That Was Then, This is Now II
By Daniel Miessler on November 17th, 2007: Tagged as Culture | History
My post titled That Was Then, This is Now has received quite a reaction. I can’t really take any credit, however, as all I did was post an anonymous email forward. Still, it’s interesting that the post stirred so many emotions.
The concept is essentially that things have changed drastically in the last 40 years, and that many of these changes have been for the worse. Just today I received the worst comment in the whole thread from an Italian teacher, and it speaks to the point quite poignantly:
I am a (male) high school teacher and I have a daughter. If I see a child or (worse) a pre-teen crying on the beach I change my direction and put as much distance as possible between us. It’s too dangerous even to take a picture, imagine TOUCHING them!
The sad thing is that I’m not joking; I never touch my students and I couldn’t even imagine touching one of my daughter’s little friends.
Sad. To think that one of his daughters’ friends could skin a knee in the back yard playing and that it would be a bad idea for him to clean the wound and put a bandaid on it. It’s just insane.
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This is the way men are treated now, second class citizens, the eternal scapegoat. Men have become demonized, a man by default is assumed to be a sexual predator. We have misandrists masquerading as feminists to thank for that.
This is 100% true. On a British Airways flight, a man cannot be sat next to children flying alone. They will move the man to another seat, because presumably, he cannot be “trusted” to be in the company of children and not molest them. A British Airways stewardess recently tried to move a British politician on a flight because he was sat next to two children, and only relented when the children pointed out that he was in fact their father.
Worse still, this is how bad it has become… in England a few years ago, a man observed a small girl wandering around a village unaccompanied early one morning. Terrified he would be labelled a paedophile, he did nothing and went on his way. She was found a couple of hours later floating face down in the duck pond, having fallen in and drowned. The man was unable to help this child without risking his life/home/family by being assumed predatory, and the child paid with her life.
Time for change.
Comment by AvgGuy — 11/19/2007 @ 3:05 pm
I agree with the teacher. I am 71 YO and have raised 3 daughters. I used to always talk to kids in stores, shopping malls, etc. I love kids. In the past twenty years I have avoided talking to kids, smiling at them, asking if I can help if they appear lost, etc. If you smile at a child or (heavens forbid!) talk to them the mother runs over and grabs their kid and verbally abuses you while threatening the call the police. I’m sure that you hear this all the time from my older generation; but I really don’t like what this world has become.
Comment by rgriisser — 11/19/2007 @ 3:43 pm
It is very sad, I just saw a boy (about 4 years old) crying he`s eyes out at the train station. All alone, it was clear to everyone that he had lost his Mum. Back in the old days, I would have been the first to help. Now days, I also walk the other way. It was also very disappointing to see no women giving help, they were all to busy shopping.
Comment by Dario — 11/19/2007 @ 3:50 pm
When I was a little girl, I had strange men grab me in the stores. At 16, I had strange men grab my breasts when they were supposed to be ringing up my purchases. He had “trouble seeing” and couldn’t tell where I was holding my money, he said.
My child (a BOY), when I tried to use a pay phone, was grabbed by a strange man and I had to pull him off him.
Men, if you don’t want to be treated like animals, stop acting like them!
Comment by asdf — 11/19/2007 @ 4:03 pm
I was in Target one day with my 1-year old son. I came across a little girl, probably around 3, who was crying because she had lost her mother. I told to come with me to use the store information phone and we would get an employee to help her. I was immediately blocked from doing this by a lady with children. She gave me the dirtiest look and said she would take care of it. I will never forget how this bitch made me feel for wanting to help a lost child.
Comment by Aaron — 11/19/2007 @ 4:29 pm
asdf, I’m not behaving like that so why do I deserve to be treated like an animal? Because OTHER men are behaving like animals? The only thing we have in common is our gender. I only have the power to control my own behaviour so I shouldn’t be held accountable for other people’s actions.
Comment by thomas — 11/19/2007 @ 4:38 pm
Dear citizen asdf.
As much as I do understand Your situation I hope You also do understand the situation described here.
You described a group of perverted men. Notice how this is just a group of men, not all. Whereas the the situation described in this article applies to ALL men, including those that are perverted, those that will never meet a nice girl as they were put away for helping a kid, those that are quite normal and pleasant, but are too afraid to socialize with the female population out of fear of being accused of “verbal abuse” and all the other groups.
Although my example may be a bit extreme, then the issue remains: a group vs ALL
Faithfully, KT (from Europe of course)
NB: One could have taken the other path and described how women are exactly the same, but don’t have such “discriminating restrictions”. I choose not to touch that issue.
Comment by KT — 11/19/2007 @ 4:48 pm
You know, there are female molesters and perverts out there too.
Comment by Heywood Jablome — 11/19/2007 @ 5:34 pm
My Goodness. The problem is not society. It is that you people have forgotten how to be men.
