Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) Book

Right after reading this book, I went for a walk with my toddler, during which four strangers struck up conversations with us. Several of them probably would have set off many people's "uh-oh" alarms, like the scruffy-looking homeless guy pushing a shopping cart. All of them were really sweet and kind, had a short conversation with me and my child, and then moved on. Which leads to my point about this book: I appreciated the author's premise that we should trust our intuition about safety and should be in touch with our own internal danger signals, but he did not address two problems with this:
1. He focuses on all the times people felt an intuition of danger and they were right. But what about all the times they were wrong? He says you should not worry about unrealistic things - but never addresses the question of how to tell "unrealistic worry" from "true intuition."
2. He does not take into account racism, classism, and other prejudices and stereotypes that feel like "intuition" because they are so deeply ingrained in us from such a young age. If a white person responds to an unknown African American on the street with fear, is that their intuition? Probably not. It's probably based on societal racism (as manifested through media stereotypes, etc.). So how do we differentiate? I think this is really important. It's so easy to justify our stereotypes ("Oh, I was just listening to my gut feeling").

I liked that he emphasized that stranger kidnapping is extremely rare and that most danger comes from people you know. I wanted a little more filling-out of how to teach kids to recognize feelings of discomfort that might indicate a situation is "wrong." I also liked that he showed how the whole "Don't talk to strangers" idea doesn't actually promote safety, nor do some other things we commonly tell kids ("Find a police officer"). He made some really good points about this, like for example: If your child is lost, they'll have a better chance of connecting with a safe adult if they choose someone than if they wait for someone to come up to them.

However, I had a lot of discomfort about the idea of telling your child "If you're lost/in trouble/etc., find a woman." I get his point that men statistically commit more violence. But at the same time, most men do not commit violence. Once again, it's really easy to justify our stereotypes (that women are safe and nurturing, men are aggressive and violent) by saying that they're based on some kind of natural order. Ultimately, it doesn't feel right to me to teach my child that women are to be trusted and men are not.

I thought some of his sample letters/ questions to ask were right on (I liked his suggestions of questions to ask potential babysitters); others felt a little overly confrontational and overly focused on the possibility of sexual abuse. Really - when you choose a pediatrician you're going to ask them a gazillion questions about sexual abuse assessment and reporting? You probably only have 15 minutes with them and you have other things you want to know about, like their overall philosophy, what they can tell you about sleeping, eating, and other primary concerns of new parents. Frankly, if I were a doctor and my patient asked me ten different questions about sexual abuse, I'd wonder what was going on.