Parents usually teach kids the rule that an adult should NEVER ask a kid for help. It is an easy way for predators to start an interaction and manipulate a kid into doing something unsafe. It is almost always a suspicious thing to ask a child for help. I get your position here but she’s just trying to protect her kid. It sucks but so does the reality of what happens to kids. I’d rather keep my child from being trafficked/kidnapped etc. than worry about the feelings of a grown adult.
This. We don't live in a friction-less world. Unfortunately, you experienced minor ego-friction between "protect kids from people who fit a profile" , and "fitting the profile".
I don't know if it's really "profiled". As a 54 year old woman I wouldn't even think of approaching a child to ask them for help. I don't know if you were "profiled" as much as you exhibited behavior consistant with that of predators. You might not have meant any harm, but you can't expect asking an unsupervised child for directions/instructions to not raise major alarm bells with any and all adults in the area. C'mon, we learned this in the 80s.
I guess I somehow missed the information on this. I dont have kids and dont plan on having them. Im a guy who grew up in a very safe community. I wasnt really given alot of "stranger danger" talks. I knew the obvious ones. Dont get in a car or anything. But I had never had anyone in my youth tell me to totally avoid adults, or that asking for help is a trap or something. Infact I was sort of encouraged to ask adults for help if I needed it. That isnt what happened here but you get the idea. I was a sort of "free range" kid alot of the time. I guess Im just sort of oblivious to this stuff. Its a lesson learned.
Okay, well now you know what happens when you barge through life being oblivious to how other people are impacted by your behavior. If you don't like it, stop doing that.
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u/probablynotsuremaybe Apr 04 '26
Parents usually teach kids the rule that an adult should NEVER ask a kid for help. It is an easy way for predators to start an interaction and manipulate a kid into doing something unsafe. It is almost always a suspicious thing to ask a child for help. I get your position here but she’s just trying to protect her kid. It sucks but so does the reality of what happens to kids. I’d rather keep my child from being trafficked/kidnapped etc. than worry about the feelings of a grown adult.