"mommy, someone might steal me"

[niyad]

this was the heartbreaking refrain I heard from a young girl (around 4 years old) when I was using a public restroom. there was not enough room for the child to be in the stall with her mother (clearly, whoever designed these things has never been accompanied by children, or carried parcels), so the little girl was outside the door. she kept repeating this phrase over and over, fearful to be outside that door.

I was in another stall further down, and waited until the mother and the girl left, because I did not want to frighten her by coming out while her mother was still in there. and all I could think was, "what in the HELL kind of world do we have when a child is that terrified to be on the other side of a bathroom door? has this child been imbued with countless reminders of being careful of strangers to the point where she is this fearful? is this the way we HAVE to instruct our children these days? and what kind of world have we created if this is, in fact, something we have to do for their "safety"?

I have no idea what the correct answers are. all I know is that, for those few minutes, that fear was so incredibly real, and so incredibly heartbreaking. No child should EVER have to be that afraid.

[Hoppy]

1. That fear was so real.... and so unnecessary, given the actual number of kidnappings that happen.

And most of those kidnappings deal with marital breakups.

[Shandris]

2. 30+ years of stranger danger and pedo-terror will do that.

It's enough to break your heart, just to drive down the road and see almost no one outside, no children playing, parks going to waste, all the things that used to be community centers rusting away.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

3. It's entirely possible the child simply heard a story that day about a child being kidnapped

I remember when I was four or five (at a time when stranger danger really kicked into high gear) simply hearing about a child being taken on the news could fester with me for days to the point I would not want to be alone for a moment. I eventually became a wandering kid. I would walk pretty far to go see friends and even walk around the mall because I knew to meet my mother at a specific time and place, but there were days when you'd hear something, and it would turn you off to that.