RECENTLY, I was in the Coles supermarket at Vincentia when a woman asked the “checkout chick” if she had seen her son. She described him, told her his name and said he was wearing a red shirt. An announcement was put over the store PA to see if anyone had seen him but to no avail. By this time the woman was, naturally, becoming anxious so I asked if I could put my groceries behind the counter so I could help her look for her son. This is something that I would hope anyone would do in the same situation.
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She headed for the car park while I headed for the courtyard. It was here I noticed a young boy with a red shirt near the toilet block and going into the baby change room area. I hurried back to find the woman and took her to where I had seen the boy. Anyway, it turned out to be a happy reunion with no harm done.
It wasn’t until I got home that I started to think about the incident. In another lifetime, I would have approached the boy and asked him his name before taking him to his mother. Unfortunately, society has degenerated to the state where any male approaching a child, no matter how good his intentions, would be labelled a paedophile. I have, in the past, copped abuse for walking down a beach with a camera in my hand as, it would appear, having photography as a hobby is also a blight on society so heaven help me if the child was near a toilet block.
Have we become so precious we have allowed the do-gooders of this world to stop us helping one another in times of crisis simply because we might have a label attached to us? Isn’t this labelling what stops us from engaging with our neighbours or people of other races? Has political correctness reached such a level that I hesitated to reconnect a child with his mother? By leaving this child alone, near the toilet block while I went to find his mother, wasn’t I placing him in even greater risk and danger?
It is time for us to rethink the way we are headed if we are all to exist in harmony on this planet. Teaching kids about stranger danger is a good thing but we also have to teach them to ask for help if they need it.
L. Boucher,
Sanctuary Point.
