Here’s a note home sent by a school in suburban Maryland — the same county where the Meitiv kids were picked up twice for walking home from the park unchaperoned:
February 8, 2017
Dear Parents/Guardians:
I am sending this letter to inform the _____ community of an event that occurred at one of the _____ Middle School bus stops, near Hitching Post and Old Stage, on Tuesday, February 7, 2017 after dismissal. A student reported that, while at the bus stop, an adult male followed a group of students for about a block. He made no verbal or physical contact with students.
The Montgomery County Public Schools’ Safety and Security office, and the Montgomery County Police were notified. When students are walking to the bus or school, encourage them to walk in pairs or groups and to walk in areas where passersby can easily observe them. Please remind them to call the police if they see any suspicious activity.
Thank you for your cooperation and support. Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
It was signed by the principal. So now we have a spiral: Society warns kids about stranger danger, so when they see a stranger, they feel danger. They report this to the school, which reports it back to the parents, who are exhorted to remind their children of…stranger danger. It’s like those weird pictures of the mirror in the mirror in the mirror.
And who’s always in the mirror? An ADULT MALE. The worst kind. – L
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53 Comments
“He made no verbal or physical contact with students.”
An obvious ruse to avoid suspicion!
‘When students are walking to the bus or school, encourage them to walk in pairs or groups and to walk in areas where passersby can easily observe them.’
Also, encourage children to report any incident where a passerby observes them for more than a moment, and occasions where they have to share public space with any person unknown to them.
I am actually a big fan of “trust your gut.” Even for kids, so if they felt weird about it, fine, cross to the other side of the street, or stop to tie your shoes until he passes you. However I am NOT a believer in reporting every little thing, and certainly not in sending this kind of hysterical “information” out to the entire school body. I can’t even imagine what the school administrators were thinking. “We want our students to be safe, so we better tell them to keep their eyes open for men who might attempt to walk near them.”
@Jessica, the problem is that our guts are extremely non-reliable, and even more problematic, are susceptible to bad information. If you’re a kid that has constantly been told that you are in danger of being kidnapped, that strangers are bad, that men around you are scary, what do you think they’re going to feel when they see a man? They’ve basically been programmed into fear. Which is why I hate the whole “trust your gut” thing – we as humans are EXTREMELY bad at risk assessment.
This is ridiculous……But as for the sign in the photo, wouldn’t saying “no” to strangers technically count as TALKING to strangers, which is apparently gravely dangerous?
Did the male have a dog or candy? If not then no problem, right?
” A student reported that, while at the bus stop, an adult male followed a group of students for about a block”
This phrase confuses me. If they were at the bus stop, how do they know he followed them for a block? Was it a school bus, or a city bus? If it was a city bus, why didn’t they think maybe it was his stop and he was picking one of the 4 cardinal directions away from said stop that would take him to his destination? And even if it was a school bus, as I understand it, sidewalks are public throughfares, meaning he has every right to use it, even if some school kids were using it at the same time. Seriously, this paranoia is getting so ridiculous that soon men will only be allowed to use cars and only to go to home and work. Heaven forbid you run into a man at the park, or the grocery store, or on the sidewalk, or that he interacts with a child in any way other than to provide financial support.
It’s like that old saying: “YOU CAN NEVER BE SAFE ENOUGH” or maybe, “IF YOU’RE NOT AFRAID YOU’RE NOT AWAKE” and my personal favorite, “The authorities never act irrationally, so there must be more to the story. There must have been something to justify the fear.”
Fear. Fear. Fear. Don’t you know that you have a patriotic duty to be afraid? And if you’re not afraid, you must want bad things to happen…to children. You monster. Right?
/sarc
“When students are walking to the bus or school, encourage them to walk in pairs or groups and to walk in areas where passersby can easily observe them.”
Uh, the man on the sidewalk was a passerby who can easily observe them.
If another passerby was a man in a van, and he slowed down to observe them, I’m pretty sure the school we be on lockdown right now.
Woman on the sidewalk or in a van, no one cares. Why are we teaching our children that all men are potentially dangerous?
@ Jess
“…sidewalks are public throughfares, meaning he has every right to use it, even if some school kids were using it at the same time.”
Exactly.
“Heaven forbid you run into a man at the park, or the grocery store, or on the sidewalk, or that he interacts with a child in any way other than to provide financial support.”
Yep. Men are afraid to interact with children because they may be accused of a crime, such as “walking down a sidewalk while children are present”. Then we expect them to be nurturing fathers to their own children. Yet we’ve done everything possible to make them suppress any nurturing feelings because they may be misconstrued.
