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Originally Posted by guthmund
The question, for me anyway, is why do we have these irrational fears about men and children. Of 797,500 children reported missing, 58,200 were abducted by nonfamily members and only 115 of those were the violent, long-term "stereotypical" abduction scenarios (all that according to the NISMART-2 research study for the year 1999). That means 739,300 children, that is if my math is right, are abducted by family members. So, if the vast majority of kids abducted are abducted by family members, why aren't they as heavily scrutinized as the lone male?
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Many of those are runaways, but your basic point is sound. Most abductions are by family members, most others are by non-familial caregivers such as babysitters, and parents should be aware of the potential here.
However, this is another case of absolute numbers not telling the whole story. Younger children spend nearly their entire lives either at school / daycare, or with an older family member. They spend huge blocks of time with family, and very little unattended in a public place, where most stranger abductions occur. The vast majority of cases where a family member abducts a child, it's a non-custodial parent. Most of the time, the non-custodial parent has the legal right to see the child. What's to be done about this? I don't know.
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My sister and mother have no problem leaving my niece and nephew with me for hours on end. A friend of my mother regularly leaves her teenage daughter in my charge during the summer when school is out. According to statistics, it's more likely for me to abduct them rather than some random guy at the park.
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Not when you eliminate custodial interference abductions, which constitute the majority of family member abductions. Look at those "Missing Child" flyers, and look at the "last seen with" person. It's almost always the father. Second, you've obviously been assessed as not being an abduction/molestation threat. This is what parents should do with all potential caregivers.
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But really, all that is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. I mean, if you're that worried about a child being abducted, wouldn't you be wary of everybody? If I was so terribly frightened of the notion that someone could spirit away my child, you better believe I'm going to be watching everyone around them like a hawk and not just the lone males.
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Exactly. Any stranger around a group of kids, regardless of sex, should be watched carefully. Men, in our society, are much less likely to be primary caregivers, so seeing one at the park around a group of kids, for example, is going to draw attention.