Kids from my generation, the last of the Baby Boomers, walked to school alone at five or six years old. We ran errands for our mothers, and often disappeared to play outside in the neighbourhood for the whole day with instructions to return at dinnertime.
I don’t remember my parents ever warning me about strangers. Somehow they got the message across without threatening me with tales of the Boogie Man or child snatchers (my mother did threaten to send me to Timbuktu on occasion, but that’s another story).
I wasn’t frightened to be out and about on my own when I was young. I was aware, but didn’t cringe with fear if a car crawled along the road beside me: presumably the driver was looking at house numbers, trying to find an address, or not wishing to startle me by pulling into the driveway in front of me.
In fact, it wasn’t some nebulous fedora wearing shadow (my take on the Boogie man, in those days) that worried me. It was other children who proved to be the most troubling.
When I entered grade one, for instance, there was an older boy who would sit in wait for me like a wayward bird of prey on my walk to school. Every morning I had to pass his house and every single morning he would steal the hat right off my head. I remember the doom-like, here we go again, feeling come over me as I prepared to chase him and my hat around and around his front yard for the umpteenth time that week. He had one of those girls’ names like Valerie or Marion. (I figure we both had our own crosses to bear.) When I begged my mother to let me just skip the hat and go to school bare-headed, she wouldn’t hear of it. That would have meant he’d won. She insisted that I stand up for myself and continue walking past his house, hat and all.
My first experience with bonafide strangers occurred when I was six.
It was a sleepy weekend afternoon. I was riding my scooter home along the sidewalk. The trees were all in bloom up and down our street and my father was mowing the lawn; possibly the first cut of the season. I could see him in the distance — brown flannel work shirt, trademark cigarette in his mouth — as he pushed our heavy gas mower back and forth through the grass.
I’d been to the Shopping Plaza a few blocks away where there was a Safeway, a laundromat and variety store. It’s likely I’d been sent there to mail a letter, and even more likely that I’d stopped outside the Variety store to eye the Pink Pearl erasers and Green Hornet water pistols in the window.
I was only moments from home when a big old brown car came down the street towards me and pulled up to the curb.
“Now wait a minute…” I thought.
The lady in the passenger seat had a sad look in her eyes. She was a bit younger than my mother and the man driving looked like he was her husband. The engine was running and the lady opened the car door. She got half way out and motioned me over to her. I stayed on the sidewalk with my scooter and didn’t approach the boulevard.
She asked if I knew where the grocery store was. It seemed odd that two grown-ups would be asking me, a kid, for help. I answered yes, and pointed down the street — in the same direction they were headed.
“How far?” she asked.
I didn’t know how far, but told her it was close, that I’d just been down there.
“Come, get in,” she said. “Get in the car and show us.”
“But I have my scooter,” I said.
“We’ll put it in the trunk and you can ride it back later.”
“Huh?” I thought. It didn’t make sense. Why would I go back to the store if I had just come from there?
At that moment, my father happened to appear in the distance; he rounded the lawn intently with his mower, backed it over a swath of grass and moved out of sight again.
“But I’m almost home,” I said. “My Dad’s over there, you could ask him.” I motioned to my house up the street.
The woman swung her legs back into the car, shut the door and the couple drove off without a word.
It didn’t scare me then, but it scares me now.
Photo Credit
Photo courtesy of www.JMLFfoundation.com
Trisha says
We all hear horrible stories on the news about children abducted from a playground or approached by a stranger on the way to school. You need to teach your child to be safe when it comes to dealing with adults. The trick is to do so without causing her to fear every adult that she comes into contact with. The idea of my children being harmed or lost is not something anyone wants to consider. I found an article by anationofmoms about a service that can protect your family via your cell phone. And, at the bottom there is an opportunity to enter a drawing for 6 months of that service just by liking them on Facebook. You might find it interesting: http://anationofmoms.com/2011/08/protect-your-family-giveaway.html
Steve says
Kids should absolutely be taught about stranger danger. But at the same time, it’s parents’ responsibility to know that, despite what you hear on the news, statistically the world is actually considerably *safer* than when we grew up. Moreover, the risk from strangers is so minuscule that children are hundreds of times more likely to get injured riding in a car. If we can teach our kids how to handle themselves responsibly while also protecting them from true dangers instead of imagined ones, they’ll grow up capable of handling whatever the world has to offer and not overly worrying about the inconsequential.
Rich artichoker says
this was a really thought provoking article, and I see the that the two arguments i hear most often when discussing the state of the world are mentioned here. 1) the world has changed into a bigger, scarier and more dangerous place. 2) it’s not really that much scarier it’s just media makes us more aware of the bad stuff… my humble opinion is that both viewpoints are true. the world is a bigger and more dangerous place for our kids than it was for us. when I was a Kid it wasn’t any big deal for me to be out riding my bike all over town by myself. i would not allow my daughter to do that in my home town t this point in history, things have changed. Media has also made us all acutely aware of the prevalence of violent crime in our society and how it has progressed into the suburbs and smaller communities. It’s not just a big city problem any more. think that being exposed to the media and it’s obsession with violence has made us anxious, scared, and hyper vigilant with our kids. i don’t think it is a bad thing that parents are much more aware of where their kids are and what they are doing But i think with all this awareness of the possible dangers most parents haven’t been taught a real strategy as to what to do when trouble does arise. one of the things I do is teach a seminar on W omen’s Self defense and we expand into how to defend and keep your child safe as well. I was introduced to a book: “protecting the gift” by Gavin De Becker by another fellow Martial arts instructor and It kind of blew the lid off of what i had been taught about what to teach your kids about being safe. For example, we have all heard it’s appropriate to teach kids not to talk to strangers right? Well Gavin’s contention is that is not as helpfull as you might think and in an emergency that only leaves a child, especially a young child without a strategy for finding help if they are say lost in a Huge mall or something of that nature. It is a better strategy to teach the child what strangers are appropriate to look for in a crisis. teach them to look for: Police, Security offiicers, Nurses, other mothers with their own children. It is Gavin states that another mother will have that Instinct and stop at nothing to reunite a lost child with their own mother.
