A few days ago, Jay G had a story on about a crazy lady in L.A.(are there any other kind?) who approached a stroller, unbuckled the child from the stroller, and proceeded to beat the child against a truck, before later telling police
she wanted to eat the child's arm.
And I'm guessing she wasn't going have a Nice Chianti.
Jay goes on to talk a bit about not just how he feels he would react to this type of situation, but, also about how a parent could possibly let someone get close enough to their child's stroller to unbuckle and pick up their child.
That's what caught my eye, and then just this weekend, we had this story in our local paper:
Man charged with molesting toddler at Kennewick library
Now, because it is a newspaper, and the struggling to maintain readership, the headline sounds slightly worse than what really happened...a sick, sick guy was following a few little girls around, took pictures of a few of them with his cell phone, and managed to pat one on the butt a few times after she stood up.
I'm not sure that counts as molestation, but I'm here to tell you, if I was at the library with my two daughters, and saw some guy patting on of them on the bottom, I'm probably going to react like it's molestation.
I feel bad for the father in the story...I mean, I only have two children to ride herd over, and I know once you get them into the library that it's tough to keep an eye on both of. In my case, older daughter is starting look in the teen fiction areas, while younger daughter is still in the Bearenstein Bears, Fancy Nancy stuff. There are times I HAVE to split my attention. I would like to think that libraries are safe places, but stories like this scare me...and I'm sure Breda could come up with some library stories that would make my skin crawl.
It's a scary world, and I don't have all the answers. More often than not, I have to start trusting my 9-year old to look out for herself at places like this. Younger daughter is a friendly hugger...if this guy had patted her bottom, she might have given him a hug and kiss on the cheek....unless she was able to sense something was wrong.
The other question this story begs is, When do you stop being a witness, and become an active participant? This article, and others about the same occurrence, report a 'witness' as noticing this guy was following the girl around, taking pictures with his cell phone, and saw him pat the girl on the bottom. How far was this witness going to let the guy go? Were they going to follow him to the white panel van and write down the license plate number, or at some point were they going to step up and at least ask if the guy was a father/uncle? Ask the little girl 'Do you know this person?' DO SOMETHING!!!!!!
I understand we live in a litigious society. You can't just walk up and taser someone for taking pictures of little girls with their phones...I was doing that at the splash and play the other day. Now, if you find out they aren't a family member and they are taking pictures, feel free to taser them...or worse. If you see something goofy, that doesn't feel right(and it seems from the articles that several people had that feeling), ASK SOME QUESTIONS!!!!!
All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can — and must — be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a "perfect society" on any foundation other than "Women and children first!" is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly — and no doubt will keep on trying.
- Lazarus Long
No comments:
Post a Comment