Ban Kids From Sitting on Santa's Lap? That's What One Expert Says
GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU PERVERT! …AND PLEASE BRING ME A TOY FIRETRUCK.
Assume all Santas are child molesters and teach kids not to sit on their laps. That’s what a well-known “child safety expert” in Australia is suggesting, and she is getting traction.
Child protection activist Hetty Johnston this week backed the concerns of Queensland parents worried the time had come to stop their children sitting on the lap of shopping centre Santas for Christmas photos.
“What we would like to see is shopping centre owners updating their child protection policies,” Ms Johnston said.
“The directive would be for children to stand beside Santa, unless parents or children request to sit on his knee. Shopping centres have duty of care to protect children on premises.”
Note the weird idea that somehow shopping centers are ENDANGERING kids if they let them sit on Santa. With mom or dad right there. With a line of kids waiting to sit in the same scary knee. It’s impossible!
And yet: What worries me is that in five or ten years, this could be a normal way of thinking. The same way teachers had to give up hugging students, Santa’s lap could become a legal minefield.
Wikipedia says Johnston’s desire is “to make Australia the safest place in the world for children.”
And if they all grow up terrified of Santa as a child predator, I guess she figures that’s a small price to pay.
One mom interviewed by the Courier Mail managed to dream up a new Santa fear:
Jenna McCarthy, who is mum to two-year-old Aaliyah said: “I wouldn’t force her to be held by a random stranger so Santa is no different to me. I can understand the fear. We hype up Christmas so much and we give kids the idea that Santa isn’t a stranger. What if they come across someone outside the shopping centre dressed as a Santa?
So for fear of meeting a random Santa, children should be warned off of the mall Santa?
People can drive themselves crazy with fear about anything, I guess. Ho ho ho — scarrrrry Christmas!
Lenore Skenazy is a public speaker and founder of the book and blog Free-Range Kids. Her show “World’s Worst Mom” airs on Discovery/TLC International.
