h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Glad i was away when this one started and some of you have managed to evetually work out for yourselves that the world has changed and that susequently the lessons children learn have changed too.

In the OPENING POST, novo told us that the standards he lives by and misses in others were "drummed into" him. They are not INNATE. We learn things and children today are learning different things to what some of you learnt. Therefore its fairly obvious that the problem is with the childrens broader education.

Childrent today have some things better and some things worse than other generations. There attitudes are less likely to be as sexist as thoise of older genrations who make daft comments about "boys" being expected to goive up their seats as if its ok to have standard that applies to only one gender.

Children today accept diversity much more readily, largely because they have grown up with it but Im NOT laying blame at the feet of oldies for their racism or belittleing attitude towards people with disabilities as a lot of them just did not have the opportunity to learn any better.

However the attitude on this thread seems to be that children not living up to nostalgic standards is down to some fault of this generation. That stinks.

one love

There is certainly less Trust today. Well I can't believe there is more.
I am 18. I was looking after 2 6 year olds. I walk along a busy road with them. There was no way round it. On the way a police officer very nearly arressted me thinking I wasa peadophile becuase I was holding there hands. Busy road. Them wanting to run around. It would have been irresponsible of me not to. In the end he agreed to phone their parents and then after they said they were hapy with the situation he decided not to arrested me still gave me a warning.

What? You got a warning for holding a kid's hand? Bugger, I hope the coppers round here dont act like that, I often let my other half's kids sit on my knee in the pub.

Nearly arrested you?

What exactly does that mean?

I commend the actions of the officer. I hope anyone in a situation where it even looks like something might be "wrong" that people dispense with any notions about privacy and ask for some sort of verification that the person holding onto two struggling children has proper permission to do so.

Good way of getting a smash in the teeth followed by 'Mind yer own effing business' round my neck of the woods. Or an even worse kicking if they put two and two together and realise they are being accused of some form of illegal activity with a child. So, no.

And as I work day in day out with police officers I'd suggest that one was being over zealous and needs to stop watching so many NSPCC adverts.

Ok. When challenged I said that one was my cousin and the other was his friend he didn't believe me. I asked him to get someone else as I didn't think want to let go of them as I thought there was a good chance one would run into the road. Police car arrived. I was told I would "undoubtably be arressted" back at the police station. I don't know why I wasn't arrested immediatly. At said station there identification was found and thee parents contacted. The parents said they trusted me. One of them came to pick them up. Despite my Auntie being the person I was not allowed to go back with them. They left I was given a warning. Then I had to walk home as I had no money on me and didn't have a phone. That walk home took me a couple of hours meaning I was very late home. My parents fortunatly had been told what had happened. If I had waited around much longer then my Dad would have picked me up. Unsiprisingly I didn't want to hang around.

In some ways I was conformted by their actions as it shows the police are vigilant. There should however be a limit.

"Good way of getting a smash in the teeth followed by 'Mind yer own effing business' round my neck of the woods. Or an even worse kicking if they put two and two together and realise they are being accused of some form of illegal activity with a child

I have been challenged for the very reasons you allude to and not once have I smashed anyone in the teeth or even mouthed ouff at any one, but then Im not from your neck of the woods, Blues

I treat people with the respect that they deserve especially whne they are just carrying out there job. Yes I do get a bit shirty when I know people are going out of their way to be difficult which is precisely why so many people have lost respect for authority in recent times.

It boils down to the fact that if children are raised with proper care for there emotional, social and intellectual development chances are they will grown into decent people who act co-operatively with others. If adults see authority figures upholding the standards they espouse then they will give respect to instituutions and the people who work for them. This is not always the case because too often the former is simply not done and whne its not some people focus on the symptom rather than the cause of the problem.

one love

>I have been challenged for the very reasons you allude to and not once have I smashed anyone in the teeth or even mouthed ouff at any one, but then Im not from your neck of the woods, Blues <

Well good for you. May your sense of moral superiority at people who would react that serve you well in future life.

Wondererinng wether punching a police officer would have been a good idea.
For some reason I think not.

Well Blues its not about moral superiority, I aim only to be as good as I choose to be by the way, but your suggestion was that ordinary falk round your way were slap happy idiots.

Maybe they are?

Round my way ordinary folks arent very happy, infact some of them are incensed and rant on for years when the subject of little Zalikas scar comes up. they go on about how intrusive the doctors questiong was and how they felt like they were being accused of something when the Doctor asked them to leave and asked a social worker in to ask more questions. However Ive not none one of these people some of them who I know have been arested and one sent to prison for violence who did not grudgingly admit the good cause ofr such actions.