As the mother of two teen boys, it makes me really sad to know they will always be seen as potential predators because of this paranoia.
“Did the male have a dog or candy? If not then no problem, right?”
what if he was walking from or towards a white van painted some other colour so as not to appear suspicious?
Can’t be too careful…
As an adult male, if I’m being followed by a group of students can I call the police? Do stand-your-ground laws apply in these cases, considering how threatened I feel? Or should I run screaming in the opposite direction?
I’ll tell ya what scares me, this pervasive idea that how a person feels or perceives something determines whether someone else has done something wrong. I see it in more and more situations.
It’s like a combo of Orwell’s “1984” and episodes of “The Twilight Zone.”
First of all, thank you so much Lenore AND the other ladies (mothers) on this board for sticking up for us men. It is highly appreciated! I’m certainly not minimizing the stigmatization that all African Americans experience BUT being thought of as a potential child molester/pedophile is the absolute worst type of stereotype that anybody can experience (obviously an added stereotype for African American MEN).
On that note, let me just say that Maryland seems to be completely out of control when it comes to kids. Haven’t we heard weird news in the past concerning jumpy reactions to what kids did in that state? Wasn’t Maryland the state where a 7-year-old boy was expelled for biting his pop tart into the shape of a gun? I also THINK it was Maryland where a boy got into trouble at school for simulating a gun shot with his thumb and forefinger and of course the Meitiv kids.
So what is wrong with the school systems in that state or with Maryland lawmakers? Do they not have common sense???
I read things like this and after I pounded my head on the desk in frustration for a bit, I started thinking about how this kind of fear mongering affects children. Are they ALWAYS living in stress and fear? Are we teaching kids that they are never safe anywhere without their parents? I wonder if kids are on edge that something COULD happen which pretty much means it will if anything out of the ordinary occurs.
How do these children experience the world? And how will they be prepared to grow up, always on high alert. I know this sounds extreme, but I can’t help wondering if there are biological impacts on the adrenal system if we are telling children that they are ALWAYS in danger and that at any moment something terrible could happen.
It seems that the health risk of constant fear has a higher probability of harming kids than the statistical improbability that someone walking on the same block is planning to harm the same kids.
Our district sends these kind of ridiculous “stranger danger” alerts about once a month, Most of them originate from the 5th-6th school partly because it is located near the center of our tiny downtown and partly, in my opinion, because of the ages of the kids. I would say only one out of every 10 is something that I think, “Good instinct on those kids reporting that.” Most of them are of the “a man drove past a bus stop” variety. And every time one goes out, there is a flurry of “ohmygod, I would never let my children walk to school!” panic.
Also let me just add, if I happen to be walking BEHIND somebody on the sidewalk or in a shopping mall or at an amusement park, etc. does that mean I’m doing so for the purpose of following them? Or does it mean that my destination is in line with theirs and I just happen to be behind them? Goodness, what was the man suppose to do, run ahead of the kids? The note said that he “followed” them for a block and not 2 miles along a winding and twisted path!
If I were a parent, I would call the school and complain about that note. It’s making a mountain out of a mole hill and stirring up a frenzy among the kids and their parents.
Yes, perpetuate your fears and paranoia to your kids. Geeez! Your kids don’t know any better as they get older. They learn from parents and teachers. What will you teach your kids/students?
My parents and teachers didn’t teach me these things. They just taught me to be smart. We talked and interacted with people we didn’t know on a daily bases. And eventually, they became either friends, or another set of reliable eyes for our parents.
If people are going to react, react accordingly. So if the person wasn’t a threat, don’t make the situation seem like it was one. And the “well, you never know” approach is completely asinine. At the very least, if people are going to think that way, don’t pick and choose what to fear based on convenience, or how it makes you feel. So if you have the “what if” mentality. Then it should go along side with, and your reactions and decisions should be the same for, driving in a car, walking down the stairs, taking a bath/shower, eating, sleeping, playing, reading, pretty much everything you do every day. Because, as that mentality goes, ANYTHING can happen at any given time.
Makes me laugh when some parents and authorities are such hypocrites.
@BB8: You hit it on the nail! My take, “Trusting your gut” is a good thing. But trusting your gut requires experience. And good, non-bias, logical, reasonable, with common sense experiences at that. Kids have no such experience yet. Especially when their only experience is being taught to be fearful.
