So my oldest two kids are volunteering at a church say camp this week. I am kind of proud of them for stepping up and doing even though it meant missing some things that they really wanted to. It shows some maturity that hopefully will filter down to things like follow simple instructions. While I could meander over that topic for quite a while what has piqued my interest is the rules they have to follow and the things they were taught in “training”. They are only allowed to “hug” the campers in two specific ways, one being a one armed sort of hug action and the other being an “A” hug where they cross their wrists with their arms on the shoulders of the camper but don’t get any closer than the camper being at the farthest reaches of their arms. Tickling is right out, so is patting anyone on the head, or carrying anyone. The rules even apply to their interactions with their own siblings! What a load of CYA BS!
They are “training” them to avoid anything that might be construed as “sexual” contact. You can argue that this is a good thing but if you do I’ll just call you a moron. The chance of any child being molested is so low that it’s complete unreasonable to be afraid of it to being with and the incidents of children molesting other children are so rare that it makes these rules completely laughable. These rules are unnecessary and only contribute to the atmosphere of fear that permeates our society. Every day I get more and more pissed off about our societal fears and the constant overreaction to them, especially by other parents. Simply put we are living in the healthiest, most prosperous, safest era in the whole of human history and yet we allow ourselves to be paralyzed by fear! The media and the government certainly aren’t helping matters. It seems the only way to pull yourself out of the mire and rise above the fear is take the time to actually look in to the things in which you are supposed to be afraid and frankly not enough people are willing to go even that far.
The end result of this is that a fourteen year old girl can’t give an eight year old a hug at a church camp! It’s completely ridiculous and if you try and speak out, most of the time, all you’ll get is an emotional response that has no basis in reality. Reality doesn’t matter to a mother who thinks she is doing best by her child. The problem is that children are being taught to fear. They fear every man they say that doesn’t have a woman with them. It’s frankly just sick. These children, boys and girls alike, will grow up not trusting anyone and society will be worse off for it but can you get anyone beyond a small subset of parents to listen? It’s not likely.
This post isn’t all that coherent because I am typing it whilst angry. No I am not going to give citations because I am sick and tired of people not looking stuff up for themselves. I will respond mockingly to any comments that are not based on actual statistics. This is my rant, my vent, and I reserve the right to deride anyone who doesn’t bother actually looking the numbers if they want to disagree with me. No it’s not fair and I really don’t give a crap!
Comments
Autopsy IV on 07.09.2012
“The chance of any child being molested is so low that it’s complete unreasonable to be afraid of it to being with”
truth.
“The chance of ________________ is so low that it’s complete unreasonable to be afraid of it to being with” is typically the most accurate answer.
Romeo Sid Vicious on 07.09.2012
Vic my blog auto-posts to Facebook. I think the comments go both ways as well but I am not on Facebook. I post to my blog, it auto-posts to FB.
Romeo Sid Vicious on 07.09.2012
Nope. Two is all you get…