Ive not noen one of the hundreds of unidentified folks who camoe to schools and playgroups to pick up kids to smack anyone in the mouth when they were asked to wqait while we phoned to check if they were someone the parent was happy to have pick up the kids. Yes they moaned about being late and huffed at being doubted but they all kept their hands to themselves.

But this isnt where you live.....

THere is a diffrence between being asked to wait while the parents are asked if it is Ok and being taken to a police station and being told you are going to be arressted. I still don't understand given the stance of the officer concerned why I wasn't arrested on the spot.
Not that I am complaining at all but it does seem odd.
A far cry from when I was looking after my cosuins (ranging in age from 4-13) and a couple giving me £50 to "look after my children" Had to chase after them to give it them back. I do not look that old.
After the incident with the police I am less willing to look after my cousins.

Good evening Sigsfried,

I am apalled at your tale of the way the police handled you. Having said that, without being there at the time I cannot judge the wisdom of their action. I am absolutely certain though, that there would have been a better way of handling it, Ask the children a question about you for example.

I am pleased that the police are 'aware' , but this goes back to my earlier posts that the 'media', and the shock / horror reporting must bear some of the blame for making us all suspect paedophiles.

It is a tragic comment that because of my gender ,and my age, I cannot take the hand of a child who is, say, lost in a supermarket, or just trying to cross a busy road. And in this context I am not impressed with the recent posts on the subject of "a bunch of fives", for want of a better term. Wrong sort of nostalgia that!

Novo

We have discussed this on another thread....

I don't think that, statistically speaking, there is a higher incidence of abuse of children (in fact, I believe I read a statistic somewhere that said that the incidence of child abuse is down but reporting and follow-up is) or crimes against children, including abduction (by strangers).

We are more aware of abduction and sexual crimes against children, and there is more interaction between police forces and more stories are reported farther afield. I think an examination of police records going well back in time would indicate that children disappeared with, if anything, greater frequency than they do today.

I know that relatives of mine, back at the turn of the 20th century lost their daughter to abduction in London. They were in London for a holiday and were befriended by a "nice" couple at their hotel, They offered to take their daughter to the theatre one evening. The parents agreed and she was never seen again. The police suspected (as was common in the day) that "white slavers" had abducted her.

In the 19th century, children were often abandoned to the streets. Children disappeared all the time. When I was a child, we often roamed pretty freely, but we were always told "Don't talk to strangers" but we really had no idea what could happen if we did.

I know that once when I was about 5, there was a man trying to lure children into a car in the small town I lived in. One girl got into the car. I never knew what happened to her. I am guessing that she wasn't actually abducted but was likely molested. Certainly, we never heard anything more about it. However, almost the same year, there was a famous abduction and murder which rivetted the country.

A 12 year-old girl was raped and murdered near Clinton, Ont. A 14 year-old classmate was tried and convicted for her rape and murder. He was initially sentenced to death but the conviction was commuted to life imprisonment. He was parolled after 10 years and has manitained his innocence all along.

Years later, an investigation revealed that the police and the Crown had completely ignored information about a number of other possible suspects as well as other evidence which was far more compleeling than the circumstantial evidence they used to convict Steven Truscott. Witnesses pointed to a man from the nearby airbase who was known to have been luring girls on the same stretch of highway (and was caught a few weeks before the girl's murder doing just that), was even a suspect in the case but dropped for unknown reasons.

Another sex offender knew the girl's family and was also dropped as a suspect....

In reviewing the case, it was apparent that such cases were not complete rarities. What was rare was that this case made national headlines. http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/truscott/

What is on the increase is parental abduction. Parents are more likely to abduct and while some countries have signed international agreements on parental abduction, many more refuse. As well, many countries which have are either not inclined or equipped to be able to conduct timely investigations or have corrupt officials which will look the other way if paid well enough. International and even simply travel within countries is easier and faster than it once was and this ennables people to go considerable distances before being caught.

Some US statistics:
http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/factsheet.html
"Youth crime victimization has declined since 1993"

http://www.nichd.nih.gov/new/releases/americas_children05.cfm
"The rate at which youths were victims of serious violent crimes went up, from 10 per 1,000 youth ages 12 to 17 in 2002, to 18 per 1,000 in 2003. However, this rate was lower than the peak of 44 victims per 1,000 youth in 1993. The report noted that the rate of serious violent crime against youth decreased by 60 percent from 1993 to 2003"


http://www.klaaskids.org/pg-mc-mcstatistics.htm
"85% to 90% of the 876,213 persons reported missing to America’s law enforcement agencies in 2000 were juveniles (persons under 18 years of age). That means that 2,100 times per day parents or primary care givers felt the disappearance was serious enough to call law enforcement.

