ARCHIVE - Parenting while Male: Father Holds His Daughter's Hand on Bus, Transit Police Investigate

Archive: Tue May 13 17:54:53 2008
Title: Parenting while Male: Father Holds His Daughter's Hand on Bus, Transit Police Investigate
Mood: depressed
Music: Trance Tuesday #048 - track 3-Tranceportal.org
In the modern hysteria over child predators, one of the most depressing victims has been the father.

Luckily for me, wublette is now sufficiently big that she no longer lets me hold her hand when I want to. (tho I bet that if I did, some loonie would look askance at it).

In this case from the modern witch hunt, a dad is caught holding his daughter's hand and telling her to "be quiet" when she complained she was hungry.

To rational people, such a display would be absolutely meaningless and unremarkable. I don't know how many times I've told my kids to quiet down and not complain. To the insane, however, he was clearly a Dangerous Predator(tm) who was coercing the child and he needed to be stopped!

So the transit police had to get involved and the man had to be investigated.

Of course, the man was found to be innocent and the incident was found to be without merit. No charges were filed (unlike this unlucky guy). Hours of police time wasted. Hours of this family's life wasted. And the very real threat that the investigation alone could have ruined the man's life.

This fear of predators is just a witch hunt. Perhaps the hyper-vigalance may stop one predator, but the cost of making all men presumptive perpetrators is too high. It leaves men in fear of even saying "hi" to a neighborhood child and potentially damages the relationships between a dad and his kids if he is afraid anything he says might be misconstrued by some paranoid idiot.

And what happens when a man, afraid of being labeled a predator, hesitates to help a hurt or lost child?

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