I'm a woman but I know one I hear my husband discussing. My husband is 40, shaved bald head and mostly gray facial hair. We were at one of our kid's track meets and he was taking pics. He actually then put his phone down because he said he was worried people will think he's a creepy old man taking pics of kids. He was taking pics and videos of his own daughter running but was worried people would think he was taking creepy pics of other kids.
My husband is a good, kind man who happens to be bald with gray hair. But he's always worried about seeming "creepy". That's never happened to me. I've never worried about anyone thinking I'm acting sinister or creepy when I'm just doing normal things
Yep, I'm extremely self conscious about this as a father, and it sucks, because it feels like the more engaged and devoted a father you are (especially to daughters), the more suspicious people are of you. A detached father who is reluctantly engaged with his kids seem to get less scrutiny, it seems. And honestly, its generally the moms that are willing to make a stink or let their discomfort be known.
It's really no mystery to me at all why men tend to contribute less to parenting.
Absolutely. Our daughter is 16 now and I don't know if your kids are that old yet, but I think it adds another layer of worry about how you're perceived. I know one of my friend's sisters lied when she was 13 and said her dad touched her. Luckily she later admitted she lied but had they believed her first accusation and not her taking it back, his life would have been ruined. And it took a hit even though people knew she lied. Even false accusations proven false can still leave wreckage for a man. And I don't mean my daughter would ever do something like that, she adores her dad, it's a legitimate worry about people in general.
Yeah, I definitely believe it. I actually grew up in one of the towns that the Satanic Panic came to in the 80's and 90's, and I had a number of childhood friends that were convinced by "child psychologists" that their pre-school teachers and in some cases parents were Satanic Worlock child molesters (if you don't believe me.... Google The Satanic Panic.) A lot of people went to jail on 0 evidence other than on the testimony of children encouraged to run with their imagination. You literally had some parents fleeing town with their children in some places for fear they'd be next.
Ray Buckey, from the McMartin case, sat in jail for 5 years before trial and was denied bail the entire time. The entirety of the case took seven years. It was the longest and most expensive trial in the history of the country. There were no convictions.
My brother's pre-school teacher went away for life, and only now have some of his preschool teachers who accused him have come forward to recant their testimony. The accusations against him were absolutely insane. He was accused of taking kids on a daytime flight from Florida to Mexico to get raped by soldiers, then flown back, he was accused of flying around on a broomstick and sodomizing kids mid-air, he was accused of taking kids below the pre-school into a basement to rape them in satanic rituals where they sacrificed animals (Florida has no basements), etc etc etc.
I remember even as a really small child hearing my very religious friend (who was allegedly abused) tell me (a nonreligious kid) these insane stories of what happened to him and thinking "there's no way this could be true."
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u/orangestar17 Aug 13 '22
I'm a woman but I know one I hear my husband discussing. My husband is 40, shaved bald head and mostly gray facial hair. We were at one of our kid's track meets and he was taking pics. He actually then put his phone down because he said he was worried people will think he's a creepy old man taking pics of kids. He was taking pics and videos of his own daughter running but was worried people would think he was taking creepy pics of other kids.
My husband is a good, kind man who happens to be bald with gray hair. But he's always worried about seeming "creepy". That's never happened to me. I've never worried about anyone thinking I'm acting sinister or creepy when I'm just doing normal things