No kids but I enjoy babysitting so there have been countless instances where I have been scrutinized and questioned. The oddest instance was when I was sitting on a bench outside a school/day care waiting for my girlfriend to fetch her daughter. When they came out she stopped to talk with the teachers in the playground and they all looked over at me. Turns out they were about to call 911 about me. Simply sitting on a public bench near a school created a situation deemed so dangerous that an emergency call to the police was about to be made. It makes me sad too francopoli but I would never directly interact with a kid I did not know unless they were in immediate danger of dying. Even beyond your policy, I always have to first find a woman to help.
The stories from you and francopoli are absolutely, utterly fucked. I don't even know what else to say. It's fucked. As a man aiming to be a teacher, I find the situation appalling and incredibly stupid. This begs the question, though: why haven't we banned kitchen knives yet? They kill people, don't they? Sharp melee weapons at an arm's length in every house. So easy to just reach out and slash someone you don't like: your neighbour, their dog, their car... Why haven't we banned them? WHY?! Because it's fucking stupid, that's why. The risks are abysmal compared to proper, appropriate use of sharp tools - or even compared to no use at all. I care about human life and safety as much as the next guy, but at some point, your cost-benefit analysis yields extremely poor results and you have to consider that maybe, the shit you're gonna do for safety's sake will drive people insane for that 0.32% increase that has no real effect on the situation but looks oh so comforting.
I don't claim to be smarter, but from what I gather, the best policy against irrational fear is education. Superstitions hold nothing over you if you know they're just a product of fiction. But we're dealing with real people here, not fairy tales. Except... that's what that is: a nightmarish tale spun by people yearning for attention and views for no fucking reason whatsoever. What could a possible benefit be from scaring half a country into a lonely corner? So what do we do? I don't know. I wish I would, but I don't, so I eagerly await the smarter person along your side. In the meantime, this kind of reasoning is what we could use (watch for a full minute).