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The Evening Post
December 1 1997
The real fear of the 90s man with children
by Warwick Roger
The older I get the more I find myself agreeing with
my old editor, Frank Haden, now the Sunday Star-Times' most cantankerous
columnist.
Recently, after the 20/20 programme on the Peter Ellis case, Frank wrote of
how the climate of fear surrounding the alleged sexual abuse of children
meant that many men were shrinking from having much intimate to do with
children for fear of being accused of foul crimes. As an example, Frank wrote
that he would never again change his grandchildren's nappies.
I know exactly what he means. I face the same dilemmas most days.
Rosy Posy, who is five in a couple of weeks, is currently fascinated with
what she terms my "boogie". Whenever she catches a glimpse of it
when I'm in the shower, she goes completely silly. At other times, for instance
when I'm getting dressed, she wants to touch it. I understand that this sort
of behaviour is quite common in little girls and not so long ago it wouldn't
have worried me in the least. But not the way things are now.
On weekend mornings Rosy, like most little girls of her age, likes to come
and snuggle in the big bed with her daddy. She demands: "stroke, scratch
and tickle, daddy, in that order" and I'm happy to oblige her.
Sometimes, if she wakes disturbed in the night, she asks to be stroked and I
stroke her to calm her back to sleep. She also likes to stroke me, and I
think it's nice that she does, but I make damned sure that she strokes only
my back.
The other evening I took the children down to Cheltenham Beach
for their first swim of the summer. As usual the local 10-year-old boys were
monopolising the raft, much to the chagrin of the local eight-year-old girls,
among them my Alex and her friends Coco and
Romy. After a while they came to me and asked if I would carry them out to
the raft (the water surrounding it was over their heads). I did that, but in
doing so had to manhandle the girls up on to the raft. In the moment I lifted
Coco the thought flashed into my mind: I
wonder if the middle-class Devonport mothers sunning themselves on the beach
think that I'm a bloody child molester?
In a moment of cold fear, I remembered the recent Wellington case of the
professional man accused of feeling up little girls back in the 1970s in
circumstances not a lot different to the one I was presently in.
Suddenly it dawned on me that I was placing myself at risk of having the 2010
equivalent of Detective Colin Eade, of Christchurch Childcare Centre case
fame, turn up at my door, drag me before Judge Dame Silvia Cartwright who
would listen to stories of repressed memory syndrome going back to Cheltenham
Beach in the early summer of 1997-98, and in no time at all I'd be seeing out
my days in some dank isolation cell in Mt Eden prison.
I'm not joking about this. It's a real fear that men have.
I remembered back to my primary school teaching days, to the times when I was
on playground duty and hordes of little girls would want to hold my hand as I
strolled about at lunchtime. It was regarded as quite natural and accepted
behaviour back then in the late 1960s, but I bet it's not now - which is a
pity, for God knows that in these days of almost-all-female teaching staffs,
primary school kids have little enough contact with male role models.
It's not just in our relationships with children where men have to be extra
careful these days. If we're not under suspicion of being child molesters,
we're at risk of being accused of other crimes.
When I was on my recent hacks' tour of Italy I got to know and like the
new editor of the New Zealand Woman's Weekly.
When we were in Florence
our party had arranged to meet back at the railway station at 6pm. I wandered
around the city but my shoulder was hurting so much that I gave up, went back
to the station at 4.30pm, bought an English Sunday paper and sat down in the waiting
room to read it.
After a while I noticed that Rowan was sitting across the room from me -
reading an English Sunday paper. There was a spare seat next to her. Would I
go and join her, swap papers and chat? I'd like to, but what would she think?
Would I be accused of sexual harassment? Or stalking? Or of just being a
silly old fool?
In the end I decided to play safe and stay where I was, thereby depriving
myself of some human companionship a long way from home.
Later, when we got to know each other better, I told Rowan about my dilemma
and she said I had been foolish, and maybe I had, but the point is that in
these modern times, a man can't be too careful.
I see, too, that another innocent action of mine is now featured in Linda
Burgess' and Stephen Stratford's crappy new novel Safe Sex.
When I was running Metro magazine I would get the junior reporters, one young
woman in particular (and one of the senior ones too, I might add) to sit
alongside me, always, incidentally, with my office door open, while I went
through their stories.
The idea was to show them what I was doing, and why, as I edited their work.
It seemed to me to be a fairly innocent practice, but now I see that I am
portrayed in Safe Sex (and I blame Stratford,
who used to be my deputy editor) as not just "the Mad Editor" but
as a bloody lecher as well.
All this sort of nonsense is, of course, poisoning relationships between men
and women and it will only lead to more tears.
Perhaps I should have joined the Labour Party and then I could have
participated in one of the "fringe" agenda items at their recent
conference in Christchurch
where the subject was "how to communicate effectively with women".
I hope they reached some conclusions we can all use.
But then again, perhaps it's not worth bothering to communicate with women;
all a waste of time.
I see in the O'Herald that a survey of English women's magazines paints a
very unflattering picture of women.
"She rarely thinks, except of sex, although sex had no meaning apart
from transient pleasure and no consequence apart from disease and
abortion," concluded the survey of 11 top-selling magazines.
"She enjoys drunken pranks once associated with adolescent boys and
calls this `girl power'. Her only moral value is being non-judgmental;
counselling is the solution to every problem. She is reluctant to make any
effort in any cause except the gym."
Charming.
Actually I'm rather glad that women are obsessed with sex, but I'm sure that
it's completely politically incorrect to say so.
I've always contended that a man is better off with a cat and a good book for
companionship. Now I know I'm right.
* Warwick Roger is editor-at-large of North & South magazine and The
Post's Auckland columnist.
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