How many times has your husband felt uncomfortable holding other people's children?
Been nervous about helping kids at the playground? Hesitated before picking someone else's child up after a fall?
My guess is that it has happened at least once in your parenting life, and it's all thanks to a social frenzy that's painting all men as potential predators and perverts.
A recent article discussed this very problem and it raises some hairy issues. Men are increasingly made to feel that they are not allowed to handle, or interact with, kids, even if the situation warrants their adult intervention.
In 2006, a man saw a toddler escape from a daycare in Warwickshire but didn't stop to help her in case he was branded a pervert. That child fell into a pond and died. This horrific story only serves to highlight the fact that men are being placed in an untenable position.
Greg Dyer, father of two teenage daughters, says, "I love kids and I used to enjoy talking to youngsters in Tesco when I do my shopping. Now, I've stopped doing it because of the negative looks I've received from some mothers. It makes me feel like a criminal."
How can this possibly be a good thing? Yes, there are men out there who have perpetrated hideous crimes but they hardly make up the dominant percentage of the male population. According to the NSPCC Child Protection Awareness and Diversity Department, sex offenders make up 58 per 100,000 of the population in England and Wales.
While that figure alone is shocking, it is hardly a case for suspecting every man that walks past, or helps, a child.
Axel Bürhmann, father of one, says, "I love photographing everything, but recently I've started to feel very uncomfortable about it. I know that there are people with serious issues out there doing this and I worry that people think I fit into that category."
When my husband and I were at a friend's house last summer, the kids had shucked off all their clothes and were running around the pool completely naked. I turned to my husband and asked him if he would take some snaps, some fabulous memories for our photo wall. Instead, he handed me the camera. He said that taking photographs of these naked children, because two of them were not his, made him feel like a pervert. This made me feel exceedingly sad.
Today, in a society where more and more men are choosing to depart from the rat race and become stay at home dads this situation only serves to highlight how far we have to go. How can we expect men to be comfortable with making this choice when even something as simple as a visit to the park can be viewed with distrust?
Mike, father of two girls, says, "I was in the park playing with my girls the other day, when a woman came storming up to me and demanded to see some identification. When asked why, she said that she wanted to be sure that I was the proper carer for my two girls. I can't even begin to explain how angry, frustrated and sick it made me feel."
Mike's situation is not out of the ordinary, either. I had men from all walks of life contact me with stories on how they've been made to feel like predators doing things that wouldn't cause a hair on an eyebrow to lift if they were done by women.
This is not society being aware and protective, it is a dangerous road that can only lead to suspicion, distrust, and a future where men feel excluded and victimised. This isn't going forward; this is regressing in the worst possible way.
Adam Oxford says:
'Even though I have a four year old daughter of my own, I do feel strangely uncomfortable taking care of, or even talking to, other people's children. Funnily enough, though, I don't think it's because as a society we're over protective – I think many of the rules surrounding, say, photography of children, are very sensible, but consistent misunderstanding of them and over sensationalism in the media has made my generation of men feel like guilty monsters.
For example, I've been told that the rules regarding the photographing of my daughter's friends at school isn't because the headmistress thinks I'm going to upload them to a pornographic website. It's because there's a chance that one or more of the children may be in care, or be otherwise protected, and publication of their photographs in an identifiable location could endanger them.
The catch 22 is, of course, that singling out a child you can't photograph would defeat the object of keeping these things confidential, so the only option is to ban all photography. This is, on the whole, a reasonable and good thing.
But that part of the argument isn't communicated to the general public, who instead are led by sensationalist stories of 'political correctness gone mad' to believe that it's because all men are suspected sexual predators, and that's the attitude which rubs off. That's reinforced by the insistence – or perceived insistence - on CRB background checks and the like before you can take part in many voluntary community activities involving children. What happened to being innocent before proven guilty?
We do need an open, honest and serious debate about this. It's not about gender. It can feel that everyone, male and female, is looking at you with suspicion when you're around children, and the strongest reaction is to not bother trying any more.
The implications for personal lives are even more important to address. Men need to be able to feel that they can fully function as members of the family if they are to take on more of the domestic burden, and that includes being comfortable around their children and their children's friends.'
What do you think?
Are men unfairly distrusted around children?
Or can you never be too careful? Let us know what you're thinking.
Related content:
Mummy, why is that man photographing me?
School sports day ban for dad