I would never teach my kids to “trust their gut”, unless I was confident that they had the right mentality, confidence, and experience to do so. Which is why I don’t mind when strangers talk to my kids. I know that they will call to me, or tell me if something went wrong, or something bad happened. I’m also confident that they know what to do in most situations that many parents fear for their kids. They do me proud every day. Yes, they make dumb decisions too. But they’re kids. They are learning through experience. We are there to guide them through it. Not make them avoid what they need to learn. Totally counter productive.
And like I’ve always said, the best way to protect your kids, is to teach them to protect themselves. We are not always around when they need us. Teach your kids to be successful adults, not over-protected children.
@Ron Skurat: “As an adult male, if I’m being followed by a group of students can I call the police? Do stand-your-ground laws apply in these cases, considering how threatened I feel? Or should I run screaming in the opposite direction?”
And the way some of the kids are these days, that’s a legit concern. Kids as young as 6 years old shooting other kids, or adults. Teens committing murder. Swarming is still a thing. And what about that game (don’t know if kids are still doing it) where they would sneak up on unsuspecting people, and try to knock them out.
The mentality of many people today is so mind boggling. Truly, no common sense or reason. They’re all talking out of their asses. lol
Years ago my husband told me (we didn’t yet have children) that when he saw kids he crossed the street to avoid walking near them. I found that shocking and well, bewildering, since as a white middle-class female I feel empowered to smile or even chat with children. Now I understand better.
Ha, ha!
It is a felony now to walk while being male.
Such behavior gotTrayvon Martin shot in the back.
He was African American and it was night.
Currently, a white guy can’t leave his vehicle home and take a stroll?
Or his car broke, or he is just walking to be walking.
Or a visitor from out of town?
Or he’s a prospective buyer!
No…
A felon!
Fudge, fudge, call the judge!
Christopher, I completely agree with you. The irony being that these parents think they’re helping their kids by making them fearful of nearly everything in their environment, when in fact they’re harming them by turning them into fearful, stressed-out kids who are afraid of their own shadows (not to mention the associated mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression). It’s a classic case of not being able to see the forest for the trees – tunnel vision has these parents so focused on “saving” their kids, they don’t see the long-term harm they’re causing them.
What you can do when you are a harmless looking white female —> we have privileges. A few years ago while I was with my young children at a playground, I started talking to some elementary age girls (black). Why — I had nothing better to do as my kids were occupying themselves just fine a ways away. The girls told me bluntly they had been told not to speak to strangers. Guess what I did — I persisted in talking to them. I actually had the courage or probably, certainly of my class/gender privilege, to keep chatting. They finally chatted back. Why did I persist in talking to them? I don’t know why, maybe I just thought it was absurd that some kids were warned not to chat with people they didn’t know at a playground. I had actually never heard that concept. I had heard of — don’t get into cars with people you don’t know. I had never heard of *don’t talk to people you don’t know.*
Did you know that young teen and pre-teen boys will call a boy or man a “fag” at the drop of a hat.
At the West End Community Centre(in 1979) the young pre-teen boys would call me a “fag”
Once when that happened I grabbed a boy and wrung his neck.
The young men in my neighbourhood would call me a “fag”-because of the way I walked and talked.
Around 1990,on a bus, three boys aged about 11 were sitting across from me.
For no good reason the boys called me a “fag.”
The bus driver heard that.
He kicked all three boys off the bus.
Now we know why we have these college kids who are frightened of everything and need their “Safe Spaces”.
Trusting your gut is fine if you know what to trust….here is the story of the kid on my road, (country road, 7 houses.) Last year, 4th grade, end of year. What he said happened: he was waiting at the end of the country road for the bus, between 2 houses. A guy walked up the road, tried to grab him. He ran back down the dirt road away from the bus stop. They guy walked away. He went back to the stop and got on the bus. He reported this at school in some form (maybe to other kids, not sure.)
The police got called. The were driving down my road really slow, so I walked out from homeschooling my kids and asked if I could help. They told me what the kid said. I told them that people walk down the main road for exercise but they should talk to the lady at the end of the road, near the stop. She wasn’t home. So I talked to her later. Yup, there was a guy who walked down the road for exercise. Daily, about that time before it was too hot. She called the police, said that she had spoken to the guy and she thought he was harmless.
After they talked to the guy, the dad of the kid talked to me….he was scared. I was…skeptical. I asked if maybe it had not happened exactly as said? Maybe the guy tried to hi five or something? Anyhow…the dad talked to the kid more. The kid got scared when the guy walked DOWN THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE STREET and WAVED at him. The dad came back and told me and apologized…said his kid would no longer be walking to the stop….I asked if the kid could come play with my son…but no…never has happened despite my son going and asking to play some….(I think getting out and meeting the neighbors would help a lot….) The dad did notify the police, they stopped all investigating.
