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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Aibu to think the parents of the Syria girls need to take a bit more responsibility?

374 replies

exmrs · 09/03/2015 08:19

On the news today the parents are demanding an apology from the police as the police knew apparently a friend of theirs had already gone to Syria and the police didn't contact them.
I find it strange that they don't take a bit more responsibility to the situation.

Why didn't they know what was going on in in their daughters lives?
They are the parents and they seem to blame everyone but themselves or the girls.
To blame the police is ridiculous , the girls made the choice to go

OP posts:
kwerty · 09/03/2015 08:21

I agree. Have been thinking the same myself.

wobblebobblehat · 09/03/2015 08:22

This is exactly what I was thinking. The parents are idiots.

seaoflove · 09/03/2015 08:25

Apparently they sent letters home and the girls didn't pass them on, so the families are blaming the police for this supposed oversight?

Well, YANBU. It's not the fault of the police. The girls were obviously determined. I think the families need to look a bit closer to home. At that age, if I'd left the house with luggage my parents would have had a few question, and if I was "going to a cousin's wedding" they would have known about it.

EveBoswell · 09/03/2015 08:31

Well, SeaofLove , looking at the various bits of CCTV that have been shewn, they didn't seem to have much in the way of luggage.

wigglesrock · 09/03/2015 08:31

They would like the police to apologise because the police in their initial statement implied that parents had been informed by the school that a friend of the girls had gone missing, the school didn't inform the parents, they sent a letter home with the girls - not the same thing.

seaoflove · 09/03/2015 08:32

The CCTV might have been taken after check in, though.

FirstWeTakeManhattan · 09/03/2015 08:35

Yes, read this over the weekend. I don't believe the police are at fault in the way the parents suggest, although the police have conceded they could have communicated their concerns more directly.

It's extremely frightening for the parents. Whatever the wider picture, they must be so worried about their children.

EmEyeFaive · 09/03/2015 08:37

It is entirely possibly they will never see their children again. Children who may well end up dead before long. From unattended childbirth, execution, unfettered domestic abuse, or being too close to where ever the front line is this week. Children who may be raped, abused and under house arrest in squalid conditions until the aforementioned happened.

Under those circumstances I think a parent can be forgiven for being frantic and lashing out becuase there was a red flag, but said red flag was entrusted to their child to hand over. Which realistically wasn't going to happen unless the child was at no risk of grooming or absconding. They'll likely be seeing that as a missed chance to save their child and it must feel like hell on earth to know somebody knew something that indicated there might be a risk, but didn't hightail it over to tell them.

It was an oversight by the police. I suppose they are learning to feel their way in a quite new context too, there will be a learning curve. But it is easy to say that when it's not your child in mortal danger.

Overall, looking at my 14 year old, and then thinking about the girls' parents, my heart just clenches at how desperate they must feel. And I don't doubt they are doing an awful lot of "doesn't make it to the papers" beating up of self behind closed doors.

Rjae · 09/03/2015 08:37

It's typical of the blame culture. The parents should have been monitoring the girls internet usage which was far more of a factor. Nevertheless it was definitely a very difficult situation for anyone to anticipate or monitor.

Rightokthen · 09/03/2015 08:39

Yes they bloody do.

Classic, we'll just blame someone else.

Take some bloody responsibility

This is exactly what I thought when I heard the news. It made me angry

It's always someone else's fault isn't it. Everything that happens is always someone else's fault

tiggytape · 09/03/2015 08:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

waceystills · 09/03/2015 08:41

I thought this too. Always some else's fault.

Trickydecision · 09/03/2015 08:42

How else could the school communicate other than by letters home with the children, or email? Using post office delivery would be very expensive and the girls could quite easily have intercepted such letters, and deleted any warning emails.

Nerf · 09/03/2015 08:44

Loving the idea of monitoring a sixteen year olds Internet usage. How ridiculous - at some point these young adults are allowed privacy. The only thing the parents should have done (and we don't know they didn't) is raise their children not to be taken in by this kind of organisation.

