IT'S A DAD'S LIFE:I SUPPOSE it's no surprise that the response to last week's column far exceeded the usual, the usual being a chatty phone call from my mother, writes ADAM BROPHY
She likes to ring up and chortle about what her grandchildren have been up to. There was no chortling last week. The mention of child abuse will do that.
What did surprise me, though, was that much of the response seemed to focus on what we would do next.
For those who didn’t read last week’s piece, it boiled down to the fact that we discovered a grown man was watching our children, a man who we understand to have been involved in at least one “incident” with a child in the past.
When the Garda were informed of this, there was little they could do except to give the man a warning to stay away.
If I had not written in detail on the topic last week it may have already faded into the past. Because we will do what we do in most circumstances, and continue with our lives much the same as before.
The kids have been briefed about “strangers” in what the parenting books call an “age-appropriate” way and we, their parents, will be vigilant as before in safeguarding them.
But stuff keeps happening to take your mind off these worrying events, regular stuff that you can’t stop, and it tends to take up most of your waking day.
But if someone attempts to lay a hand on those kids, well, I will take that hand off.
If my mind has been focused in any way, it is to the fact that the level of protection granted to you or your family in society is illusory. Our system is reactionary rather than proactive.
You can see this everywhere, not just in our policing system, but in our healthcare policies and our property crisis. Problems are addressed after the event rather than by implementing procedures that may halt a spiral of catastrophe.
You can see this in action as house prices crumble and banks continue to refuse finance, as hospital emergency rooms brace themselves for the annual winter influx and bed shortages, and as predators continue to roam the country unmonitored.
So, left to my own devices I would probably become more vigilant and rely on an optimistic belief that things will work out for the best in the end. In other words, I would adopt the reactive approach, the one I’ve been schooled in.
Not if I respond in the way e-mails have been suggesting I should. The majority insist it shouldn’t be up to us as parents to patrol for predators, then report our findings back to the Garda.
The majority propose alternative, active methods I can adopt myself.
Some of these are way out there. An old, old friend came out of the woodwork with the idea that we hold a street party populated by hairy thirtysomething men sitting silently outside the man in question’s house. We should stay and sit all night. Doing no wrong.
He then advised me to read up on the citizen’s arrest. Neither of these ideas I am particularly comfortable with, but the point is they are proactive. He also advised looking into some sort of restraining order, which is, of course, a logical and reasonable step.
Other suggestions included keeping a log of any sightings and very obviously photographing the man if he should appear, informing him of what I am doing and notifying him that I will be supplying all documentation and photos to the authorities.
There was also advice on the tricky subject of explaining the dangers to the kids themselves. They obviously want to know why we are more acutely concerned as to their whereabouts at all times, and I received a number of ideas on how to broach this.
I am brutal for taking advice – I want to reinvent the wheel every day – but this torrent of suggestions gave me an injection of purpose. Instead of becoming resigned that there’s no safety net out there, I developed a sense that you need to make your own.
The fact that we and our police force seem legally powerless to act on the possibility that a sexual predator may be circling particular children won’t cause me to do a whole lot different with my life. But where possible, I will approach the problem rather than waiting for it to find us. Within the confines of the law, of course. The regular stuff keeps happening and it can’t be overshadowed by this nonsense.