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For me, that happened when I became the father of two little girls. My radar is up whenever I am in public with my daughters. I notice if strangers look for to

For me, that happened when I became the father of two little girls. My radar is up whenever I am in public with my daughters. I notice if strangers look for too long in their direction or if I see someone hanging out where children are, without a child of their own. Occasionally, I'll spot another father like me. We'll lock eyes for a moment and it's clear that we recognize each other (for what we are, not necessarily who we are) and then go back to scanning the area. I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your brother. Kids can be horrible to each other. I don't say that to minimize his experience but to say that I understand. This heightened awareness that you feel, it comforts me to know that there are others out there. Obviously, there are no guarantees in life but your vigilance will give your son a better shot at safely reaching adulthood than many other boys who don't have someone looking out for them like that.

parasubvert 9y ago
Is that kind of paranoia productive? Especially considering we are at historically low crime rates. A very young child needs supervision and precautions to prevent them from hurting themselves, as this article sadly shows, and even then, its blind bad luck sometimes. But otherwise I can’t think any of my family (two young kids, 1 year and 8 years) or friends (many kids of various ages) being super cautious about their kids in public. I don’t live in the USA, mind you. We let daycare staff care for the little ones, which includes daily walks through the downtown core. We let kids walk to school on their own when they turned 10, we let them play unsupervised outside around age 7, or go for a bike ride with neighbor kids, etc. It’s not that different from when I was growing up. Hanging out and playing the at the park is probably less of a thing, perhaps, but that’s more because of iPads and Xboxes than safety.
- leonroy 9y ago
  Excellent points. There was an article where the author interviewed a bunch of kids a few decades back and examined how they played and then revisited them 20 years later to see how their kids played. The original group of kids played across a very large area (something like a couple square miles of woodland) and roamed across their hometowns with little oversight. Two decades later their children by comparison were very closely monitored and played in controlled areas or fenced yards only. The reasoning of the parents being that crime and abduction have risen when in fact they’ve fallen by a huge amount. There’s no real sane reason behind it - I’m a parent and there’s no way I’d let my kids play in the local woods alone despite doing so myself as a kid. The world ‘feels’ less safe and it’s very hard to overcome our feelings even when we know they’re irrational.
  - king_phil 9y ago
    So basically you are holding back the opportunity for your child to make the same childhood memories you are so fond of, because you feel the world is more dangerous and know that it is not. Nice job, man, nice job. Hating the world by proxy.
  - mnm1 9y ago
    My parents also placed perceived (by them) safety above everything else when I was a teenager. I missed out on a lot of things in life and am still missing out on things due to never having learned essential life skills and never having had essential experiences. I still resent them for that and so does my sister. Sometimes, I think parents only think of themselves, as strange as that might sound in this context. It's extremely selfish, IMO, to hold back a child from their full potential because the parents have their own irrational issues that they're not dealing with.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - defen 9y ago
      > I missed out on a lot of things in life and am still missing out on things due to never having learned essential life skills and never having had essential experiences. New father here...do you feel comfortable talking about what life skills / experiences you missed?, so I can (try to) avoid making the same mistakes?
      - mnm1 9y ago
        Mostly everything that teenagers do. Hang out, date, make friends, learn to socialize and not be constantly anxious around other people. Things like that, things that involve socializing. I tried to make up for it in college too by partying and doing plenty of irresponsible shit (because I felt entitled to having the teenage years I was robbed of). I had no problems graduating, but no one else who tried to keep up actually graduated. I'd say learning to socialize and be around people is more valuable than anything else I did learn as a teenager, by far.
