Never Talk To Strangers? By Dunja

A cople of months ago Ari had her 2 year check up and although it all went swimmigly, the evaluator had one serious concern. I mentioned to her how Ari is always so friendly she even hugs taxi drivers after paying them (i don’t drive so short taxi trips are a regular occurrence). She immediately felt concerned with this, and saw nothing endearing about it, saying that i definitely need to have a stranger danger talk with Ari sometime in the near future. I managed to contain myself and just nodded along in agreement, but inside i was fuming about the state of our mollycoddling society.
Two weeks later, we were at the courtyard at the V&A after seeing the Alexander McQueen exhibition (which is a hoot by the way, if your kid is as much into haunting music and skulls as Ari is! And her favourite animals, by a long mile, are spiders. Go figure).
Anyways, the courtyard has a giant fountain/paddling pool in the middle of it, and i let Ari splash around in her birthday suit, as i always do if we go to the beach. Minutes later, a security officer approaches me, and asks me politely if I wouldn’t mind putting a nappy or pants on her. She says it’s for our own safety. So ofcourse, i ask why, knowing fully what she’s implying. She says it’s because there may be “people” around. I continue to play dumb and ask what she means by “people”, but she skirts around the subject so uncomfortably i think perhaps the word pedophile is not part of her vocabulary. When i eventually uttered the word myself, the discomfort on her face was quite frankly hilarious. Now i’m not saying that the world is a perfectly safe place and we should let our kids roam around in the nude cuddling every stranger they come across, but I am concerned with the silly amount of worry and pressure placed on us parents. Figures show that when it comes to abductions and peodophile attacks, the numbers are at an all time low, in spite of the fact that population has soared.
So I’m all about not turning my kid into a jaded, anxious adult, and instead, teaching her that people are in fact beautiful and friendly (most of the time), and encouraging her to perform acts of charity towards strangers. Though it has slightly backfired, since all my change now has to go to every homeless person we pass! Ari won’t have it any other way.