Lost Child (was apparently our fault)

[Dreamstalker]

i can see that she was more than likely mad at "william". i can handle that. it was the look she gave me, like i had personally conspired against her to have her kid wander off.

Or not chased after her kid the instant he even thought of running off...but wait, then you would have been the "baddie" for daring to touch them.

if the kid doesn't handle lines well, find a way to make it a bit more tolerable, say, talk with him or entertain him somehow. goes a long way towards bonding, after all, and the postiive side effect just might be bettter behavior.

I'm never sure about starting small talk with kids. Some are happy for the distraction, but it also seems one runs a risk of getting yelled at "you're a stranger! how dare you try to talk to my child!" etc by severly overprotective parents.

Sheesh.

[blas]

I found a trick that works.

My friend and I went shopping with her 3 year old. Her 3 year old has this.....odd fascination with me. For some reason she thinks I am just the coolest person she's ever met. She's kind of changed my mind about toddlers, at least about little girls. I find her to be quite cute.

She refused to go with her mommy to a store, and instead wanted to go with me to another store to return a pair of pants.

I said, "Ok Emma, but you HAVE to hold my hand and stay right next to me or else I'll cry."

During the transaction of returning my pants, I saw out of the corner of my eye, Emma was starting to wander into displays of clothes. I didn't make a scene, but I wept, "Emmmmmmmmmmma" and started to sob, "Emmma my Emma where AREEE you?", then I brought my hand up to my face.

"I'm here I'm here I'm here!!" Emma yells as she runs at me and grabs onto my right leg. "Don't cry I'm here!"

Then she wanted me to hold her the rest of the time because she was scared I was going to cry. How sweet

[AFpheonix]

That's pretty funny.

I came from a family of seven kids. I don't ever recall my Mom losing any of us in a store, and nobody ever gave us disapproving looks for behaving badly in public.

Heh...I'm the youngest of 6, and mom was chronically leaving one of us behind

There was one family trip, after my 2nd oldest sister was born, that I only just learned about recently. They managed to wrangle my oldest sister into the car with Grandma, and off they went. Grandma eventually commented on how quiet the baby was.
Apparently that set off the lightbulb in Mom and Dad's heads that they'd left the baby on the bed Had to turn around and go alllllll the way back to get her.

[Ree]

My husband is the second youngest in a family of eight (with almost a 20 year age difference between the oldest and youngest).

One time when my husband was little, his Mom took him uptown in the carriage. That was back in the days when women in small towns safely left babies in carriages outside of stores, apparently, because she came out of the store with an armload of bags and headed home, completely forgetting about the baby.

When my husband's Dad got home, he asked where the baby was, and his Mom almost had a heart attack right there when she realized she had forgotten her baby at the store.

[reformedwaitress]

I would never ever leave a child in a store alone, but sometimes, they do wander away!

Because both my munchikins were adopted, I've never done the shopping thing with them, but when I was in high school, I would "nanny" for the neighbor during the summers. I would watch the kids all day while the parents worked and I would help out around the house when they were sleeping and usually would do the grocery shopping. And a few times, I would stay with the kids for a week / weekend while they went out of town (the family had no family near by, so we were "aunts" and my parents were "grandma and grandpa". Still are).

Now there were three kids, twin girls that were 5 and a little boy who was just about 3. They were adorable kids and usually very well behaved, but one of those girls had a mischevious streak in her. We were grocery shopping one afternoon and the little boy was in the top part of the cart and both girls were in the main part of the cart. (They were premies and always very small, they fit easily). I leaned down to get something off a bottom shelf -- I was not even turned away a minuted -- and when I turned back, Lollie was nowhere to be seen -- not in the cart, not in the aisle no where. To say I panicked would be an understatement.

If you think losing your own child is bad, try losing one you're supposed to be giving back!

There was no one in the aisle, so I couldn't see someone grabbing her. I checked both end aisle and started calling her name. I caught one of the employees, told her what had happened and asked if she would please notify the employees and help me look for her. The employee and her coworkers were wonderful and helped me look. I was in tears and seriously about to hyperventiate.

And then, all of a sudden I heard this "Miss! Miss!" and I turned around to see one of the butchers with Lollie thrown over his shoulder fireman style. She was kicking and trying to get away. "I think this might belong to you. Apparently raw meat is intriguing to her."

She had managed to crawl out of the cart, get back behind the butcher station and was trying to eat raw hamburger when the guy got her!

I put her back in the cart, went "Wicked Witch of the West" on her and told her to never EVER run away from me in a store again. It ended up okay, and I thanked all the employees profusely, but sometimes you have no control over where the kids run to!

But you don't have to be mean about it, like the woman in the OP

[lordlundar]

(sits back, munches on popcorn, sips on an orange soda, and watches entertainment unfolding before his not-quite-awake-yet eyes)

(Sits beside Jester, orange soda in hand, waiting for popcorn to finish.)

