Lost Children
We always seemed to be shopping in big department stores, such as Schofields in Leeds, when I was little, and my mother was always finding lost children.
She was always very good with small children and I would wait patiently whilst she looked for, and found, their grateful parent.
I don't go to department stores much myself but since I grew up I've come across small lost children myself on several occasions: I've always managed to find their parents and never thought much of it.
Apparently, people don't do that any more. You can leave a small lost child in the middle of a crowded shopping centre or whatever and most people just walk straight past. Perhaps it's because people have less of a sense of community than they once did. Perhaps people have become less caring. Or perhaps - the theory that Esther Rantzen put forward in a programme that I watched a few nights ago - it's because they think they might be accused of trying to abduct the child.
This television programme took two child actors, a boy age nine and a girl age seven and put them, apparently alone but in fact with lots of people keeping an eye on them to make sure they came to no harm, in a shopping centre. The centre itself was scarily reminiscent of the one the toddler James Bulger was abducted from: he, of course, was subsequently murdered by the two ten-year-old boys who took him.
In this television programme, the boy stood alone in the shopping centre, looking about him and looking definitely lost. Three hundred and thirty people walked past before someone stopped and asked him if he needed help. With the girl, it was much quicker - a mere hundred and twenty-two people ignored her before someone stopped.
A second thread to the programme was two elderly ladies who had tried to take photographs of a children's playground in a Southampton park. The playground was empty, not a child in sight, but the park keeper came up to them and gave them a very hard time about why they should wish to take these photographs.
Why was this? Because, as Esther Rantzen said, "We've gone completely barmy." So scared are we of the very few paedophiles in our midst that we would rather leave lost children without any help. So hard-wired is this "stranger danger" idea into the public consciousness that two elderly ladies can't even take photos of an empty playground without getting hassle from some jobsworth idiot of a park keeper.
One of the people who stopped to help the little boy was a man - but he didn't directly approach the boy, as he surely would have in the past. Instead, he contacted the security man at the shopping centre because he knew that this would protect him from any accusation of having evil designs on the boy.
Would I have stopped to help? Yes: as a matter of fact, I know I would, because I have done so on several occasions in the past, and d'you know what, I wouldn't give the idea of being branded a paedophile one second's thought. But then, I'm both middle-aged and female and I have a Girls' Grammar School voice and I radiate respectability (this has always been a bit of a mystery to me, but 'tis true). I think, if I were male, I would still stop to help - - but not approach the child directly. It's sad that we have to think like that.
And as for not being able to take photos of a playground - well, that's just a total nonsense. Even if the playground was full of children. Because, do you know what, children playing look great: their movement, their facial expressions, their innocence.
Because of a few - a very few - predatory paedophiles, can we no longer watch children playing without feeling guilty? It's normal for most adults to like looking at children - not in a sexual way, for goodness' sake, but because we're biologically programmed to go "aaah - - how cute, how adorable!" Because if we didn't think that, none of us would have children.
I always have my camera with me. The next time I pass the playground in the park I am going to take a photograph of it. And the time after that, and every time. And woe betide the park keeper who asks me not to. I'm so weary of this madness.
She was always very good with small children and I would wait patiently whilst she looked for, and found, their grateful parent.
I don't go to department stores much myself but since I grew up I've come across small lost children myself on several occasions: I've always managed to find their parents and never thought much of it.
Apparently, people don't do that any more. You can leave a small lost child in the middle of a crowded shopping centre or whatever and most people just walk straight past. Perhaps it's because people have less of a sense of community than they once did. Perhaps people have become less caring. Or perhaps - the theory that Esther Rantzen put forward in a programme that I watched a few nights ago - it's because they think they might be accused of trying to abduct the child.
This television programme took two child actors, a boy age nine and a girl age seven and put them, apparently alone but in fact with lots of people keeping an eye on them to make sure they came to no harm, in a shopping centre. The centre itself was scarily reminiscent of the one the toddler James Bulger was abducted from: he, of course, was subsequently murdered by the two ten-year-old boys who took him.
