Ever since Paul was born, I get comments and smiles and questions every time we go out:

• Oh, he’s so cute!
• What’s his name?
• How old is he?
• What a great smile!
• How many teeth does he have?
• etc., etc., etc.

I understand this. I read somewhere that people talk to pregnant women and mothers because everyone in a community is interested the next generation: the next generation influences the current generation. The entire community is therefore interested in what mothers do.

The other week, I realized that now that Paul’s getting older, soon, he’s start remembering that he’s smiling at strangers at the supermarket. When do I tell him to “never talk to strangers”? And where do we draw the line for “stranger”? For example, is the checkout girl a stranger? What if she’s new and we’ve never seen her before? What if there is a weird man in the line behind us? Do we still answer when the checkout girl asks us my son’s name and how old he is?

This may come across as paranoia. I don’t really think anything bad will come of telling the checkout girl my son’s name. But I’m seriously curious: when do we stop talking to strangers? Or, rather, when do we stop encouraging our kids to talk to or smile at strangers?