[Jack7957]

I am 2 out of 5, the only problem child of us was one brother, number 4. He would have to be strapped into a harness most of the day, even when playing in the yard so he wouldn't wander off. He had his own runway going from the house to one of the barns with a long leash so he had room to roam.

[blas]

The only argument that I have with older children (like 6 and up) is that 10-20 years ago and beyond, it was perfectly safe to send your child to the neighborhood store to get bread or milk, and it was fine to let kids go around on their own to the park.

Nowadays, with all these perverts out there, it isn't safe to do anything we all used to be able to do. I feel sorry for kids today. They are forced to grow up so fast, and parents always have to keep a watchful eye on the 40some year old man with the creepy sunglasses who keeps sizing up their child as if they were a rump roast.

[Dreamstalker]

I'm one of the last of a dying (dead?) breed, the latchkey kid.

I was walking to school on my own (granted, the building was literally across the street from our apartment) in fourth grade, by sixth I was doing grocery shopping for us and would sometimes meet my mom at her teaching restaurant at nights for dinner. Granted, this was Montpelier VT where nothing really ever happened, but still I was out after dark. A few of my mom's students took it upon themselves to look out for me. I also knew the best/fastest/safest route home, not to stop for sketchy-looking people, to go into a store or find a police officer if anything seemed "off", etc.

And this was years before cell phones, so the only way Mom had of knowing I was OK is if I called from home (or one of her coworkers called after making sure I got home). Then again, I was a fairly smart, responsible kid.

[Jester]

I found a trick that works.

<snip>

Then she wanted me to hold her the rest of the time because she was scared I was going to cry. How sweet

Sweet? Yes. But more so, brilliant psychology on your part. Absolutely brillant.

The only argument that I have with older children (like 6 and up) is that 10-20 years ago and beyond, it was perfectly safe to send your child to the neighborhood store to get bread or milk, and it was fine to let kids go around on their own to the park.

Nowadays, with all these perverts out there, it isn't safe to do anything we all used to be able to do. I feel sorry for kids today. They are forced to grow up so fast, and parents always have to keep a watchful eye on the 40some year old man with the creepy sunglasses who keeps sizing up their child as if they were a rump roast.

I have to disagree with this. 10-20 years ago it seemed safe to let your children do this, but "all these perverts" were out there then, we were just less informed about it.

And by the way, while you are keeping that watchful eye on the guy who you think is creepy, somebody who looks and acts perfectly normal may just snatch your kid. Because the fact is that most pedophiles, just like most serial killers, do not appear to be any different than the rest of us. They have learned to hide behind a facade of normalcy, thus escaping detection until they are caught in the act. Rare is the person that IS a perv and allows himself to be observed acting LIKE a perv. Also remember, it is not just the men we have to worry about. Yes, most pedophiles are men, but not all. And there are women who aren't pervs but are disturbed and want a child of their own, which for whatever reason they can't have, and will snatch someone else's.

Sorry, I respect where you are coming from here, but I felt I had to correct some common misconceptions. Because in all likelihood, that creepy looking guy in the raincoat? Is probably just a dude expecting rain.

[Rapscallion]

It's true what Jester says. There's a huge swathe of hysteria about perverts going for children, but the child rape and murder figures in the UK have remained pretty constant for several decades, if my memory serves.

A while ago, one of the moral guardian </sarcasm> newspapers over here ran a front page that named and shamed known paedophiles. Guess the results. I dare you.

Ah, what the hades... There were incidents where people with the same (common) name as one of the perverts were attacked, despite looking nothing like the pictures. People who looked vaguely like the pictures, but were innocent, were attacked. One infamous incident had vandals targetting a paediatrician. I shit you not.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4719364.stm

In times of yore, it was swept under the carpet with the title of 'offences against small children' (UK). These days, it's a living-death sentence in prisons. I'm not saying that this is right or wrong - just how it is and how attitudes have changed.

In a while, we'll have another bogeyman to hang our fears on.

Rapscallion

[AFpheonix]

Frankly, most kids are going to be molested by people they know. Far less likely to be nabbed and fondled by unknown persons.

I was walking to school by myself by first grade....I was chronically late, too
Ah well, school was just a few blocks away. I'd go hit up the little corner store for candy and ice cream, too.

[zzapp the witch]

A friend of mine (who had done time) once told me that if I ever needed to run off a guy at the park, or a fair or anywhere else, to go up and address them as "skinbeef". Apparently its prison slang for child molester, and just using the term towards a person that knew where the slang came from would imply to them that I had friends that had not only been in prison, but would have no problem going back.

I've only used it once, at our last county fair. I'm a 4-H leader, and also grew up in 4-H. Plus we are the small animal barn, you know rabbits, chickens, the "oh so cute" stuff. We are a pedo magnet. What Jester says about the man in the trench coat expecting rain is true, and that's one of the first things I learned when spotting these guys.

