Hands Off!

Dear friends & family, you may disregard this message, as it is not directed toward you.

Dear everyone else:

Keep your hands OFF my child.

I realize that I have an adorable kid.  No, really, this is not just my motherly bias talking here; I have a really cute kid.  However, child or not, he is a full person with all the rights that come with such status.  This includes the right not to be groped, rubbed, patted, handled, or otherwise touched without invitation by total strangers.

Legally speaking in the United States, criminal battery (or simply 'battery') is the use of force against another, resulting in harmful or offensive contact.  It doesn't take much force to touch a child, as they don't standardly realize that they are entitled to refuse to allow you to touch them.  However, strangers touching my child is offensive to me.

Perhaps it is made worse in the specific case of my child by his blondish red hair.  Red hair is a rarity, and  people are naturally fascinated by uncommon sights.  But my son no more chose to be born redheaded than I did, and that does not give you automatic reason to touch him.

Yes, my son is a friendly and talkative little boy, often smiling at or talking to complete strangers in the grocery store checkout lines.  But as his mother, I am intimately familiar with the faces Kaleb makes as he reacts to different situations; and he is visibly uncomfortable when a stranger gets close enough to him to touch him.

In short, if you wouldn't reach out and touch an adult stranger, you should not reach out and touch children you don't know either.  And if you ARE the kind of person who regularly feels the need to put your hands on strangers, you may want to learn to stop before you find yourself on the unpleasant end of a criminal misdemeanor battery case.