Wwyd - statue crayon incident

[Nearlyspring23]

Just been reading the news report on a 200 year old statue being defaced by blue crayon.

If your child was responsible and hadn’t been spotted would you own up?

I would class myself as quite responsible, but not sure I would?!

😬😬😬 Oh God. I don't know!! I would be tempted to leave but petrified someone would find out it was my child and contact me.

If that was a child, they were clearly unsupervised for some considerable time

Try to get it off if not I would have to own up and try to clean it properly also apologise!

Presumably the child was very young, so why were they not being watched?

I'd have to own up. Failing to prevent your child from doing this in the first place is one thing , but running away from it is a horrible, cowardly thing to do.

Doesn’t look like a young child to me, a teenager perhaps

If it was small child I think I'd leave and make an anonymous donation to cover cleaning costs.

If it was an older child, I'd turn them in.

I don't think that was an unsupervised small child though, they'd have had to be on their own for ages! I think it's someone old enough to know better.

Yes I’d own up - and would be a snivelling wreck as I apologised. That child must have been unsupervised for a long time - had it wandered away from its parents and they were looking for her/him? Or were they just not paying attention?

I was thinking maybe 4 year old? The general marks look quite unsophisticated, but the colouring of the eyes show some attention to detail?

Thats graffiti by a teen or adult not a child

Ooooo I’d like to think I’d be honest but I’m not sure. I’m a terrible people pleaser.

If it was an older child I think I’d own up and get them involved in the cleaning up.

If a young child I don’t know…I wouldn’t think my young child would manage that though because when we are out the home I’d be with them at all times.

Some times I wonder if we really encourage people to be honest. Something like this happens and people pile on on social media and get really extreme “should have their children removed”, “the child is disgusting” type comments.

The statue is in a park (national trust). I often let my child have some freedom to run around in the parkland. So maybe could see this as a situation which could happen, maybe?
Obviously in a house/museum I watch them like a hawk.

You’d let your 4 year old (if indeed that’s the age of the child) run around unsupervised and out of sight in an open parkland for long enough to do that sort of damage?

Markings for rhinoplasty, lip enhancement, dermal fillers and possibly blepharoplasty, it looks to me like an aesthetic surgeon did this.

This reads like an art review for the design quality of the graffiti!

I agree that a child would have to be left unattended for some time to do that and also have a crayon upon their person- both seem fairly unlikely for a young child but of course not impossible. I would as honesty is an important lesson to teach children. I remember when DS was about 2 we were in a posh shop and although I was holding his hand his other managed to knock a china sculpture off the display and it smashed. The part of the shop we were in no one saw and could have sneaked out but I'd have felt guilty; thankfully when I told them they said these things happen and didn't ask for payment. If they had I'd have been loathe to pay and can see why someone who literally couldn't afford it wouldn't though.

WD40 is great for getting crayon off. Not sure how good it is for statues.

It’s obviously not good, but probably much easier to clean off that sharpie swear words or spray painted genitalia.

If I was having a picnic round the corner and they kept popping round every minute then maybe? Or if I could see them sitting on a rock, so knew where they were but just couldn’t see what they were doing and had no idea that the rock also contained a statue.

I have visions of being super pleased that my child was keeping themselves occupied by nature, only to get closed and realise the rock also has a statue on it.

This. I'd be more embarrassed I hadn't bothered to keep my eyes on my child than what they actually did.

I think it’s taken more than a minute to do this amount of damage sadly - this looks like they’ve been busy for a while. I bet (well, hope!) the parents are mortified - and hopefully they’ll work with the property to sort it.

Agree with others there's very little chance this was an unsupervised child. It seems much more likely to have been a bored teenager or 2 showing off.

A child left unsupervised and unnoticed long enough to colour to that extent seems very unlikely.

I'm very surprised they would need someone to own up and that there wasn't any witnesses to be honest.

There's a lot of water at Croome! I wouldn't leave a 4 year old unsupervised!!

😂

This is interesting extra info. If water is involved I wouldn’t take my eyes off a small child, so maybe it is an older one.
The scribbles just look so characteristically pre school.

If it is an older child the parents might not even know. Bet the offenders are terrified if they realise it has made the news. I would totally have had to tell my parents as I would be having nightmares I would get found out. Not that I would have done something like that as a child.

some parents literally sit and watch their kids burn the place down - it is horrifying

The statue is a right mess. But, interestingly the child (if say a 4 yr old) would have been climbing the statue for quite some time to get to the upper parts of it and make that amount of mess. I'm undecided if teen graffiti or a bored four-year-old.

There are lots of statues, paintings and artefacts on display there. Plus with half term this last two weeks there's an Easter egg hunt too, so more visitors. Lots of water in the grounds, statues all around the lake and pathway
I think if mine had done that I would have owned up, been mortified and started scrubbing, (but I have eyes on my escapee and reins because he knows he is faster than me and will try to use my weakness to his advantage.)