Saturday, February 28, 2009

What is wrong with this photograph?

1
It shows the children's faces, thus making them identifiable. Such photos should only be taken showing the children from the back, or at least with their faces not visible.
2
The adult** is touching two of the children. No adult should touch children under any circumstances.
3
The adult is alone with the children. There must always be at least two adults when children are being accompanied.

These are not my rules; these are published rules for the guidance of Local Education Authorities and similar.
My friend Ruth is the head of a primary school. She cannot take a child in her car unless a second adult is present.
My friend Amy Bell is a primary school teacher, who loves to organise outdoor wildlife events for her classes. But transport is now a problem because parents are not allowed to give lifts to other than their own children.

Have we gone crazy, or what? We have created a society where mistrust and suspicion are the key virtues, where we all now have an unhealthy mindset, where normal relationships have been poisoned by those in authority who see sin in everything. A recent TV programme tested this by putting a child on its own in a shopping mall and then filmed the reactions of adult passers-by. The child was clearly distressed, but NOBODY offered to help it. Until finally some old scrote - and it would have been me if I had been there - went up to the child, took its hand and led it into a nearby store, from where they could make a phonecall for help.

I love children. If I think a child is hurt or in distress, I will go to its aid. I am telling you this so you can start planning your prison visits to me when I end up in the chokey for being a Dirty Old Man. Damn them all.

Envoi: I am very strict with myself these days: I only allow myself to be a Grumpy Old Man once a week.

**He is in fact a retired actor called Norman Wisdom, who has done wonderful things to help children in need. Bless him, surely a place has been reserved for him in Heaven.

3 comments:

Mary Strachan Scriver said...

A recent survey, I think in the States, was done to pro-actively seek out the dirty old men who are believed to roam the internet looking for gullible youngsters to seduce.

What they found instead was predatory youngsters negotiating prices for illegal acts with men.

You're right. We've all gone crazy.

Prairie Mary

Unknown said...

You mention a TV programme about a child left in a shopping mall to test passers' reactions, and that the child was clearly distressed. If a TV programme is made that clearly distresses a child, then surely the programme makers are guilty of child abuse????
As you say we live in a mad world.

Mike.

Jake Allsop said...

Mary, there are wicked people in the world, but the presumption should be that people are not wicked until proved otherwise. It's a basic principle of justice, after all.
Mike and Ann, the child was pretending to be distressed. In fact there were two such experiments, one with a boy and one with a girl, but both children knew they were completely safe, and that their parents were close by.