Why I won't let any male babysit my children

Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2017-02-25 00:39

Article here. The comments are a bit heartening, though. Excerpt:

'When our first daughter was born my husband and I made a family rule: no man would ever babysit our children. No exceptions. This includes male relatives and friends and even extracurricular and holiday programs, such as basketball camp, where men can have unrestricted and unsupervised access to children.

Eight years, and another daughter later, we have not wavered on this decision.

Group slumber parties are also out. When there is a group of excited children it is far too easy for one of them to be lured away by a father or older brother without being noticed.

When my daughter goes on play dates I make sure that she will be supervised by a woman at all times. So far she has only slept at one friend's house. Beforehand I spoke to my friend about our rule and clarified that if she's going to pop out to shops for example and intends to leave our daughter in the care of her husband or another man then the sleepover cannot happen.'

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Comments

... was my best early childhood friend's older sister. But as a consequence of this, I do not categorically distrust women around children.

No one has ever asked me if I have ever been molested by a female, though my folks were themselves careful about what adults I was left alone with, esp. male adults. Never had a man ever try anything with me when I was a kid.

Shows to go ya...

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Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2017-02-25 00:42

Sorry to hear about your experience, Matt.

I know a few people who had bad things happen to them at sleepovers. I'm not a big fan of my kids sleeping over at other people's houses and I try and avoid them -except at grandma's house.

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Submitted by Kris on Tue, 2017-02-28 20:22

My family had a situation with a woman like the OP, back in high school.

My brother and I are 10 months apart. We switched to public high school in the middle of the year. it was tough making friends, we took what we could get. I started hanging out with this girl. I went to her house a few times, and she came to mine.

The first time I asked her to stay the night at my house her mom called my mom, knowing I had a teenage brother, and her mother asked if my brother and his fiends would be there as well. My mom explained her policy of when I have a sleepover, my brother cannot, and vice-versa. We also had a very large house so it was easy to keep the groups of teens seperated. However, my brother was free to have friends over, they just had to leave by 11. This was not good enough for the mother who also asked if my mom was married and what other men are in the house and asked if my mother planned to leave the house, because it was her policy that her daughter could not be alone with teenage boys - ever!. This meant that as long as this girl was at our house, my mom could not leave, even if just for a few minutes.

My mom became offended by the conversation and said that the woman's daughter was no longer allowed to be at our house and she should come pick her up ASAP. Then the mother tried to back-peddle. It was finally agreed that the daughter could stay until 11, but then my mom said to me "I don't want that girl at my house ever again! There is no telling what accusations the mother might make, and we don't need that!"

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Submitted by Kris on Tue, 2017-02-28 21:46