Never talk to strangers. Is that one of the rules you learned as a child? There are a number of touted truths we hear as children and repeat as adults, all in the name of keeping children safe. Never talk to strangers is one of them.
After writing, The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker put together another practical and usable book called, Protecting the Gift, with the subtitle, Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane). If I could only recommend one book, it would be this one.
Audio version: Teach your children to talk to strangers
The book challenges conventional beliefs about child safety. For instance, he tells us not to teach our children to go to the police when they need help.
“A young child cannot tell the difference between a policeman and a security guard, and you certainly don’t want your child’s first choice to be a security guard. (That’s the employment pool that gave us the Son of Sam Killer, the assassin of John Lennon, the Hillside Strangler, and more serial killers and rapists than you have time to read about.)”
He suggests parents tell their children to ask a woman for help. Why? He explains that women are less likely to be sexual predators and more likely to drop what they’re doing to help a child in need.
But if a child’s been instructed to never talk to strangers, then they’re unlikely to seek a strangers help when they’re in need.
Gavin de Becker points out, “The Rule reduces safety in several ways. One is that within the message Never Talk to Strangers (because they may harm you) is the implication that people you know will not harm you. If stranger equals danger, then friend equals safety. But the opposite is true far more often.”
And who are all these strangers anyway?
Try imagining all the people who don’t know you. It’s a lot, right? Billions, actually. And to them, you are the stranger. You are the one they’re afraid of. You are the one who millions of parents tell their children to blindly fear.
It’s silly, isn’t it? It seems so to me anyway. It highlights a desperate need to change how we measure safety. The blanket statement, Never Talk to Strangers, is doing the opposite of its intended use. When we take a statement for truth, we stop thinking and we give up our innate intuition in lieu of following a rule.
In my experience, most people are not dangerous. Those who are leave scars, but that’s a sliver of the minority.
So, as a shout out and thank you to all the good strangers out there, here’s a story from my childhood and the stranger who was determined to help me.
1975 - Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland
We’d been living at 17 Ardmillian Park for a handful of weeks. It was summertime in Ireland and with Bangor set on the northeastern coast, the marina was alive with salt and fish and pigeons and gulls.
I fell hook line and sinker for the Irish fish and chips. The shop smelled of grease and cod. Fish came wrapped in newspaper. And the hard lacquered wood tables held bottles of vinegar that I often over used by soaking my fried fish.
I’d made a new friend with a girl who lived a few houses down. Her name was Karen and she was a year younger than me. School would be starting soon and for the first and last time in my life, I would be wearing a uniform. Girls had to wear wool socks, a green skirt, a white shirt, a blazer and a TIE. If you read my Substack about identity (Who Am I Actually?), this was not my style. A tie, really? How about a tiara?
The church had given us two bikes. Mine was a girls bike. Nothing remarkable. Jared’s was worn, but it had style. It was a Schwinn Stingray with a banana seat and butterfly handlebars.
If you rode five house down Ardmillian Park, turned right on Ardmillian Grove, rode about 100 meter to Thornleigh Gardens and turned left, you could ride to the bottom the street and there on the right hand corner was Maxi’s Garage. A red-brick, corner shop that sold fuel, groceries and sweets.
It was Saturday. Chore day. My brother, Jared, and I helped out with extra chores for the promise of a financial reward. When we finished we impatiently waited as mom rummaged through her coin purse.
I was eight. Jared was six. We held out our little hands and into them she placed a ten pence, a five pence and, “because you were big helpers, here’s another two pence,” she says.
We’re rich!
“Can we ride to Maxi’s? Please, please, please?!!” I beg in my best whiny voice.
“Why don’t you save your money?” she says
“No, no, please don’t make us do that. We worked hard, please, please, please,” I say, “please, please, please, please” (If you add more ‘pleases’ it’s way more likely you’ll get what you want.)
“That money’s barely in your hand and it’s burning a hole in your pocket,” she says.
“No it’s not,” I correct her, “it’s not even hot.”
“It’s a saying,” she explains.
“Well, it doesn’t make sense,” I say, then add, “so can we go?”
She barely nods her head and Jared and I run out the door, hop on our bikes, push the pedals and head downhill. We pass Karen’s house, turn right, then left down Thornleigh Gardens.
“Wait up,” Jared yells to me.
“Hurry,” I yell back.
I can hardly get to the store fast enough. I’m going to buy salt and vinegar chips, and as many penny sweets as I can. I bet I can get all my favorite sweets; white mice, milk bottles, refreshers and flying saucers.
“Slow down, wait!!” he yells again.
I stop at the bottom of the hill and turn around just in time to see Jared catapulted into the air and his bike airborne after him. They somersault in slow motion. Jared lands on his back, the bike lands on top of him. The handlebars are up hill ten feet.
I scream, drop my bike and run up to him.
He’s staring into the sky. Wide eyed and silent.
“Are you okay?,” I say as I pick up the bike and put it to the side, “I can’t believe you’re not crying. I would be crying if I was you.”
