Amen brother. we just had our first and I hate having to leave for work in the morning.

Spoken like a single man who has yet to procreate.

You just wont get it until you have kids. My 4 and 1 year old are my soul and life. Unless you have some of your own, you will never understand the rage that can be conjured up when a child is subject to abuse.

Any abuse.

Besides, the right amount of fear keeps you alive.

What rubbish.

You have to be a parent to detest child abuse? People without children are incapable of forming a view on this? Your status as a parent grants you some special insight?

Only in your mind.

I have worked with sex offenders in the past and staring seems to be a problem with the preditory sex offenders.

HIEDI

No one said that in this thread. What is being suggested here is when you have children, you realize a higher sense of protection within yourself.

But then again, maybe this over protection or perception that parenthood is some sort of club, is also an American phenonmenon. For the worth of it, it's interesting that the two main detractors from the majority of statements on this thread are not from The States - Purrybonker (Canada) and you (Oz, right?) - and that may very well be because of cultural differences in the way parents behave toward their children in different parts of the world.

But try raising a kid in America - where every week it seems another child is raped and butchered, and I guarantee your awareness toward "the little ones" - even those who aren't your own - will go up exponentially.

That may be the essence of the issue, right there.

There are times when I am on the road and missing my kids and I see a family together I find myself watching them and getting sad that I am not with mine - but I also make sure I do not stare either. I think I don't look for very long is that it would be difficult to do so.

Maybe the guy was separted from his family or going through a divorce? Still, if he looked at my kids (my 2, 6 or 18 yr old) for more then a second or two I would get a bad vibe and get between him and the kids real quick. I am proud of them and show their pics to any one who has eyes. It just sucks that their are people wired wrong and kids get hurt and many never recover.

The funny thing is, Both my son and lil girl get paid attention to by older ladies all the time - that doesn't seem as threatening as if it was an older man (or younger man) yet there is no difference - an abuser is either male or female young or old. So why do we feel safer with the granny over the 25 yr old man?

Anyway - if someone ever harmed any of them, I wouldn't use a gun - but rather a dull knife and a bunch of energy...

Yes, it very well may.

This is an important subject and I think that there is a balance however; it goes without saying that we need to protect kids from the sickos of the world but at the same time you do not want to be paranoid around your kids. It will rub off on them- they respond to whatever we are thinking. If we are in fear mode over anyone who looks our/their way, it will mess them up big time. Not as much as getting molested, of course, but still mess them up none the less. IMO.

That said, if someone was truly leering at my kid, (or my sister/wife/etc.), I would mad-dog the schit out of them. At the very least. I have gotten 2 inches from someone's nose and asked if they had an "eye problem". But fortunately it did not involve children. That would have been a negative experience that they would remember forever.

I guess if you had to, the best thing would be to take the creep aside, ("can I have a minute w/ you?"), away from the kids, and tell them that it's time to stare at their feet. Works for me every time. :)

Mike, I know what you mean about seeing other families while your apart from your own. When my exg/f moved north and took my youngest I'd catch myself all the time looking at other girls about her age and would drift off wondering what mine was doing. I know I got more than a couple nasty looks from moms who saw me looking. I'd then have to apologize and explain myself. I've never been at a loss for pictures of my girls so the explanations were brief and supported by photographic evidence.
I consider myself lucky all I ever got was nasty looks and not a thorough beatin from some soccer mom.
Oh and did I show you any pics of my girls?
Jasmine is my grandaughter 5yrs
Shaylee is my youngest 14yrs
and Danielle my oldest 27yrs
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1121146662.jpg

Those are nice pics, Kev. I'm sure that you love them a lot, and it shows.

I do. Danielle says "you can tell by the gleam in his eye" then Shay says "it's just the sun reflecting off his forehead"!

I don't think this was the case with this guy. I first noticed him when two girls a little older than my daughter were chasing each other around in the food court. He stopped and turned to watch them. Then he plopped himself down at the table next to ours in a position that put him next to my daughter... when there were numerous seats available elsewhere. That position gave him a good view of where the other girls were sitting. It was after they left that his attention turned Andi. Since he was sitting right next to her it was obvious that his glances were more than passing.

As he left I watched him and his head turned toward other young girls. The whole thing was extremely creepy.

Yep, I have kids. Wow, and they have even managed to survive well into their late teens without the usual dose of parental "governance and protection" that has become the norm in their (our) generation. Playgrounds are empty, kids are driven everywhere by overprotective parents.

Kids are overfed, indulged and coddled and sheltered in an unprecedented way these days - all (effectively, not maliciously) to appease the paranoia, fear and unfullfilled hopes and dreams of their parents. This thread and the responses there to are an excellent example of that.

I would prefer not to live in a world where evil is the default interpretation of the motivations of each other until proven otherwise. The probabilities and the costs of this posture completely defy such an absurd response.

How would any sane person rationalize the interpretation of the subjectively benign acts of a stranger as being threatening to the well-being of his/her children? Statistically, American kids probably have a million times better chance of being killed by the incompetent acts of their parents in the operation of the family "SUV/Minvan" or the storage of the household handgun kept for "protection".

Every sane person would accept that the "better to err on the side of safety" argument must begin to cross a rational threshold at some point. The example in this thread is clearly there.

Boy oh boy - I would have said something - like what are you looking at - and if you want to keep your organs intact I recommend that you lear somewhere else...

of course I also introduce myself to lots of people when I board a flight... what's your name, where you going...

I have two boys. When they were little I was always worried that someone may hurt them. When they hit around 17 I was worried that I was going to kill them. Now that they are over 21 they are starting to get alittle better. I can't imagine having girl's. My dad use to make it a point when someone came to pick up my sister to be cleaning a gun. He would just say that he didn't want to come looking for them if they were late. It seamed to work.

Beautifully, succinctly put.

In the sane rational mind, yes it does. DD's right. Your perspective changes when you have kids of your own. Didn't believe it myself until it happened.

What grants me a small bit of special insight my friend is my role with a social services agency that works with abused and neglected kids. I get to see this and the results first hand. I seriously doubt that you could qualify any of the kids I see as "overfed, indulged and coddled and sheltered in an unprecedented way..." Wanna stop in for a visit PB?

Not that every parent is a model themself mind you. However unfortunate it my be though, parents are the causes of most of the problems that kids we've seen have.

Unless you know my mind, try to avoid commenting about it.

Well right back at ya.