Pic source: TOI

So, it began all over again this morning. A “how to keep yourself safe from marauding rapists” session with my little girl.

I cannot define what the crime is in the four-letter word, no definitive answer to “why are you telling me this?” one-liners, can’t answer all her “whys?” each time I hold a ‘good touch and bad touch’ session, and cannot suppress the gut-wrenching pain when she starts giggling each time I tell her where strangers are not supposed to touch her.

In fact, all this importance on ‘bad touch’ awareness seems a bit overcooked. What information/awareness can defenseless little girls process and put to use when the vultures are out to attack them at every available opportunity?

Parenting pains

Look at what all goes into parenting these days? Worse still, look at how the shadow of fear stalks the little ones constantly everywhere they go.

The girl innocently says, “I will tell my teacher if someone does any harm to me.” But she doesn’t know it can very much happen inside the school itself and the teacher can be the criminal himself. She tells me that she would carry the school diary wherever she goes in which all the contact numbers are written. She also tells me this: “The best thing to do is you give me your visiting card. I will carry it with me all the time.”

A glint of pride in her eyes. Maybe she thought she has cracked it.

In my opinion, one of the deepest parenting pains is to protect the child’s innocence even as I make her aware of the potentially dangerous situations and how to avoid them.

Where have all the moral police gone?

Just want to know this: Where are all the moral police who pounce on every college girl questioning her right to wear what she wants? Or, is there something that we parents do not know what our little ones have been doing to “invite” such crimes?

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