I don’t know if any letters were sent home from school or not. I hope not. The guy did change the time of his walking so it was more mid day…which made me sad as it was really hot by then. But…he did keep walking.
@jimc5499: Nope. Safe spaces are where people who share certain life experiences can get together to talk about those experiences without some jerk jumping into the conversation to make it all about his/her desire to get something out of them (approval, sex, attention, whatever) or his/her opinion of the validity of their lives. They’re spaces where nobody is allowed to treat your simple existence as the punchline of a joke. Where nobody is allowed to tell you that your observed and lived reality is fake because, well, they just think so and obviously their wish for the world to be a simpler place without people like you in it is just so, so, so important. Or as they used to say in my old elementary school, “In this classroom, we practice ROSR: Real Or Simulated Respect.”
When people become so absorbed in protecting their child, they can lose track of any other possible danger. Worst first thinking fills their head so that there is no room to consider any other possible danger.
This is post is an EXCELLENT example of other dangers. Parents can get so caught up in the ‘gift’ of fear that they can’t comprehend that they are going too far and therefore giving the ‘gift’ of paranoia, anxiety, and mental instability.
@BB8 and EricS
Your comments on ‘gut feelings’ are so good, I’m saving them for future reference.
I’m sort of jealous. I wish I thought of it.
“As an adult male, if I’m being followed by a group of students can I call the police? Do stand-your-ground laws apply in these cases, considering how threatened I feel? Or should I run screaming in the opposite direction?”
You’re obviously guilty or they’d not follow you…
So yes, call the police and admit your guilt…
“Years ago my husband told me (we didn’t yet have children) that when he saw kids he crossed the street to avoid walking near them. I found that shocking and well, bewildering, since as a white middle-class female I feel empowered to smile or even chat with children. Now I understand better.”
I do the same. Worse, I avoid driving my car near schools and playgrounds if I can avoid it ever since having been accused of being a pedophile for the simple act of parking near a school to visit a store located next to that school.
“Did you know that young teen and pre-teen boys will call a boy or man a “fag” at the drop of a hat.”
Or a pedophile…
If you’re a single male (especially a white single male) you MUST be a homosexual sex predator seeking to abduct little children…
That’s what we’ve come to.
“Safe spaces are where people who share certain life experiences can get together to talk about those experiences without some jerk jumping into the conversation ”
NO. “Safe spaces” are places where you’re guaranteed that nobody has an opposing view of things as to your own, as long as your view is that of the SJW feminist kind.
They’re places where truth and freedom are suspended for the sake of making you feel comfortable in your delusion, free from those nasty feelings that what you’ve been led to believe by the far left minders who fill your mind (or what passes for it) with nonsense is in fact just that, nonsense.
Every time you hear of this kind of thing, whether the discussion be in person or online, call it out for the sexist birdseed it is. Using the word “sexist”. IT’s high time we stand up to that trampling on rights, because really, what is more basic than to be able to walk down the street without anyone bothering you?
But the letter didn’t specify that the children were apparently unharmed! Now I’m worried!
“I’ll tell ya what scares me, this pervasive idea that how a person feels or perceives something determines whether someone else has done something wrong. I see it in more and more situations.”
It’s as if the panic-o-meter is set to hysteria at the lowest levels.
“Think of the kids” and “It’s better safe than sorry” leads to letters to parents over non-existent dangers. This false-fear festers and churns more paranoid behavior and absurd letters to parents that kill trees.
Make your kids aware, tell them to obey their instincts, but most males walking…are just walking.
I’ve been trying to teach my kids to discern intention. We were driving home on out street and my kids saw my neighbor’s car behind us and they said “she’s following us”
To which I responded, “no, she’s behind but she’s not following us, she’s going to her own house”
I agree that we don’t need kids worrying if someone is behind them. Awareness is good. Worrying is not.
People tend to go with their gut feeling. If that gut feeling is trained to air on the side of caution and “If it saves one child, it’s worth it”, then this how the gut feeling will react. If logic or rational feelings have little influence in this training then so be it.
Long live anxiety and paranoia. We can pat ourselves on the back for this wonderful gift that we gave to the children that will protect them from harm.
This school’s letter is aother crazy over-reaction to a completely normal event. And people wonder why kids are so noxious nowadays!
Oh, and count me in as another mother AGAINST treating all men like pedophiles!
I think we’d all be better off if Gavin de Becker’s books were required reading in school. Make it an assignment parents have to help with.
