not to stay at every party that my daughter is invited to but I always stay close by (whether that be in the same area or the same building) just so that I can make myself feel better and make sure that she is safe.
The news will always have scary things and it will worry parents! My thing is Id rather have my children grow up and think…’man, mom is a worry wart!’ or ‘I wish she’d give me a little more room!’ and then when theyre older and have kids of their own say, ‘I completely understand her worry and fear! She was just trying to keep me safe!’. All of that instead of not hearing my child complain about anything b/c of some terrible accident b/c I wasnt careful enough!
I know that it sounds smoothering but like I said, I will do anything to make sure my kids have it better than I did! Someday they’ll thank me for it or at least understand why when they learn more about the sick ppl that are out there.
13. Trish said:
June 21, 2008 @ 7:24 am
Thanks everyone for your comments and support.