If you see someone, anyone, who needs help, you freaking HELP THEM. Stop being fearful wimps. You just have to use what should be common sense. As for the old guy wanting to talk to random kids in malls, that’s creepy. You don’t know these kids and chances are, you don’t really have any reason to talk to them. It is simple. If you really want to talk to a child, talk to the kid’s parents first and GET PERMISSION. Introduce yourself, for crying out loud. Don’t just walk up to some random child, disrespecting the parent standing nearby, and chat up the kid. Your presumption that the parent will be okay with your being “friendly” is the problem, not talking to a child.
As for the Target guy who said “come with me” to a child supposedly lost in a store: Your problem is presuming too much. If you cared about the child, you should have done what the woman did. Standby and watch over the child. Wait until the mother comes back, or if you were really worried, call out for help in the store. You have to have basic social skills to interact with kids, which mean that you have to think that perhaps the kid is not really lost, but the mother is standing nearby and the kid is crying because she’s tired, cranky, or wasn’t allowed to touch a toy she wanted. You coming up and wanting to take the kid from the area is a BAD IDEA. The parent is around, and your trying to help in that way was stupid. You are assuming too freaking much, and you don’t have the right to take a child from one place to another, even in a store. Think about it from the parent’s point of view. The parent, if the child has wandered off, is franticly looking for the kid in the last place she was seen. Your attempt to help actually makes it harder to find the child.
Comment by David S — 11/19/2007 @ 5:46 pm
I’ve had friends approach me the past few years, knowing I was tired of my career, suggesting that I would make a great teacher. I’ve always been pretty quick to be against it. Kids are very street smart these days. If I ever had a kid decide she was going to take revenge for a bad grade and make ugly accusations, my life and career would be over. Even if the kid admitted later in making it up, there would always be a shadow of a doubt, and there will always be people that think you’ve threatened them, paid them off, or done something to get them to change their story.
I can see where it is simply a lot more effective to never be in any position to be set up and accused of something.
Comment by Dave Nofmeister — 11/19/2007 @ 5:47 pm
I think that this state of affairs says a lot more about the fear that individuals have for their own livelihoods and personal security than doing what is right. If I see someone in distress I immediately step forward and offer assistance. Especially in the case of children or the elderly.
If my “right minded” actions somehow lead me to a difficult situation then so be it. I would rather do what is right and worry about the consquences later. Nothing I have is worth the thought of a child (or other helpless individual) being left to their fate.
I also imagine that my intervention might prevent subsequent harm at the hands of someone less scrupulous.
Just my 2 cents
Comment by dg — 11/19/2007 @ 6:29 pm
I was waiting for my girlfriend to get home on Halloween one night last year, but I decided to not miss the trick or treating. Love seeing all the funny costumes. I’m mid 20’s and felt insanely uneasy passing out candy to the kids all by myself. Until my girlfriend showed up from work that evening every single parent walked up with their kids to get candy from me. When my GF got there, not a single one walked all the way up. It was funny noticing that. But i also hated the fact that I personally felt a little awkward sitting out there passing out candy. Call me a sissy, but it was just weird.
Comment by BG — 11/19/2007 @ 9:41 pm
To dg, David S and others who are reading this who share their opinions I have this to say.
I really don’t think you people grasp the kind of social stigma attached to being labelled a paedophile. It is not some “difficult situation”, it is something that would ruin you and your family for life. In the modern, misandric, world men have to be so careful of what they do. The days of the small community where everyone knows everyone, and know that you can be trusted to look after their children, are gone.
Maybe the situation isn’t quite so bad in America but in Ireland (and judging from what I’ve read I’d say the UK too) there is a sort of mass hysteria surrounding paedophilia. I would be terrified of being in a situation where I, a young, single man, was alone with a strange child. The thing is, even the mere accusation, no matter how groundless, of being a paedophile is enough to ruin a persons life. I realise I’m repeating myself but I cannot stress that point enough.
Comment by Obran — 11/19/2007 @ 9:48 pm
A bit off topic maybe but that last point makes me want to put in my point. People go on about the collapse of family values. Has anyone thought that maybe it’s the collapse of COMMUNITY values that has led to these problems? Families are getting more insular and selfish, with parents caring more about a 1 in a million threat to their child than the rest of society and the planet. More family values isn’t going to help.
The other point is the media will always emphasise the weird, scary few and never mention the normal majority. The terrorists, paedophiles and gun toting murders are taking over our minds. Stop consuming their salicious headlines and get your view of the world from your local community.
Comment by CK — 11/20/2007 @ 12:22 am
Recently my girlfriend got a new job where she is required to share a desk with a lady that works a different shift. My girlfriend tells me this lady she shares a desk refuses to share a desk with a male because she didn’t want him staring at pictures of her children.
My first thought was she must have been seriously wronged by a male to exhibit such intense paranoia.
But on second thought, I have noticed more pedophilia type crime stories on the news, in the papers, and on the web. How many pedophilic priest stories have you read in the past year?
Maybe this could be attributed to more modern investigation methods leading to the solution of more cases, or more comfortable modern communications methods for victims to come forward.