152,265 of the persons reported missing in 2000 were categorized as either endangered or involuntary.

The number of missing persons reported to law enforcement has increased from 154, 341 in 1982 to 876,213 in 2000. That is an increase of 468%."
[Whether it is the REPORTS or the actual ABDUCTIONS that are on the rise is unclear]

http://www.jimhopper.com/abstats/ (more a clinical study, but with some good interpretation of statistical matters and the difficulty ion interpreting statistics over time... also, some good links at the end)

"Of course children have been abused throughout human history. But for people to think about child abuse as we do now, to create legal definitions and government agencies that can remove children from their homes, and to conduct thousands of research studies on the effects of abuse - these are historically and culturally embedded developments....

....All statistics on the incidence and prevalence of child abuse and neglect are disputed by some experts. (Incidence refers to the number of new cases each year, and prevalence to the percentage of people in a population who have had such experiences.)"

Well, you see Blicky, due to a lack of context you looked like you were talking giberish when you possibly weren't.

Asking someone picking up a kid from a playgroup is a reasonable line for someone who is essentially acting 'in loco parentis'.

Just simply being a busybody about everybody on the street who appears to be having difficulty controlling their kids isn't. It's grossly offensive and if it didn't lead to physical violence I would quiet respect the rights of the individual questioned in that way to feel free to tell their interogator to go forth and multiply.

Besides, if I stopped to question every parent having problems with their child it'd take me 4 hours to buy a loaf of bread from the corner shop.

Hang on. Even I said it was reasonable for me to checked up on. I just thought they went too far. I suppose if I was older I wouldn't have been stopped and this I also see as reasonable. I just think that there should be a limit. Also it is not as if I was stopped by a randomn member of the public, which I would have resented.

I'm still staggered by the cases where innocent families, or those who need a bit of help and guidance have their children put "at risk" or taken away, while others which are obviously, serially and almost publically abusing their children are left to get on with it.

(2 examples from where my sister in law lives)

First case was a seriously depressed woman who had 2 unruly children, but people who knew her did not think for a minute that she needed more than advice and support in learning how to cope with their tantrums and her depression.

2nd family had about 6 pit pulls and were generally built like brick outhouses.

And before I get jumped on from a great height: I always look if I see someone smack a kid or shout or generally behave in what I find an "unacceptable" manner. But I also sometimes wonder, especially at the end of the day, what has been going on before that. I know that sometimes the Gruesomes can harp on and on and on and on and on all day, then we need to go somewhere and they are making me late, and it takes an awful lot of self control not to scream and shout at them.

A friend of mine can't have children. She often had mine (while she lived closeby) to stay overnight, just for fun, and to give me a chance to have "me" time. My sister in law (the above one) asked me if that was wise. It's a horribly cynical view to have of the world and it makes me sad.

Oh, and btw, I totally totally agree that schools or any other place where children go (church, Scouts, Brownies, swimming club etc etc) do NOT let the kids home with anyone who just turns up to collect them.

Horribly cynical or realistic?

Would you get in a car not knowing if it was safe?

No you wouldnt, but you dont ask to see the MOT cert and log book either, you just assume that people have abided by the systems in place.

You cant do this when friends are looking after your kids though, there are no systems in place, you as the parent are the one who should atleast be thinking about the possibilities. Which you probably have even without thinking about to be fair I think your sister was just being a concerned relative.

People here have focused on the paedophile aspect and looked past the many other forms of abuse that happen to children at home, in school and at play. Some are not sensationalised most goes totally unreported. The public only sees the tip of the iceberg and some people think that some forms of child abuse are acceptable.

As I said once Blicky had made himself clear, I have no difficulty with people who act 'in loco parentis' checking these things. Indeed, It would be a serious breach of their duties if they didn't.

I have no particular problem with authority figures such as the police making gentle enquiries into what they may deem to be suspicious circumstances. What happened to Siegfrid appears to smack of an over-zealous copper or one who wanted to get back to the station for tea and sticky buns.

What I have a great deal less sympahy for is Blicky's apparent suggestion that ordinary members of the public should approach everybody on the street who appears to have problems with their kids.