In this television programme, the boy stood alone in the shopping centre, looking about him and looking definitely lost. Three hundred and thirty people walked past before someone stopped and asked him if he needed help. With the girl, it was much quicker - a mere hundred and twenty-two people ignored her before someone stopped.
A second thread to the programme was two elderly ladies who had tried to take photographs of a children's playground in a Southampton park. The playground was empty, not a child in sight, but the park keeper came up to them and gave them a very hard time about why they should wish to take these photographs.
Why was this? Because, as Esther Rantzen said, "We've gone completely barmy." So scared are we of the very few paedophiles in our midst that we would rather leave lost children without any help. So hard-wired is this "stranger danger" idea into the public consciousness that two elderly ladies can't even take photos of an empty playground without getting hassle from some jobsworth idiot of a park keeper.
One of the people who stopped to help the little boy was a man - but he didn't directly approach the boy, as he surely would have in the past. Instead, he contacted the security man at the shopping centre because he knew that this would protect him from any accusation of having evil designs on the boy.
Would I have stopped to help? Yes: as a matter of fact, I know I would, because I have done so on several occasions in the past, and d'you know what, I wouldn't give the idea of being branded a paedophile one second's thought. But then, I'm both middle-aged and female and I have a Girls' Grammar School voice and I radiate respectability (this has always been a bit of a mystery to me, but 'tis true). I think, if I were male, I would still stop to help - - but not approach the child directly. It's sad that we have to think like that.
And as for not being able to take photos of a playground - well, that's just a total nonsense. Even if the playground was full of children. Because, do you know what, children playing look great: their movement, their facial expressions, their innocence.
Because of a few - a very few - predatory paedophiles, can we no longer watch children playing without feeling guilty? It's normal for most adults to like looking at children - not in a sexual way, for goodness' sake, but because we're biologically programmed to go "aaah - - how cute, how adorable!" Because if we didn't think that, none of us would have children.
I always have my camera with me. The next time I pass the playground in the park I am going to take a photograph of it. And the time after that, and every time. And woe betide the park keeper who asks me not to. I'm so weary of this madness.
posted by Daphne at 9:31 pm
4 Comments:
I'm far more sensible. I am very slightly wary of every single man my children know. And I've taught them both what their genitalia are called, and all.
Oh, and I stop to help but I do not touch a child. I do not walk by. I have a fair idea of what could happen if people like me walk on by. It's really fucking IMPORTANT to stop.
I also know I would help a kid in this situation. Just a while back I helped a lad find his Mum in the Ikea - I just took him to the counter and they made an announcement. And you know what, this entire topic didn't actually occur to me for a second. It's only just occurred to me now. In that kind of situation I just go into official dad-mode. I’m afraid the difference is I’ve not spent most of my adult life in Britain, as it has descended into a weird twilight of paranoia. A lot of things strike us as amusing. The ‘traces of nuts’ warnings on any possible item you purchase. The nursery school kids, their warders dressed in corporate nurses uniforms, being taken out for a walk in the park on leads, like dogs. The fifteen minutes of form-filling to get into the children’s indoor playground.
When it comes to the wild miscalculation of risk, I’m reminded of some interesting statistics I heard recently. After 9/11 lots of Americans stopped flying and took the car instead. And in the next year there were as many extra road deaths every month as there were people who died in the 9/11 attacks. People find it so easy to worry about things that are outlandishly unlikely to happen to them, like terrorist bombs and child abductions, but ignore the things that are much more likely to finish them off, like driving cars or eating chicken nuggets.
Wow, I'd be fairly appalled if I saw such a nursery school outing.
I suspect the image you and I have there, ailbhe, is not the correct one ;-)
By "nursery school", michael, do you mean 3- and 4-year-olds? Because if so, it's not anything that I've *ever* heard of and I can't imagine it. If, however, you mean toddlers from a daycare nursery on *reins*, possibly with those posh nannies whose name I cannot for the life of me remember, then it makes more sense.
Norland. That's the one.
Oh, and our indoor playgrounds just get you to write a name and entry time on the list. Some of them ask for your postcode as well, but it's mostly so that at busy periods they can yell "oy! you lot! you've had your two hours"
Julie paradox
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