When Adults Are Banished

She has been a preschool aide since Adam and Eve were drinking from sippy cups. Her curls are gray; her glasses hang from a chain. Ten years ago, it was my kids she watched over with love and laughs. The other day, I went back to pay her a visit and found a frown on the face I always remember smiling. Why?

She is worried about what will happen when she retires — soon — and still wants to enjoy watching kids play. "I won't be able to sit on a bench at the playground," she said. "I'll have to watch from outside the fence." And she's right. In my town — New York City — as well as others across America, the playgrounds have signs: "Adults not allowed unless accompanied by a child."

The reason is obvious: fear of pedophiles. But seeing as there are a lot more people who love children in the good sense than in the bad one, this is a rule that is hacking away at human relations. It is GOOD for the generations to watch and care for one another! Since when are adults actually banished from the world of children? Since we started "worst first" thinking.

"Worst first" thinking involves dreaming up the absolute worst possible scenario and proceeding as if it were fact. So if the situation is "adult and child," the "worst first" thought is "predator and victim." From this comes the rule that "we must keep them separate!"

That is the same thought process apparently going on at the Legoland Discovery Center near Dallas, which states on its website, "Legoland Discovery Center is a family attraction, so it's great fun for everybody."

Everybody, with one exception: "Adults cannot visit the Legoland Discovery Center unless they are accompanied by a child/children," the site says.

The fear of stranger danger has spread like "Law & Order" through our society, despite the fact that the vast majority of crimes against children are committed not by strangers, but by people they KNOW.

So keeping adult strangers away from kids says a lot more about knee-jerk distrust than about actually keeping kids safe.

It also encourages the "I can't think for myself" mindset that is emblematic of so much so-called security these days. Consider this note I got at my blog (http://www.FreeRangeKids.com), from a woman who was taking her family to a children's museum in Boston:

"I dropped my husband and children at the door so I could circle the city looking for a meter. Forty-five minutes later I was finally back at the museum and was told by the lady at the desk that I would not be able to enter without a child. I told her that my husband and 2-year-olds were already there and I'd gone to park the car. No dice! I had to call my husband, who had to tear the children away from the singalong to come down three flights to verify that I did, in fact, give birth to two children and that they were, in fact, in the museum."

How many grown women come to children's museums to prey upon the kiddies there? (How many grown women even can STAND the children's museum? That's another story.) But treating this mom as a potential predator is the way we are going; trust no one, not even your own common sense. It's like when airport security drags Grandma out of her wheelchair to check for shivs in her Supp-Hose. "Worst first" thinking suspects everyone and refuses to use its brain.

Most of us would LOVE to see a retired preschool teacher on the playground, enjoying the kids. Let's keep that picture in our heads instead of the very worst ones we can conjure up.

Lenore Skenazy is the author of "Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)" and "Who's the Blonde That Married What's-His-Name? The Ultimate Tip-of-the-Tongue Test of Everything You Know You Know — But Can't Remember Right Now." To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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