BloominNora · 09/03/2015 08:47

All of you blaming the parents - tell me, do you feel the same way about the parents of the girls who were subject to Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham - the ones who weren't in care or on child protection plans?

What has happened to these girls is grooming - plain and simple. Grooming works by detaching the child from their parents, encoraging them to lie and deceuve. As these girls come from loving, non-fundamentalist homes and there were no indications of neglect or abuse, the parents are victims too.

So stop victim blaming Hmm

Stealthpolarbear · 09/03/2015 08:50

Perfect EmEyeFaive

NeedABumChange · 09/03/2015 08:59

They really need to look at how they raised their daughter too. What girl would willing go to Syria? Naive/stupid/very silly ones. Why didn't they teach their daughters any common sense?

And yes nora I feel pretty much the same about the Rotherham girls, if not more so, the girls were younger. Why didn't the parents have any idea what their children were doing, where they were going and with who?

antumbra · 09/03/2015 09:04

Anyone who raises their kids in a strict faith needs their heads examining.

MorrisZapp · 09/03/2015 09:11

I thought the whole point of the grooming in Rotherham was that they preyed on vulnerable girls who did not have loving family support.

I read the article yesterday in disbelief. The letter the police sent home was not a warning letter to say 'look, be careful, there's a chance your daughter may be groomed'. It was a letter about investigating a specific case, to find out whether or not the other girls had any information that could help their enquiry.

They were at pains to point out that 'your daughter is not under suspicion'. The families are kidding themselves and need to look much closer to home for answers IMO.

Original poster
exmrs · 09/03/2015 09:13

Blooming nora if the girls go on to kill would you still consider them 'victims'

OP posts:
EponasWildDaughter · 09/03/2015 09:16

Why is it the police's fault that the school decided to hand letters out to the kids instead of emailing/texting/posting the parents a letter?

I'm guessing the police would have asked the school to let all parents know that a child at the school had become involved in extremism, and to be vigilant about their own children. School then does the equivalent of sticking a letter in the book bag Hmm

Schools fault IMO.

SoupDragon · 09/03/2015 09:17

So stop victim blaming

I blame the parents, not the victims.

SoupDragon · 09/03/2015 09:18

that is I blame them for not noticing the signs, not for the actual event which is the fault of those who lured the girls in.

EmEyeFaive · 09/03/2015 09:19

I want to know how all of you are controlling your teenager's Internet consumption in the face of almost ubiquitous mobile technology.

Unless I keep my 14 yo locked in the house, or shadow him in a lurky fashion wherever he goes, I have no control over who passes what phone to him to "look at this !"

If somebody wanted to groom DS all they'd have to do is give him a cheapo secondhand device and pay for a low cost data package to hook him up with the internet. These things are small and I know all too well how good teenagers are at finding hiding places, becuase I was a Ninja Master at it in my day. As long as DS kept up the good grades, behaving well at home and school and displayed no out of character outbursts or dips... I wouldn't even know I had to start looking into who or what was influencing him.

He is a kid. An impressionable, sometimes daft kid. Grooming him with sex and romance wouldn't work. But if you fashioned your carrot to suit (relentless and semi-sense making promises of a star studded NBA future comes to mind) he could be common sense challenged enough to allow unrealistic, but enticing dreams override any skin prickle that points out ...

a) it's too good to be true

b) my parents are going to go ballistic/frantic when they find out

If you really want to protect your own child from a culturally relevant attempt to exert a negative influence that dimishises your own, possibly the first place to to begin in shoring up your position is the recognition that it won't be the cake walk some of you are imagining.

Marylou2 · 09/03/2015 09:19

Outrageous thar the parents are blaming the police and the security services and refusing to take responsibility for the behaviour of their own children.I would also think that they must be disengaged from both the school and their community.If a letter made it home to even one family at my child's school to say that a pupil has gone to Syria it would be the only topic of conversation for weeks.They've failed here and naturally it's all someone elses fault.

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