That Idiot At The Front of the Plane!



There is considerable resistance in some communities to frank discussion and clear education about child protection & the risks of child abuse.

The nay-sayers tend to refer to tznius (modesty), and the fear of causing panic amongst the children and adults.

I was mulling this over on a recent trip abroad, and was fascinated by the safety presentation on the plane.

If you travel frequently by air, you will be familiar with these safety presentations featuring the air hostesses.

A pre-recorded message explains about the oxygen masks, emergency exits, lighting, lifejackets etc, while the air hostesses point, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, at the doors etc and demonstrate the use of the oxygen & safety belts.

If you look around at your fellow passengers, you’ll see they are deep into their novels, exploring on-board entertainment, or already doped up and asleep. The only ones looking at the hostesses, seem to be more interested in the packaging than the message.

It struck me that this was really quite astounding.

I felt like standing up and shouting “OMG!! We’re all going to die!! She says there’ll be no air! At twenty thousand feet! Then we’ll hit the water and all drown! You think the lifejackets will help anyone? In a smashed aircraft a thousand miles from land?!! We’ve got to be out of our minds! HELP – I want to get off this plane!!”

When the first person recommended that the airplanes should give a safety presentation, their sales & marketing team must have gone nuts.

It would be like showing Airplane Disaster movies during the flight.

Sales of air tickets would plummet (as it were). Who in their right mind wants to be told about crashing aircraft when you’re sitting in one?!

And, a few decades later, it’s just a yawn.

IMHO there needs to be a similar process, to move beyond the fear of creating panic, or creating impure thoughts, and to seriously educate our children and our whole community about child protection.

While protecting our kids, the worst risk should be that they end up yawning, while being told how to protect themselves from inappropriate touch.

Comments

  1. Interesting and useful analogy, David.
    I would say the airliners did take it in to consideration.
    Which is why they do the whole presentation in a very bland manner (sometimes even smiling).
    One can say that 'perception is projection', meaning it is up to the one communicating the message, to deliver it in a way that elicits a useful response.
    To often, people working in this field get emotionally involved and sometimes they the helpers themselves become hysterical and that is usually not useful for the public. So definitely there is food for thought and digestion in this blog on how to step forward.

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  2. Correct. And one of the lessons shared should be that the proper names of body part created by HKBH are not dirty words; a penis or vagina is no worse than an elbow or toe. The vulgarity is in the actions of pedophiles and the people protecting them.

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