Disclaimer: Whenever I use the words “romance,” “attracted,” “crush,” and “infatuation,” as well as their variations, I am using them in a platonic sense. References to sex are platonic, unless specifically stated otherwise. When I say “pedophile,” I am referring to an adult with a platonic attraction to children. “Child molester” is exactly what it sounds like. Summary: The fifth of a 5-chapter essay. My thoughts on “childhood innocence” and other social norms that cause children more harm than good, people who try too hard to be heroes, and tips on how to keep kids safe from predators. A big problem with children is that most people don't understand the point of childhood. Childhood <i>should</i> be a time where people start learning as much as possible about the world around them. Learn different sides of the story from people of all walks of life. Hone skills that will serve them when adults aren't around to do it for them. Allowed to make their own mistakes and learn from them. Raised to be good people period, not just wait until adulthood and expected to either get lucky or automatically mature with age and know everything. But most people see childhood as this carefree period where kids have to conform to a string of stereotypes and rules. Kids should always be having “fun,” which is often more judged by the adults than the kids, going to school, and bowing to parents who aren't ready for parenthood. Kids should be completely shielded from the big, bad real world and be raised to see the world as all sunshine and rainbows. They should not be allowed to watch or listen to violent media. If they ask questions about big issues, lie to them. Disregard human nature and treat stress, infatuation, etc. like something only adults are capable of. Kids should be seen, not heard because they are too stupid to make their own decisions and describe their own feelings. God forbid a child does any of that stuff, or they'll be growing up too fast and corrupted for life. If a kid stops following the rules at any time, there <i>must</i> be something wrong with him/her. Let kids be kids (retarded, subjective phrase) and maintain their innocence. Save the drama for adulthood. So many flaws in that selfish, stupid mindset. It's disrespectful to children. It gives parents an excuse to be lazy and not teach their kids about life. Society raises kids to be ignorant, yet people blame their ignorance on age. Different cultures have different views on the purpose of childhood, some of which work better than the rules I mentioned. It stunts the child's mental growth. It serves the adults who believe in it, but usually does little to help the children. Some of these rules are a recipe for making bigots. Many wealthy, happy adults got to that point <i>because</i> they “grew up too fast.” And the list goes on. I don't buy for a second that people who want to preserve childhood innocence are doing so to help kids. From where I'm standing, it's all about ego and control. Ask the kids how much they care about you judging them by their age. As a matter of fact, ask them for advice in keeping kids safe. Why don't the kids get a say in rules meant for <i>their</i> own protection? I can go into all sorts of details about why I hate this mentality with a passion. But I'm way off topic as it is, so I'll just talk about the reasons that relate to pedophilia. Many adults believe that children can't handle certain things just because of their age. So they simply keep it out of their reach via parental codes and store policies. And since they're hiding the stuff anyway, they see no reason to teach kids about it now. This might work for some kids, but others aren't nearly as stupid as American society raises them to be. If one way doesn't work, they'll find another way to get what they want. Say Jimmy sneaks onto the computer and figures out the parental codes. Mommy and daddy were so confident that simply banning him from the internet would keep him safe, they never bothered to tell him what an online predator is. Soon, he makes a new friend in a chat room. The two talk on a frequent basis, and the friend asks to meet Jimmy. Jimmy tells him where he lives and invites the friend over. Make your own conclusion. And for the record, if a child did encounter an online predator, it's not like the predator can reach through the screen and grab him/her. A predator can't do <i>anything</i> unless the child willingly gives out personal information or goes out to meet him/her. It wouldn't matter if every single person on the website was a predator. As long as the child doesn't reveal his/her contact information, he/she is safe. Screw up that single, simple rule, and then the problem begins. In which case, it's either a hardheaded child, or his/her parents are complete idiots. Of course, a better response would be to log off when a suspicious adult shows up. Obviously, not all parents have the “childhood innocence” mentality. There are people who not only disbelieve in it, but still forget the most important part of being a parent: teaching. They answer “whys” about warnings with “because I said so,” and expect the kids to just do as they are told. There are parents out there who will scream at and/or hit their kids just to get their point across. Some of those kids are easy prey to molesters who start off with the friend game. Riddle me this. If you had to choose between talking to parents who would hit and/or scream at your just for asking questions, or a guy who was nice to you, but – unbeknownst to you – really wanted to hurt you, who would you talk to? Let's say Jenny likes to be around Chester because he doesn't talk at or down to her. He doesn't scream at her all the time. He listens to her problems, and gives her a place to stay when the parents go crazy on her. In Jenny's mind, her parents hate her, so she doesn't tell them about her new friend or where she's going. Again, make up your own conclusion from there. There is <i>no</i> reason why a child should not know what a molester is. I believe they should learn as early as possible. None of that “they're