Either way the fact is that the rate at which these crimes are committed is becoming more and more visible, and it is alarming how often they are committed. It is hard to blame a concerned parent for such paranoia.
Comment by Cornelius — 11/20/2007 @ 7:22 pm
[...] distance as possible between us. It s too dangerous even to take a picture, imagine TOUCHING themread more | digg [...]
Pingback by travel blog » Blog Archive » “If I see a child or a pre-teen crying on the beach I change my direction” — 11/21/2007 @ 9:14 am
It’s really sad that this is what our society has come to. Even women have to be careful of touching children and being misunderstood. I think humans are actually hardwired to protect and by extension, comfort children. We need to remember pedophiles are the exception not the rule.
Comment by S. Quarton — 11/24/2007 @ 7:06 am
As a man, I’ve been the target of that sort of treatment. I started to write in order to rail against the way society treats men, but then I realized that the treatment well-meaning men receive in these situations isn’t the worst of the scenario.
Imagine the generation of children we are raising.
About 40% of American children now live in homes without fathers. Their male teachers are afraid to touch them. When I was a teen I took jobs babysitting, but boys aren’t allowed to do that anymore. I’ve gotten dirty looks for handing a kid at the store a box she was trying to reach on a high shelf, AND I WORKED AT THE STORE!
How messed up are these kids going to be by the time they’re raising their own children?
Comment by Steve — 11/24/2007 @ 11:42 pm
@david s
Good luck with that, David S. You “real man” you!
Comment by James D. Newman — 11/25/2007 @ 5:17 am
I am 25 and married. Recently my wife was asked to babysit her niece (6) and nephew (16) from 5am-8am while their mother went to work. Because my house was thirty minutes away, and I had to be at work at 8:20am and my work was only 5 minutes from the place she was babysitting, I made the suggestion that I come with my wife so that I wasn’t late for work. My wife called and asked if it was okay for me to come and her cousin said, “No, I really don’t want him around my daughter without me”.
I took this very hard. It felt like I was being called a child molester. To make matters worse, my own wife said nothing to defend me. She simply said okay, told me, and forgot about it. As childish as this sounds, I ended up speaking to her mother about how this whole thing made me feel. And it wasn’t until my mother-in-law spoke to her that my own wife defended me.
I have 2 younger sisters. Both were molested as children. My mother was molested. My wife was molested. Every woman I know was molested in some fashion. I understand being cautious with strangers. I understand not leaving your kids alone with family someone marries into. But I wasn’t alone. My wife would have been there. Furthermore, these people have known me for some time and know that I was a babysitter during jr high school and High School. The bottom line is that kids adore me. And I adore kids. Never in my life had someone treated me like this, but because of a few asshole men the majority of men will at some point in their life will face sexual criticism to some degree. Women scream for equality in the work place. They scream for pro choice. They scream and scream, and scream. All the while women are gaining rights and men are loosing rights. Women are in control of our lives. Its an unfortunate truth. Case in point. A women gets pregnant from a guy she just meant at the club. This woman has some serious power. She can scream RAPE and banish the guy for life. She can murder his baby. She can have the baby and demand that he pay her child support for the next 18 years. ….
Comment by Jasl — 11/27/2007 @ 12:51 am
if parents looked after their children more than they do about themselves this would not happen. if a child is lost is due tho his or her parents not taking care of them.
Comment by luis flores — 2/8/2008 @ 4:55 am
A few years ago I was visiting parents for the Thanksgiving holiday and I wanted to get away from the family so I walked to the nearby gas tation a few blocks away. Halfway there I saw a toddler walking in the curb of the street all alone. I ran up to her but didn’t pick her up because I was afraid someone driving by would think I had kidnapped her. I took her hand and we walked to the nearest house because I figured she’d just barely wandered out. Nope. She’d been out wandering a few blocks but the people there knew who she was.
Comment by Beth — 8/1/2008 @ 6:10 pm
Jasl, the only options you’re giving that woman in your club senario is hunt the man down and either a)marry a complete stranger or b) have his baby and raise it herself. It’s her baby, too. She has to deal with it much more than he does, and while I don’t at all support crying rape for no reason, if the man chooses, after (if able) she’s informed him, not to take part in the child’s life, then he has no say in her decision about having and abortion or not.
And also,Abortion and baby murder are a little bit different.
Comment by Asd — 8/1/2008 @ 6:45 pm
DAVID S you are so stupid and antisocial. back 30 years ago there was a lot more trust and in a small town everyone knew each other. so if you say hello to your neighbors kids you should be locked away you FREAK. If you goin other countries that are friendly andsay hello and wants to know where are you from etc, because they are curious you should run you stupid ***… or they should ask permission from your parents. If your kid gets lost they should let him cry and let him get ran by a car or let him spend a night out because they don’t care about your sun if theyg et in trouble…..
SO GET BACK IN YOUR BASEMENT YOU FReAK DAVID S and die alone .
Comment by irimia — 8/14/2008 @ 5:39 pm