Like many things in life, Preparation makes this apect a little easier to deal with, Buy Gavin’s Books and take some self defense class for your self and for your child. Do some research and you will begin to have a strategy that works for your family. don’t wait until it’s too late.
Margaret Blackwood says
Thanks everyone for all the great feedback. This encounter has always been in the back of my mind and I’ve often wondered what would have become of me had I got into that car. Now that I think of it, I don’t remember ever mentioning it to my parents.
Margaret
To Maggie: The hat stealer kept it up for the rest of the school year and by the following September a new family was living in his house. I still walk past there occasionally.
M
Kit says
I don’t agree.
I think the world is no scarier than it’s ever been – we ARE hyper aware of when bad things happen to children.
But that doesn’t mean our fears are misplaced – is the loss of a child lessened because only your small town knew?
Or is it somehow better or worse because the entire country is praying for her safe return?
I want my kids to have some freedoms – but I wouldn’t allow them the freedoms I had – and not because I think the world is worse off, but because they’re MY kids,lol.
What I really wanted to address is the idea that preparing your child makes them safer.
Sadly, it doesn’t.
I don’t think that means that being prepared is a bad idea- but don’t allow it to give you a false sense of security.
There have been several cases where a child was abducted while doing ‘everything right’ – screaming for help, yelling ‘this isn’t my Dad!’ , kicking, and fighting back, etc – even asking strangers for help.
The sad truth is that what’s worse about our society today is NOT the number and type of predators – what’s worse is that we’re aware of how little someone else we don’t know cares about our child , and how great the desire to ‘not get involved’.
I
Celeste says
In response to Mehul – I don’t know if the world is a more dangerous place as it is now. It could just be that there is more awareness of kidnapping and such that maybe it seems like it is worse. There are scary people in every walk of life. I just think letting our kids know the dangers helps them and in turn helps us to know that we taught our kids well. I also think it is a good idea for each family to come up with their own password or whatever you call it for those times when people try to tell our kids, “Your mom or dad sent me to get you.” I want my kids to feel safe and so they know our family password and know they need to ask the person what the password is. If my husband or I sent the someone to get the kids, we would tell them the password. If the person doesn’t know the password, then they don’t go with them.
I think being proactive when it comes to things like this is a great thing. I know Margaret is grateful she didn’t get into that person’s car. The world seems scarier now but I think there were scary people back then as well.
Mark says
Wow – great post!
I am new to blogging and this post is exactly the direction my blog is trying to go.
I too have small children and so remember the innocent times when i was a kid on a bike with no parents around. I still live in the same town, but something has changed.
Maybe it is your last sentence that says it all – “it didn’t scare me then, but it scares me now”
A great resource to help with these issues is an organization called Kidpower.org
They have a book called the Kid Power book that is phenomenal. I highly recommend this …
Mehul says
Interesting post. It’s truly a dilemma – have things changed? Has world became more dangerous? Why should we keep over protecting our children? But then again – would you be able to forgive yourself if some unthinkable thing happens to your kid? And it does happen you know…!!
I stumbled up on this one while looking around for “anxiety culture” – http://www.anxietyculture.com/
Denise says
I remember going to the county fail with my dad and sisters when I was probably around 6 or 7. We were walking down a really crowded path past some of those booth games and I was at the back of the line, walking behind my dad and 2 older sisters, single file to weave through the shoulder to shoulder crowd. I suddenly felt a large hand come down on my head and start pushing down. My knees buckled a little, but I bent with it and the upper part of my body tilted back a little. Since my legs were still going, I just sorta tilted my head back and walked out from under the hand, jogged a little to catch up, and never looked back. At the time I remember thinking that someone probably thought I was their kid, or that maybe they were talking with their hands raised and moving, and when they brought them down, had hit me on the head on accident. When I think back now though, I realize that they had their hand on my head too long, that their fingers were actually gripping my head a little. Whenever I remember that, it makes me wonder if it wasn’t something more than an accident, and if I hadn’t just gotten lucky that I kept moving.
To this day with my 3 kids, any time we go anywhere, I rarely let them trail behind me and if they do, I have the oldest (who’s 11) bring up the rear.
Jeanette says
That’s so scary! I remember always being scared of strangers when I was younger, even though nothing like this ever happened to me.
oil rig jobs says
I just stumbled your blog and must say the hair stood up on my neck as I reached the end. We too never had to worry about strangers but sort of knew that certain things where just not right. As a baby boomer I also remember being away the whole day during school holidays and enjoying a freedom that I wish my kids could have. Now, if my daughter (11 years) doesn’t answer her phone when at a friend we make a plan to check on why straight away. Glad you never got into that car. Your life could have turned out very differently.
Maggie says
these are the stories that “freak” mothers (& fathers) out. As Mom to a 2-year old girl… it scared me. I’m sending this out to my other “mom friends” and saving it to refer back to when mine gets a little older. I’m sure glad for you that your Dad was mowing the lawn close-by that day and that you were a pretty smart kid.
btw… whatever happened to the hat-stealer??