My family and I took advantage of the beautiful weather this weekend and went to our usual park to play. When we got there, a young lady with several little girls already occupied the playground. We stepped in with a football and kickball in hand, and let Cainan run, playing and chasing him around the playground equipment.

This particular playground has a little sand pile, which I did not want Cainan to play in, because, well, let's face it, I'm sure cats come into the playground. After much fretting and pleading, I just let Cainan continue to pick up handfuls of sand and throw it, except when he was trying to throw it on the girls.

After a while, another young couple showed up with a little girl who was about a year old. She, along with the other girls, started playing with the football and kickball, which of course was no problem.

I love going to the park with our son because I love to watch him interact with the other kids. As parents, we generally chat amicably with other parents. We push each other's kids on the merry-go-round, help a little one up if they fall down and just share the space as it is meant to be shared.

On this day, I was sitting on the wooden ledge next to the sand lot. Cainan had climbed over and was on his way around the playground. This couple's little girl came walking up to me squeezing her hands open and closed.

"Hi," I said to her. "How are you?"

I wasn't sure what she wanted. She came right to me and put her hands on my hands, then kept closing and opening her hands. She made a gesture that appeared to me that she wanted up. Before I even thought about it, I picked her up and stood her on my knees.

Suddenly I felt my face flush. I had just picked up someone else's kid without asking. It turns out that what I think she wanted was the football. I sat her down and got it for her and she went happily on her way. I looked at her parents and said, "She's not shy at all, is she?" with a nervous laugh. I never thought about it being rude or inappropriate. I'm always picking up my friend's kids and never giving it a second thought. It was second nature. A little person in front of me appeared to want to be picked up and I picked her up. Deep down inside I thought, "Her parents' hearts must have skipped a beat! Here I am, a complete stranger, picking up their kid!" I would absolutely not be ok with someone just picking Cainan up. Her parents never said anything and we all continued to play on the playground for a while longer.

I thought about this on and off for the rest of the afternoon. It led me to think about how different our society is from when I was a kid. When I was little (at a reasonable age, of course), we could play in our front yard alone, ride our bikes all over town, talk to most people and it didn't matter. Most people we would come in contact with were not going to harm us. And if we did something wrong, we could very well get in trouble by someone who was not our parent. Then, they would tell our parents and we would get in trouble again! But somewhere along the line that changed. I always look twice at people who are standing too close to my son, slow down in the grocery store aisle next to us or who talk to him too long in public. I'm all for people chatting with Cainan. He loves people and I want to foster that in him. And on the playground, I have no problem with other parents helping him on equipment, helping him up when he falls or interacting with him and their kids. It's a playground. It's meant to be social. But somewhere, deep down inside, anywhere we go, there lies a suspicious and alarming instinct to watch my child. I'm sure all parents have this. Maybe my instinct is overactive from being the daughter of an overprotective mother and a cop and hearing about all of the horrible things that can and do happen. Either way, it saddens me that we live in a world that we have to think about these things, and it disturbed me greatly that I may have made other parents uncomfortable in a place where their kids should always be comfortable.