- LordKano 9y ago
  >Is that kind of paranoia productive? Especially considering we are at historically low crime rates. I balance the likelihood with the potential consequences when making my decision. For example, logically, I know that there's no danger of contracting anything from sitting on a public toilet seat but I still make a bird's nest when I have to poop in a public place. Intellectually, I know that the world is now statistically safer than it was when I was a child but I still do not allow my children to roam unsupervised in public places.
  - CogitoCogito 9y ago
    Your first paragraph seems to directly contradict your second and third.
    - LordKano 9y ago
      Extremely low likelihood versus maximum severity of consequence versus moderate likelihood with low severity of consequence. I choose to guard spend more time being vigilant against the former.
  - parasubvert 9y ago
    That's fair. Another way to look at it is "Fat tail risk".
- HarryHirsch 9y ago
  The paranoia is counterproductive, it actually makes the world more dangerous. Ten or fifteen years ago this story made the rounds in Britain (writing from memory, can't be bothered to search for it in the BBC archive): A small boy had wandered off and was found dead in a pond, he had fallen in and drowned because he could not swim. It turned out that the child had been seen by a labourer cleaning a ditch, but he had no cellphone and did not intervene because he feared the pedophile hysteria and did not want to be seen with a child that wasn't his. It's understandable if you remember what Rupert Murdoch's Sun was like.
manmal 9y ago
I’m very much like this. BTW if you want to give your kids the best chance at later childhood, select their school not based on hearsay or image, but based on how resilient, motivated and kind/warm their teacher-to-be is. Those teachers keep bullying at a minimum, and let kids keep their natural curiosity. Spending 4-5h every day in class can make or break you at 6-8y old.
hnaccy 9y ago
Having you head on a swivel for would-be child snatchers at all times seems like irrational paranoia. I imagine it's the deceptively mundane that is the true danger, automobiles being the most obvious.
- gnicholas 9y ago
  This is true. The number of child abductions by strangers in the U.S. is extraordinarily low—in the neighborhood of 100 per year [1, 2]. There are lots of abductions, of course, but nearly all of them are by family members, acquaintances of the family, or other non-strangers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-missing-children/2013/05/10/efee398c-b8b4-11e2-aa9e-a02b765ff0ea_story.html?utm_term=.c4581f155af5 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-mis... http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/31/kidnapping-stats http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/31/kidnapping-stats
  - madez 9y ago
    The same is true for murders. The objectively statistically most dangerous people are those around you that you know relatively well, not some random stranger passing by or sitting on the next bench. This irriational fear of danger of strangers stops us from bonding with new people.
- LordKano 9y ago
  Have a look at the Megan's Law registry. Tell me how close the nearest violent sexual predator is to you. A few months ago, I discovered that one lived on my street. He has since been arrested and is no longer in the neighborhood. But, it's not just out-of-place perverts. I am also on the lookout for under supervised children who "play" too violently. I knew that I would be concerned about vehicles, so I was sure to buy a house with a large, fenced in, backyard. It's away from the street and even adjacent to a small patch of woods. They can have outdoor adventures and I can have peace of mind.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    Children are sexually abused by family members, then by adults at schools and clubs they visit. Abuse by strangers is rare.
dsnuh 9y ago
>Occasionally, I'll spot another father like me. Can you expand? What type of father are you? Honestly, you'd do better to be more vigilant of bees and mosquitoes, both of which are much more likely to kill or harm your child than a stranger abducting them. Try not to worry so much. ;)
- LordKano 9y ago
  By "father like me", I mean one who is on the lookout for threats to his children.
  - dsnuh 9y ago
    Do you feel most other fathers aren't?

