Re: Baby Paranoia there & Here

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Just a quick addition to the discussion on the fear of child sacrifice,
satanism, baby body part theft, etc. I'm sure some folklorist somewhere
has noted the *current* paranoia in North America, fed by very widely
publicised events of child-snatching by the ubiquitous *stranger*, even
though the statistics point very clearly to the greatest dangers to young
children and infants coming from their immediate caregivers (mummy/daddy)
or a family intimate (ex-daddy/ex-mummy/uncle/auntie/new-daddy/new-mummy).
Does any of this child-safety fear remind anyone else of Hansel & Gretel,
or Cinderella?
And yet despite my own recognition that the contemporary rise in
shild-safety paranoia is probably more a relation of the recent baby
boom, poor economic confidence among the middle class, turn of the
century skepticism in past bastions of confidence (government, church,
education) and so on, I too refuse to take my eyes off MY four year old,
and experience the heart-in-throat panic when she goes out of sight at a
shopping mall.....
Heather Y-L

'Oku fia 'amaua 'etau ngaue pupula pea nofo masiva
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Mike Evans, Anthropology &/ Heather Young-Leslie, Anthropology
McMaster University, Hamilton /or: York University, North York,
Ontario, Canada. L8S 4L9 Ontario, Canada. M3J 1P3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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