too young to understand” or “because I said so” crap. Schools and parents need to educate them on warning signs. Teach them how to defend themselves and/or speak out if they ever do meet a molester. Teach them not to believe a molester when he/she threatens to kill them or their family if they tell. And for God's sakes, don't just give that “you'll never see your parents again” reason when talking to kids about strangers. When I was a kid, I would have happily followed a stranger who said I'd never have to put up with my parents again. There are many children who don't like their parents, and will unknowingly put themselves in harm's way for that reason alone. Certain sexual actions feel good, regardless of how old a person is. And people in general tend to enjoy and therefore want more bad things that feel good at the moment. Just telling them it's wrong does not always work. “Bad touch” without a clear reason why not only makes it easier for molesters to start slow and work their way up to more painful actions. One of society's moral codes is that parents are always right, and any kid who disagrees with their parents is a bad kid. More times than the kids care to hear, so-called role models are shoving that crap down their throats. Strangers tell them to listen to their parents no matter what, not knowing that kid may be abused by his/her parents behind closed doors every day. Parents have far too much freedom, in my opinion. They can beat their kids for any reason they want. They are allowed to teach kids whatever stupid mentalities they want. They are allowed to snoop through the kids' rooms and invade their privacy. But that's okay; parents are the ones who gave the kids all that stuff. Kids don't need privacy from the people who put a roof over their heads. Right? Statistically speaking, parents are more likely than anyone else to molest a child. As a matter of fact, a child is literally more likely to be struck by lightning than abused by a stranger. I'll bet my life that this is mainly because of the mama's boys and girls who think parents can do no wrong and feel the need to play superhero for people they don't know. Since the kids are (raised to be) too vulnerable and clueless to protect themselves, adults have to do it for them. Unfortunately, some people don't know what they're doing with their role. On YouTube, there are quite a few videos of kids dancing in a sexual manner and encouraged and/or recorded by family, including parents. Yes, I watch those videos. Scroll down to the comments, and quite a few of them are calling all those involved, including the kids, all sorts of names, talking about how wrong the content is, how bad they hate everyone involved, and so on. I'm not even going to question why they are watching those videos in the first place. You know what else these people often do? Take snippets of the videos and edit them into their video rants. Send the original videos to other websites. Email them to friends. Broadcast them on the news. And then even more people (including pedophiles) end up seeing the video. Even when the original gets taken down, the video rants and the duplicate videos that say “bad parenting” in the tags remain online. If I didn't know any better, I'd say they were distributing child porn. You know those girls who did the Beyonce dance on stage wearing red and black? I genuinely feel sorry for those girls. Not because I have a baseless suspicion that they were forced to do it. Not because I believe kids should conform to the “childhood innocence” stereotype. But because of the aftermath. Their dance ended up on the news, people are openly talking and name-calling, YouTubers made video rants about it, and now the kids have to grow up to that tainted image. To me, that's a lot more damaging than what pedophiles do behind their computer screens. I think a child who became famous for something morally wrong and being described as this and that has a chance of being pretty screwed up in the future. Courtesy of the idiots who thought they were somehow protecting the kids, yet made it worse. And then there's people who cheer the YouTube kids on and say derogatory things about them via comments. The people I mentioned earlier really don't like these people. And they make it known by typing threats to trace them, call the authorities, and so on. Has it ever occurred to you that <i>maybe</i> those people are just trolls? A pedophile (who isn't a complete idiot) wouldn't jeopardize his/her access to free, legal stuff just to comment on how much it turns them on. Trolls, on the other hand, couldn't care less about online threats. They'll say anything on any video to get people riled up, then just laugh off the threats. I'd be more concerned with parents who let their kids dance like that. A popular complaint about Facebook, MySpace, etc. is the belief that a large number of pedophiles prowl the websites. So kids aren't allowed to make profiles there. I once heard someone ranting about Facebook and mention that she put the wrong age and quickly had some faceless adults friend her. The thing that stood out to me was “faceless.” In other words, no profile picture. In other words, she had no idea what those people looked like. She could only see what was typed on their profile. That is hardly a good way to identify someone. When I was a teenager, I lied about my age, country, race, state, religion, you name it, on many websites. A lot of people, not just pedophiles, do the same. Even today, I hardly even trust people who do have pictures. Isn't one of the rules of the net to not believe everything people tell you? With all the hype about pedophiles, you'd think society would get over this need to keep kids ignorant of the world and teach them how to keep themselves safe. Let's face it: kids are not always going to have adults around who care about their safety. Instead, we get lazy people who would rather sweep everything under the rug. We get people who go through incredibly stupid methods to help the kids, and make it worse. And then they all get surprised when it backfires.