What happens when the loved child grows up, becomes a parent herself, and realizes that the secret agenda over the "dink'a wa-wa" was NOT about hydration, but about Mummy getting to go back to sleep?

The sense of betrayal would poison everything and cause irreparable trauma.

* ahem *

You actually aren't too far off of something the most folks don't even want to consider. And that is the consequences of treating all affection from non-related parties as if it were suspicious.

When "parental rights" and "stranger danger" create an environment in which hugging a distraught child could cost the job of a caregiver or lead to the arrest of a stranger, then we have told the child that we, as a society, no longer love them; only their parents can do that.

I can tell you that a lost child is a major issue in retail. But that taking a child in hand in order to find their parent has the very real issue of holding them by the hand.

It gives pause, and it causes males ( who are already told by a pathological culture that they have no business as nurturers or caregivers ) that they should not help the child unless its unavoidable. Guys will delay the search in order to find a female coworker, even one who must be summoned from another floor, to do the task they might otherwise be inclined to do for themself.

When you think about situations where a child is in immediate danger, do we really want to condition males to hesitate to act?

The costs are very high. And yet some would tell us that its irrational to blame those who endorse the laws that create those costs because they don't want the built-in consequences to be the built-in consequences.

Its not enough to decry the fallout and then reinforce the situation which causes that fallout. If you spend all your time arguing that no child "needs" strangers demonstrating affection absent parental prior approval then you are part of the problem. If you raise suspicion of sexual motives as a grounds to segregate children from adults then you are part of the problem. If you treat potential future regret as ground to declare criminal sexual assault over something welcome in the present.......

"So when the man had his hand in yours and was taking you to find your mother did you notice if he had a bulge in his pants? Did he hold onto your hands for longer than you wanted? You were upset and crying, but your mother was five aisles away and could still see you, are you sure that your emotional distress was about you looking for your mum and not because a strange man took you by the hand?"

It seems to me that if a guy is dumping toxic sludge in the lake repeatedly, and defending the necessity by talking about all the lifesaving chemicals his factory produces, that he also cannot both say that he wouldn't want to change the methods, but that he otherwise believes that he stands with the environmentalists because he believes that the levels of toxins should be lower.

Dante