That is a real shame. I have had almost exclusively positive interactions with the other parents and kids at the playground. Maybe a different culture where you are.
That is a real shame. I have had almost exclusively positive interactions with the other parents and kids at the playground. Maybe a different culture where you are.
> I have had almost exclusively positive interactions with the other parents and kids at the playground.
These stories were all over Reddit for years. I remember a thread asking for examples of things Reddit led them to believe that weren’t true, and the top voted comment was that Reddit made them think that going to the playground as a lone dad would cause women to view them as a predator. In reality, going to the playground as a dad in most places is a non-event. It’s common for dads to be there alone with their kids. When I go, it’s a mix of moms and dads and we all talk and interact.
Yet to a non-parent reading Reddit it seemed like going to the park as a dad was asking for trouble. The story was repeated so often.
I’m sure these events do happen some times. When it does, I wouldn’t be surprised if the accuser was reading their own Reddit equivalent social media website where stories about men being creeps at the playground get passed around as fact. To them, it’s just how they see the world working because they’ve heard it repeated so often.
I don't think we can chalk these up to "it's just Reddit, amiright?" I have a daughter, and I've personally had a non-zero number of negative interactions with justice-moms on the playground / at kid events. Are those interactions extremely rare? Yes. Did it freak me out a little? Yes. Are these kinds of anecdotes amplified on Reddit? Yes. A dad needs to keep in mind that he's likely to encounter it at least once in a while, while also not avoiding all life on the off chance the it happens.
I have not encountered anything like that (but I am not in the US).
What I have encountered in the two countries I have lived in is the persistent expectation that the norm is for children to be with women, not with men. This makes suspicion of men with or near children more plausible.
I still find people are surprised a man is the primary parent. My daughter lives with me and people assume her mother must be dead. People have asked where mum is. Dads looking after their own kids are sometimes described a baby-sitting.
This is not as bad, but it does set things up for regarding men being around children as suspicious.
> I don't think we can chalk these up to "it's just Reddit, amiright?"
That’s not what I was saying. I admitted that these things must happen somewhere.
The Reddit issue is that those isolated incidents were presented as common occurrences. It was talked about like any dad going to any park was going to attract dirty looks.
Instead, it’s a rare thing that happens when you come across someone problematic who sees problems where they don’t exist.
Whether something is rare vs. common can only be verified with statistics, and you'll notice a trend that someone pushing a narrative will refuse to cite any published statistics, or hand-waves them away for specious reasons, because they're trying to manipulate you using an emotional gut-response of something that "feels true" and also hits a fragile part of your ego. Indulging in that fantasy soothes your wounded ego better than pure rationality and holding beliefs lightly would, so you have nothing to gain by questioning their narrative even in your own mind. It's the same process of emotional manipulation used by fascist provocateurs.
What if people who have children approach them differently from those without, and it's noticeable?
Before my male friends had kids, they were tense and apprehensive around toddlers. They worried they would hurt them, etc.
Now, they act like Dads, even with kids who have nothing to do with them.
These guys weren't bad people to begin with. They just didn't radiate "dad energy" for lack of a better phrase.
Wasn't it the Internet Research Agency trying to stir up gender tension in the West? I hate this timeline but I truly believe this is happening.
The problem here is the asymmetric nature of outcomes. The vast majority of these types of interactions will be positive, but it only takes 1 to ruin someone's life or reputation, that forces over-correction in behavior
Honestly it’s rare, it’s not normal. But it’s also so scary I just won’t risk it, however small the risk. You can’t tell which strangers are crazy.
My wife, on the other hand, is the parent who will go over and play with all the children while the parents are on their phones. But she’s a woman, so it’s different.
I'm honestly not sure I understand what you are afraid of. What accusation could she possibly make in the context of a playground setting that has such dire consequences, especially if you're with your own children? Who would act on it?
I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a huge "pedophile panic" going around these days--much worse than the "satanic panic" back in the 80s and the "video game panics" in the 90s. I don't think anyone wants to be the next viral video star with a caption like "Found a pedo at the park--put him on blast!"
Nope, I hadn't, maybe it's not made it to my neck of the woods (world; I'm not in the US) yet. Is this extremely recently and mediated by the whole Trump-Epstein of it all?
I think it's been almost a decade since it started ramping up. Hard to say when its peak was exactly, but I think it's been finally started dropping off a bit in the past year. It's going to take a long time before the fear goes away though.
Just look at the article linked in this submission. Even just a false, unsubstantiated accusation can be devastating.
I don't think these are comparable. The accusations in this case are about systematically sleazy behavior and hint at not-so-consensual sex, which isn't exactly the same as "this guy bothered my kid somehow for a minute".
Also, to be clear, the accusations the article is about are false and unsubstantiated according to the author. It's a "he said, she said".
He's managed to agree with a small number of signatories of the Open Letter that they acted on no evidence (in a jurisdiction where the burden of proof for libel is on the defense, so if they had decided not to agree they'd have had to prove this wrong), but not e.g. the original accusors. The fact that he wrote an epic blog post without being clear on this doesn't really make him look great, though I acknowledge he wanted to focus on a different aspect.
The court case (ending in a consent order, not a judgement) is an interesting story about "as a UK citizen, should you be signing an Open Letter if you merely believe accusers, but don't know them to be right, and can demonstrate how you know", but it has little to do with the accusations themselves.
The problem is that if anyone at any time feels like they're just annoyed with you or don't want you around anymore they can make an accusation, completely unfounded, that will destroy your life.
The problem is is that a lot of guys walking around that haven't had it happen to them assume it hasn't happened to them because they've been doing everything right when really you've just been lucky so far.
Look, I hope the original author doesn't see this, I don't want to kick people when they're down. But the vast, vast majority of these controversies involve admitted sexual activity which a stereotypical stodgy dad would identify as inappropriate, and I would encourage any men who worry about being cancelled to consider whether he might have a point. While there's no guarantees in life, it's extremely unlikely that a story like this could happen to me, because I don't sleep with people when the propriety of doing so is even remotely in question.