Stranger Danger

   Being a child of the nineties, I grew up with Barney the Dinosaur on television. That cheerful purple creature attempted to teach us morals and values such as kindness and caring. And he was so enthusiastic about it that the show would generally end with a song and dance number. Metaphorically speaking, he was something of a god to me when I was little.

   One day, Barney tried to teach us nineties kids about Stranger Danger. This was when I was probably around three or four, at any rate probably before I'd started school. From what I remember (though this is going way back, of course) Barney told us that if a stranger (which, as he explained was just someone we didn't know) in a car offered us lollies, we should say no and go tell a parent or trusted adult. He also told us that it is dangerous to talk to strangers because we don't know them. So, in a nutshell, basic Stranger Danger for kids. Simple, right? How could a kid watch that and get the wrong message?

   I was a weird kid.

   At this same age, my mum kept introducing me to a lot of people- distant relatives, family friends, well known people in the community (local police, people from church, school teachers etc.) All adults. I don't think I really made an effort at such a young age to remember who these people were- they were adults and adults were boring because they didn't play with me, they just talked to my mum so I would get bored and start being obnoxious. Anyway, whenever we saw these people again my mum would say, "You remember the nice policeman we talked to the other day/ my cousin we went to visit when we were on holiday/ the girl that I told you I went to school with?" And I would just blankly stare at them, completely unable to remember (out of sheer disinterest), realise I was being rude and nod politely instead. As a result of this, I was somewhat confused as to what a stranger actually was, because although Barney had said that a stranger was someone you don't know, I was confused about who I did and didn't know because all these adults that my mum insisted I did know and I had met. I couldn't remember ever meeting them or knowing them. How on earth could a small girl tell which people were the strangers and which were the people that I was supposed to know?

   At the time, we lived on a small suburban street. Not really a street either. It didn't really lead to anywhere. As these were "simpler times" my parents were happy to let my friends and I play on the area of the footpath that was just outside my house- not many people came past anyway so were reasonably safe.We had a letterbox that at the time was covered in ivy and I thought it looked magical. My friends and I would sometimes play pretend that it was a stable for our My Little Ponies.

Back in the day.

   One day, when I was still very little, a friend and I were playing out on the path outside my house when a man walked past. I wasn't sure if I know him from somewhere or not- he might have be a stranger! Having been educated by a friendly purple dinosaur, I figured it was best to find out, just to be on the safe side.

   "Excuse me, but are you a stranger? 'Cause Barney the dinosaur says not to talk to strangers."

   I don't even remember how the man reacted to such interrogation from a small child. That man probably wasn't a pedophile. And he wasn't in a car, so he couldn't have lured me there with confectionery. But I bet he never watched Barney in the mornings.

   Barney would've been proud of me that day.