Today on “Mommy’s mind is not a toy” Keeping our precious kids safe

“I’ll always be a child molester.” That’s what I remember the convict saying as we filmed him at a high-security prison in the Bay Area.

In my previous life, before I was married with children, I was a television associate producer in San Francisco. One project I worked on has left a lasting, haunting impression. It was a child safety video called “The Look Project.”

The creation of the show was sparked by the abduction of Polly Klaas in nearby Petaluma. If you remember, directly following that particular abduction there was an enormous amount of attention on the subject. As I recall, it was a pretty challenging show to produce. We interviewed a convicted child molester in prison, shot abduction scenes on the streets of Sausalito, and spent hours carefully writing the script.

I suppose this is what has made me extra cautious with my own kids–I never post pictures of them on the internet and never let them out of my sight when we’re in public. The man we interviewed deep inside a prison looked just like an ordinary guy, he was a dad and husband–no sinister look in his eye, nothing that would make you think, “I am going to keep my kids away from him.”

“The Look Project” I think only exists in a box somewhere in my garage, but there is a stranger safety video that I would highly reccomend to every parent. Every child should watch it, repeatedly.