I sit next to him. “You flew through the air. Then your bike flew.” I shake my head, “Did it hurt when you landed? It looked like it!”
I keep talking. He keeps listening. “Dad can probably fix your bike. How did the handlebars come off? We should go back to -”
Jared cuts me off by screaming at the top of his lungs. And it wasn’t the loud cry of a child who’s in pain. No, he’s screaming, one long, loud, continuous scream, punctuated only with the occasional inhale.
“Be quiet. What is the matter with you? You were fine a second ago.” I say.
The screaming continues for the next ten minutes. Its decibel range and pitch never change.
“Be quiet, Shhhhh. Shhhhh. People are going to hear you! Shhhhhh. Jared, stop it. Please. You’re fine. Come on, we’ll go home.”
An old lady emerges from the house nearby, “What’s going on out here?!!”
She sees my brother laid out in the street, not moving, glassy eyed and screaming. His broken bike lays to the side. “Oh my goodness, go get yer mother, hurry!” she says to me.
“No, he’s okay. I don’t know why he’s crying, he was fine a second ago,” I explain.
“He’s not fine, look at him, ye need to get yer mother right now young lady.” She’s trying to look at him but I’m blocking from getting near him.
I look at Jared, screaming and staring at the sky. “Well, I’m sure it hurts, he fell off his bike, but he’s fine. Jared, stop crying.”
“We don’t have time for this,” she says impatiently, “this little boy’s hurt. Go get yer mother right now.”
“I’m not leaving my brother with you. You’re a stranger. I’ll take him home myself.”
“Yer not taking him home. Yer brother’s hurt. Not another word out of ye. Go get yer mother right now.”
It wasn’t the old lady’s insistence that made me trust her. It was Jared’s incessant screaming that changed my mind.
“Do you promise you won’t hurt him?”
“Oh my goodness lass, I promise I won’t. Now go.”
I lean down and whisper, “I’m going to get mom. This lady says she’s going to take care of you till mom gets you. She’s a stranger but I think she’s okay.”
The old lady tells me her house number and then tells me to, “RUN.”
I chant the house number all the way home. If I forget the number, mom will never find him.
I race in the house and gasp out the details.
What can she do? She doesn’t know anyone yet to ask for help. She has a baby, a two year old, a four year old and me.
“Hurry! He’s with a stranger!” I say.
She grabs her purse, her keys and the baby, “I don’t know how long I’ll be. Take care of your brother and sister.”
Mom drives off in a rush. I catch my breath.
As the adrenaline wears off, I explain to Isaac what happened. I tell him about Jared flying through the air. I tell him about the bike flying after him. I tell him Jared was fine for a while then for no reason he started screaming and that’s why I had to leave him with a stranger and get mom. Of course, Isaac disapproves of me leaving him with a stranger, but I had to do it.
I play with the two of them for a time, then I get an idea.
“Mom’s going to be gone for a bit, so I’m going to Karen’s house. Promise me you’ll be good, okay?!”
They nod and I leave.
I knew I shouldn’t leave them and I hate being in trouble, so I planned to get home before she did. Karen was a new friend and it was more fun to play with kids my age.
A few hours later I headed back. When I see the car in the driveway I felt sick. Mom was home and not happy with me. Apparently, the kids had not been good like I told them to. They had been playing outside in the cul de sac when she pulled up. Catherine was running around naked. It was a common theme for her, but I was still in trouble.
Jared didn’t come home. She had to leave him at the children’s hospital. He had a bad concussion and stayed there three days.
A week later we went shopping for school uniforms. Mom bought us black leather shoes, a tan leather backpack and a forest green uniform with a green and gold striped tie.
Other than the tie, it was fun shopping day. When we pile back the car and I ask, “Mom, can I sit in the front seat?” I am the oldest and I usually get the front seat because I’m prone to motion sickness, but this time Jared got it.
“You’re babying him because he got hurt,” I complain from the backseat. Jared climbs in the front and pulls the heavy door closed.
“Well, that’s okay. He should get some special treatment,” she says. Jared looks back and me and smiles. I stick out my tongue.
Mom starts the car and swings wide and to the left to turn onto another street. Jared leans against the door and falls out.
Mom keeps driving.
“Mom, Jared fell out of the car.” I say.
“WHAT, WHERE?” Her voice is panic stricken.
“He’s fine, just wait for him, he’s running back.” I say.
Jared was fine this time. He’d done a perfect stunt man move by rolling out of the car. He rolled right into standing position, ran back and hopped into the car. The only damage this time were some scuffs on his new shoes.
I called Jared to ask him what he remembers. He said he remembers the handlebars coming off and seeing the front tire turned sideways, then being thrown forward and up in the air. The next thing he remembers is waking up in a smoky house with a strange lady.
References
Protecting The Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (And Parents Sane), by Gavin de Becker
https://www.dailyedge.ie/ranking-of-penny-sweets-2449643-Nov2015/