hey r/mensrights. I had something that I thought I might share with you.

Just as a little background, I work for a company that rents out inflatables (big slides, bounce houses, obstacle courses, etc) and my job is to go set up, watch the kids play for a while and make sure nobody gets hurt, and then take them down. I like my job a lot because kids are fun to be around.

Now yesterday I was working on a big slide. For this inflatable, we post someone at the bottom and someone at the top of the slide. I was at the bottom making sure not too many kids went up at a time. My coworker was working the top and basically had to make sure not too many kids went down at a time. But from time to time, there would be a kid that was afraid to go down the slide. He would then ask the kid "do you want to go down with me?" and then he'd put the kid on his lap and slide down with them. Not one of the parents complained. Whether the kid was a little boy or girl, not a single parent so much as shot a nasty look his way (these kids that were afraid were pretty young, so the parents would always be watching from the bottom of the slide). In fact, almost all of the parents thanked him for going down the slide with their kids.

I know that some people out there will treat guys like crap and act as though we are all by default child molesters. But what I think I learned yesterday is that these people are a minority. I hate thinking that I will eventually come to expect dirty looks, name-calling and interrogations form people when I'm around little kids. When we hear so many stories on this sub, it can be difficult at times to realize that we're reinforcing a stereotype of other people as being judgmental, as our minds hold in the positive reinforcement and block out anything that tells us our judgments are wrong.

Not that we shouldn't keep fighting the good fight. And I am not shaming everyone who posts their stories for advice or just venting.

But don't let it control you.