Way to overreact. I read legitimately frightening posts on Reddit in “creepy encounters” and “let’s not meet”. The people on Reddit were in more danger based on their posts. This was completely blown out of proportions.
Now and in the future, trusting your gut is a meaningless method of living. Since people even more so kids are being taught to be paranoid and on high alert at all times their gut reaction will always be on of fear and suspect.
We used to react to unusual behavior but now it seems all behavior is unusual.
Even on its own stupid terms, these kids were…walking in a group, in an area where passerby could easily observe them. That’s the reason for this stupid letter. Is the point of the advice to generate more pointless letters?
Hi Warren. Good to hear from you. It’s been a while.
I have no problem with “trust your gut.” I do take issue with, “Call the cops EVERY SINGLE TIME your gut tells you that a person appears untrustworthy.”
there are also many symptoms to catch a stranger danger.I think with a group of students he would not be able to make any occurrence.
Jenny Islander: Then that’s a problem – because, unfortunately, because of the way people have been programmed these days, a given “lived and perceived reality” *CAN* be fake! You can think you actually *have* experienced something, because you’ve been told you have by someone who is pushing a given viewpoint, and have actually come to believe it as true, even though it’s false.
Have you read through articles on this site? Do you know how many supposedly sane parents actually believe with all their heart that if you aren’t staring at your child 100% of the time you’re in public, or if they are actually no in you presence, they are at high risk for kidnapping, molestation, or death? Or the ones that think that any male in the vicinity of children is there because he wants to molest them. Or the ones that *know* that a child, even one 12 years old, left at home or in a car alone for *any* amount of time, will automatically die. These are *provably* false – but they won’t accept the proof because their “reality” won’t let them believe it, because their reality is so out of line with the truth that to accept the facts means their world view is so totally completely wrong that they must admit being wrong themselves and can’t accept that. When students need “safe spaces” because someone presents information they don’t like or don’t agree with, *especially* when the information is not provably wrong, but just disagrees with their “opinion” then safe spaces are not a good thing, but a bad one, as they are preventing people from the uncomfortable job of re-examining their own world-view, holding it up to the light and inspecting it for possible flaws.
A few years ago, when I first started jogging, I was doing the Couch to 5k program, where you alternate a few minutes of running with a few minutes of walking. I had my earbuds in, listening to the music for the cues to switch from running to walking, and I was jogging down the street, on the SIDEWALK, by a school. A couple of blocks past the school, the “safety officer” pulled me over to ask what I was doing. Apparently the patrol mom reported me “walking erratically” near the school. I had to laugh. I guess she thought I was drunk, or else undecided on whether I was going to run up and steal a kid or not. I explained the 5k program and the officer told me I should wear a reflector when running. I guess he felt he did his civic duty. The whole thing was so bizarre.
I later joined a half marathon team, training with Jeff Galloway’s method (similar to C25k) and we called ourselves the Erratic Walkers Club.
Now I wonder how funny this would all be, had I been a MAN, and African-American or Hispanic. They probably would have called the SWAT team on me. 🙁
It’s clear that many people criticizing “safe spaces” haven’t actually ever been near one.
@Amanda – since they are triggered by the mention of them in much the same way as some people are triggered by the idea of a man walking near some children, you’re probably right.
“And who’s always in the mirror? An ADULT MALE. The worst kind. — L”
Could it be that poster on the wall behind you? 😛
@Lisa: I don’t know that making Gavin de Becker’s books required reading would do anything. Some of the worst helicopter moms I know have read those books and managed to incorporate them into their reasons for helicoptering. They found ways to twist his words to fit their confirmation bias.
This reminds me of people campaigning against the council allowing members of the public to pay to have marquees and events in the local park, there were several arguments along the lines of ‘This park is used by children and holding events makes it more risky because then more people will be in the park’ Uh, because all adults using the park otherwise have a criminal record check?!
This is very simple. You are looking at Mind Control at work. And the perfection of all this is that this process of mind control becomes self sustaining. Mind controlled parents then program their kids and so on. It only changes when people start to take time from things that are ultimately unimportant in the grand scheme, shopping, TV, internet, phones, career, and start to evaluate and more importantly OBSERVE all of your inner processes and patterns. Once you see that what is at work in you is not you, you can simply choose differently.
Today I think everybody needs to read these two short books; Propaganda (1928) and The Crystallization of Public Opinion (1923) both by Edward Bernays. Both available freely online. And why not throw in there for good measure Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars. Start to learn why all this craziness exists.