Jo Haywood's column (Play time scares me, August 1) amused and entertained as always, but also struck a chord.

Jo asks: "Are there really more paedophiles (etc.) around today?".

I should say definitely no- it is simply the in-thing to over-react to any suggestion of paedophilia, and our over-protected children pay a high price: freedom.

As a child I well remember rushing home to my mother after seeing a man in a park displaying his "willie".

On being reassured I was untouched and unharmed, she sighed, saying "Poor devil, he is either sick or desperate". Now, years later, I understand what she meant.

My sons, like Jo, disappeared after breakfast and holiday times, never to be seen again until much later when they reappeared, worn out, happy, grubby and rarely totally undamaged.

Apart from the thankfully rare high profile cases where children are lured away and killed, precious few suffer any harm at all. Any child is far more likely to be abused, injured, and worse, in his or her own home than outside and, statistically, the mother, not the father, is most likely the molester.

Your recent article about the highly qualified man who cannot get a job as a nanny highlights the current undeserved and totally sexist attitude to men looking after children.

Men are at least as worthy, caring and capable as any woman. Again, there are many incidents of female nannies ill-treating, even killing, children in their questionable care. Would this have happened with a man in charge?

Wrapping our children in cotton wool and treating every man they meet as a possible "paedo" is wrong and cruel, and likely to warp young minds rather than protect their bodies.

Heather Causnett

Escrick Park Gardens,

Escrick,

York

Updated: 09:27 Wednesday, August 03, 2005