One evening after a concert (we're near the music half-shell), I noticed a man leaning on the building near the entrance, just people watching, normal enough. About 15 mins later, he was still there, now with his hand in his pocket....moving. We see these kinds of pervs all the time, hell its the hottest days of summer and all the girls are wearing barely anything. I figured a "Everyone can see what you're doing, now move along." would suffice......that is until I noticed that he wasn't checking out all the hot MILF's, he was looking down with this creepy smile at the kids...with an ever so slight movement from his hand in his pants.

Now this guy was normal looking. Hell, if I was single, I might have hit on him had I seen him somewhere else. I didn't even get a creepy vibe off of him, until he smiled....

So I tapped one of the kids' dads on the shoulder and let him know that I was doing a "runoff", so he could keep an eye if the guy got confrontational or violent. (I've been sucker punched before). I walked up to him, smiled ever so sweetly, and said, "Run along, skinbeef."

Guy turned white as a ghost, ripped his hand out of his pants, dropped his beer and RAN! An off duty sheriff had been walking up to the barn from behind this guy and stopped and asked what happened. "He's likin' the kiddies a little too much." He smiled and pulled out his phone while he walked in the direction the guy had ran.

Creepy guys are usually nothing more than just creepy guys.

[Jester]

The fact is, even the rumor of being a pedophile can ruin people.

For example, I am a magician, as I have said before. I have done many private parties, some for kids, some for adults, some for both. One problem some people have is that they see a "magician" and automatically assume some kind of weirdness or perversion. That is one reason (among many others, including personal preference) that I don't do EXCLUSIVELY kids shows, even though I get along well with kids, that I don't learn a lot more kid-friendly magic, and that I don't do balloon animals. (There are actually several reasons I don't do balloon animals, actually.) Because I don't want people to get that impression.

There have been two documented cases of kid show magicians in the U.S. being pedophiles, and both have been arrested, charged, convicted, and incarcerated. This has been both a relief to the magic community, the fact that these deviants are off the streets and not harming more children, and a bane as well, as it is a black eye to the reputation of the upstanding performers.

For four years, I performed tableside magic every weekend at a local restaurant. And of course local kids would often drag their parents to the restaurant to see me perform. I was (and still am) very popular with many of the island's kids, even though it has been two years since I last performed at said restaurant. One day, back when I was still there, a good friend who was one of the managers of the restaurant at the time leaned over to me and said, "Man, if you were a pedophile, you could so clean up!" He was joking, of course, and said it only to me, out of earshot of everyone else, but it was STILL in horrible taste. Because all it takes is the ALLEGATION of such impropriety and an entire career could be ruined, not to mention that person's life outside of the career. That is why I have always been very careful with my interaction with kids, so that there can be no sense of such improprieties.

Why am I so careful? Because in today's very paranoid (and often rightfully paranoid, mind you) society, some people would see me and question things. Single man, loves kids, has no kids, wants no kids of his own, performs for kids. All this adds up in their mind and they get a total that is at odds with the facts. Yes, I love kids. Yes, I love performing for kids. I also love performing for adults (drunks are often better AND worse than kids in many respects, and the humor I can use is broader, of course), and I despise pedophiles, as what they do to children is beyond reproach. As I know a fellow performer whose actions around children is questionable, and HAS been questioned by adults, I know that it is best to leave no room for such questions. (No, I won't go into details about the fellow performer, as it is always possible that I and others have misinterpreted said actions. That being said, I associate with this person as rarely as I can, because, frankly, I DON'T think I am misinterpreting things.)

There are many, many people who love children and enjoy their company or being around them and are not in any way pedophiles or perverts or inappropriate in their actions. And pedophiles use this knowledge to fit in and seem like one of those people.
Have there been magicians that were pedophiles? Yes.
Are all or even most magicians pedophiles? No.
Have there been scout leaders who were pedophiles? Yes.
Are all or even most scout leaders pedophiles? No.
Have there been teachers who were pedophiles? Yes.
Are all or even most teachers pedophiles? No.
Have there been preachers who were pedophiles? Yes.
Are all or even most preachers pedophiles? No.

The fact is that most pedophiles are people that you would never suspect or expect to be. While our society has gone to some degrees overboard in being wary about them (see Raps comments about the attacks above as just one example), I think that that paranoia has done some good, in the sense that people are talking about this, people are getting educated about this, and more and more, this kind of thing is being stopped.

The above is all my academic thought on the subject.

My personal view on the subject? If anyone, ANYONE, ever did any of this sick shit to my nieces or nephews or friends' kids or my girlfriends' kids, they had better pray the cops found them before I did, or there would be nothing left for the cops to identify. And no god in heaven or devil on earth would be able to protect them from me. My views on rape or sexual assault against my girlfriend, friends and relatives is the same. (Not all sickos focus on the kiddies.) My views on these things are well known, and I have found that you don't have to be a large physical presence to intimidate and scare the living shit out of someone.

(My apologies to anyone that finds this rant too intense, but this subject gets my blood boiling.)

[zzapp the witch]

Don't worry Jester, I love you. /big hugs

(Plus you went up two notches on my magician's scale because you don't do balloon animals. I hate balloon animals!)