Pedophile Alert

A grandmother taking a picture of her four-year-old granddaughter splashing around in a kiddie pool? What a perv! Get her!

To be sure, Granny's not the only one who just might be a child-porn fiend. Parents videotaping their children's Christmas play now also come under a priori suspicion. As did yours truly when he took some pictures at a dance performance. As did this father after he took snaps of his sons peeing out a campfire in the woods. To say nothing of this woman, who was unwise enough to sit on a park bench next to a playground (sans camera).

Or consider the Spiked Online story about Brian Sheldon, emeritus professor at the University of Exeter in England.

He was indulging his four-year-old grandson's obsession with trains by walking with him along a low wall near the railway at the back of his house. Suddenly, a car sped towards them, skidded to a halt, and a couple of shaven-headed young men leapt out. Alarmed, he moved to protect his grandson — but then the men produced their ID. They were detectives, and demanded that Sheldon explain his relationship with this child. When the explanation was offered, they demanded to see some ID. Eventually they left.

Now the boy, who had been given the clear impression that granddad is a potential pedophile, "no longer likes to watch the trains," Sheldon says.

Is it just me, or does the hysteria level really go up a bit every day?

[thanks to Tom Karnofsky for pointing me to the Spiked Online story]

Comments

[mk]

As a single dad, I've had a few experiences. Once, while I was at a rec center playground, I was asked by some rec center staff what I was doing there and had to produce my own child as proof that I wasn't a pedophile and had a reason to be there.
Every time I went to the playground after that, I felt like I ought to, say every ten minutes or so, stand next to my child and loudly proclaim. "This is my child! I have a reason to be here!"

[Ella]

It's amazing how largely irrational fears can make it difficult for men as a whole to be around children. I find it so sad. And why does nobody ask this stuff of women? Not that I think that would be right either, but I don't think it's fair that men are considered with such suspicion while everybody thinks women, simply because of they're female, shouldn't even be bothered. There was an airline a while ago in Australia or New Zealand -- don't remember which -- that prohibited men from sitting next to children on their flights. I don't remember if they kept that rule, but I definitely hope not.