parasubvert 9y ago

Is that kind of paranoia productive? Especially considering we are at historically low crime rates. A very young child needs supervision and precautions to prevent them from hurting themselves, as this article sadly shows, and even then, its blind bad luck sometimes. But otherwise I can’t think any of my family (two young kids, 1 year and 8 years) or friends (many kids of various ages) being super cautious about their kids in public. I don’t live in the USA, mind you. We let daycare staff care for the little ones, which includes daily walks through the downtown core. We let kids walk to school on their own when they turned 10, we let them play unsupervised outside around age 7, or go for a bike ride with neighbor kids, etc. It’s not that different from when I was growing up. Hanging out and playing the at the park is probably less of a thing, perhaps, but that’s more because of iPads and Xboxes than safety.

leonroy 9y ago
Excellent points. There was an article where the author interviewed a bunch of kids a few decades back and examined how they played and then revisited them 20 years later to see how their kids played. The original group of kids played across a very large area (something like a couple square miles of woodland) and roamed across their hometowns with little oversight. Two decades later their children by comparison were very closely monitored and played in controlled areas or fenced yards only. The reasoning of the parents being that crime and abduction have risen when in fact they’ve fallen by a huge amount. There’s no real sane reason behind it - I’m a parent and there’s no way I’d let my kids play in the local woods alone despite doing so myself as a kid. The world ‘feels’ less safe and it’s very hard to overcome our feelings even when we know they’re irrational.
- king_phil 9y ago
  So basically you are holding back the opportunity for your child to make the same childhood memories you are so fond of, because you feel the world is more dangerous and know that it is not. Nice job, man, nice job. Hating the world by proxy.
- mnm1 9y ago
  My parents also placed perceived (by them) safety above everything else when I was a teenager. I missed out on a lot of things in life and am still missing out on things due to never having learned essential life skills and never having had essential experiences. I still resent them for that and so does my sister. Sometimes, I think parents only think of themselves, as strange as that might sound in this context. It's extremely selfish, IMO, to hold back a child from their full potential because the parents have their own irrational issues that they're not dealing with.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - defen 9y ago
    > I missed out on a lot of things in life and am still missing out on things due to never having learned essential life skills and never having had essential experiences. New father here...do you feel comfortable talking about what life skills / experiences you missed?, so I can (try to) avoid making the same mistakes?
    - mnm1 9y ago
      Mostly everything that teenagers do. Hang out, date, make friends, learn to socialize and not be constantly anxious around other people. Things like that, things that involve socializing. I tried to make up for it in college too by partying and doing plenty of irresponsible shit (because I felt entitled to having the teenage years I was robbed of). I had no problems graduating, but no one else who tried to keep up actually graduated. I'd say learning to socialize and be around people is more valuable than anything else I did learn as a teenager, by far.
LordKano 9y ago
>Is that kind of paranoia productive? Especially considering we are at historically low crime rates. I balance the likelihood with the potential consequences when making my decision. For example, logically, I know that there's no danger of contracting anything from sitting on a public toilet seat but I still make a bird's nest when I have to poop in a public place. Intellectually, I know that the world is now statistically safer than it was when I was a child but I still do not allow my children to roam unsupervised in public places.
- CogitoCogito 9y ago
  Your first paragraph seems to directly contradict your second and third.
  - LordKano 9y ago
    Extremely low likelihood versus maximum severity of consequence versus moderate likelihood with low severity of consequence. I choose to guard spend more time being vigilant against the former.
- parasubvert 9y ago
  That's fair. Another way to look at it is "Fat tail risk".
HarryHirsch 9y ago
The paranoia is counterproductive, it actually makes the world more dangerous. Ten or fifteen years ago this story made the rounds in Britain (writing from memory, can't be bothered to search for it in the BBC archive): A small boy had wandered off and was found dead in a pond, he had fallen in and drowned because he could not swim. It turned out that the child had been seen by a labourer cleaning a ditch, but he had no cellphone and did not intervene because he feared the pedophile hysteria and did not want to be seen with a child that wasn't his. It's understandable if you remember what Rupert Murdoch's Sun was like.

manmal 9y ago

I’m very much like this. BTW if you want to give your kids the best chance at later childhood, select their school not based on hearsay or image, but based on how resilient, motivated and kind/warm their teacher-to-be is. Those teachers keep bullying at a minimum, and let kids keep their natural curiosity. Spending 4-5h every day in class can make or break you at 6-8y old.

hnaccy 9y ago

Having you head on a swivel for would-be child snatchers at all times seems like irrational paranoia. I imagine it's the deceptively mundane that is the true danger, automobiles being the most obvious.

gnicholas 9y ago
This is true. The number of child abductions by strangers in the U.S. is extraordinarily low—in the neighborhood of 100 per year [1, 2]. There are lots of abductions, of course, but nearly all of them are by family members, acquaintances of the family, or other non-strangers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-missing-children/2013/05/10/efee398c-b8b4-11e2-aa9e-a02b765ff0ea_story.html?utm_term=.c4581f155af5 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-mis... http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/31/kidnapping-stats http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/31/kidnapping-stats
- madez 9y ago
  The same is true for murders. The objectively statistically most dangerous people are those around you that you know relatively well, not some random stranger passing by or sitting on the next bench. This irriational fear of danger of strangers stops us from bonding with new people.
LordKano 9y ago
Have a look at the Megan's Law registry. Tell me how close the nearest violent sexual predator is to you. A few months ago, I discovered that one lived on my street. He has since been arrested and is no longer in the neighborhood. But, it's not just out-of-place perverts. I am also on the lookout for under supervised children who "play" too violently. I knew that I would be concerned about vehicles, so I was sure to buy a house with a large, fenced in, backyard. It's away from the street and even adjacent to a small patch of woods. They can have outdoor adventures and I can have peace of mind.
- DanBC 9y ago
  Children are sexually abused by family members, then by adults at schools and clubs they visit. Abuse by strangers is rare.

dsnuh 9y ago

>Occasionally, I'll spot another father like me. Can you expand? What type of father are you? Honestly, you'd do better to be more vigilant of bees and mosquitoes, both of which are much more likely to kill or harm your child than a stranger abducting them. Try not to worry so much. ;)

LordKano 9y ago
By "father like me", I mean one who is on the lookout for threats to his children.
- dsnuh 9y ago
  Do you feel most other fathers aren't?