To think that things were different before 2007?

[Haarrieett]

Just happened to see that the new Madeleine McCann documentary is trending on twitter - I clicked on it and saw that hundreds of people were saying things along the lines of "Who would leave their children alone in a foreign country?"

I was slightly at this because dh and I honestly used to do this all the time. My dc are a few years older than Madeleine - when we went on holiday to resorts in places like Greece and Spain, we would often leave them alone in a hotel room (often with a window/patio door open for fresh air) while we went out for dinner.

Obviously, after Madeleine went missing we never did it again, but I do recall it being pretty common behaviour at least among our friends.

Did anyone else used to do this in the pre-MM era?

Try again;

Well, if we’re assessing genuine risk, an unlocked apartment is much safer than a locked one.

How have you arrived at that conclusion @BertrandRussell ?

Why are you speechless, nokidshere? The parents were effectively living as though they were a childless couple.

I'm speechless that anyone could be stupid enough to make a judgement like this based on nothing more than sensationalist media reports. Next you'll be saying that working parents are neglectful for using shock horror full time childcare then daring to go out of an evening.



@FuckertyBoo I know that, it's the people saying they didn't/don't do it so it didn't/doesn't happen the comment was to.

Because children are abducted from apartments once every -oh say, 100 years or so. Children die in fires when rescuers can’t get to them depressingly frequently.

Yes you take them in their strollers and let them sleep while you eat or if they won't do that you suck it up and say in.

This is what we did.

I'm speechless that anyone could be stupid enough to make a judgement like this based on nothing more than sensationalist media reports

I thought the McCanns had never denied that they sent their children to the Kids Club during the day and then left them alone all evening?

Because children are abducted from apartments once every -oh say, 100 years or so. Children die in fires when rescuers can’t get to them depressingly frequently.

But it's not just about abduction - there was a busy road and a pool nearby. Madeleine asked her mother why neither she nor her father had come to comfort her and her brother when they were crying the night before. The chances of her getting out of bed and going to look for her parents weren't exactly remote. She could easily have fallen in the pool or been hit by a car - I'd say both of those scenarios are likelier than a fire breaking out.

If there was a fire they wouldn't have known how to get themselves out they were under 4 years old.

They were on a Mark Warner holiday. You paid good money (I could never afford but I know others who could!) to have this facility. This was all part of the service. People do not seem to realise this.

But they didn't actually use the service, did they? They didn't want to put the kids in the night creche, or use the official listening service, but decided to do their own 'listening service' instead. That's part of why they were criticised - those options were there for them but were not used.

Why o why if you were doing a tag team babysitting service, couldn't you actually stay with the kids for lets say half an hour then tag in the next watcher. So one of the party stays away for half an hour. No biggie

I've always thought this too. Would have made a lot more sense. Or one of you took turns to stay with all the kids each night while the rest went to dinner. With 9 of them on holiday you'd each only have to miss out on one evening. Should have been a no brainer.

I 100% remember being left in the car outside supermarkets when I was young enough to be just starting to read. I remember the different-coloured letter As in the Asda logo. My name begins with A and it was the only letter I could recognise. I could read aged four so I must have been very little. That would have been in the early 90s.

Neither of my parents ever left us alone in a hotel or chalet, but we didn't have much money and when we went on holiday we usually went to stay with grandparents, so there was no need. I do remember going to adult parties (nothing that wild) and then being bundled into the car in pyjamas to go home in the dark, sometimes lying down and sleeping on the back seat (no booster seats then).

I was a teenager when she went missing and I remember thinking it sounded crazy to leave your small children alone to go and have dinner, though when I first heard about it I didn't realise it was on holiday, and had pictured them going to a party at a neighbour's house for some reason. It still sounded like an odd thing to do.

But it was typical of Mark Warner holidays to offer the listening service, as many have mentioned - my guess is that either the group didn't realise until they arrived that that resort didn't offer it, or they had decided as a group to recreate it themselves.

And people do relax and take more risks on holiday - this is a known human behavioural pattern. Just because it's illogical, it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

I had my first baby in 2008 - Madeline or no Madeline I would not have left him like that, no. Not that he would have let me to be fair :o he was a bit of a limpet child.

Buttery - no, there was no listening service at that resort. Mark Warner's official statement says that they didn't offer it because the layout of the resort made it inappropriate - it was too open to the public, whereas others are more closed off.

I guess they didn't use the creche for fear of disturbing the sleeping children/they had used the listening service in the past and fully intended to use it again. Probably they hadn't read the brochure properly to notice that one was not offered.

I can recall in the late 60's/early 70's waking up alone apart from younger sib in a hotel room , picking a scab on my knee , getting scared at the bleeding and bawling my head off. I was probably at least 7 or 8 though. My parents appeared so I think they must have been using the hotel listening service.

It absolutely wasn't the norm by the time our dc arrived early to mid 90's.

I can recall watching a BBC documentary a few years after MM went missing and being struck at the fact there was a line of trees (now gone) between the Tapas bar and the apartment. I just couldn't see how they could possibly have had the clear view that was always claimed. I've also always wondered how the same staff who manned the day creche morphed into 'strangers' who the kids couldn't be left with when it came to the evening babysitting service.

The fact that they put Madeleine in the childrens' club every day - I've always thought that that contributed slightly to the hostility they've faced. Valanice comment is but from what we know, it does seem that they spent very little of their holiday time with Madeleine actually enjoying her company and having experiences together. I remember thinking myself, how sad, that that was the last week they were together, they must have wished they had spent more of that time at the pool, playing on the beach. No judgement btw, just felt for them. And who knows what home life was like - don't we all say, don't judge on a snapshot! Maybe Madeleine adored kids' club and tantrummed to go from 6 every morning!

But you can see why people did judge and then made the not giant leap to thinking they were pretty cold and seemed to want to pack their kids off as much as possible - and, look what happened. If Gerry and Kate had been, 'we had such a lovely last day together, in the pool with the twins and Madeleine making sand castles' - I honestly think they would have had less vitriol than they have had.

Bertie ok, no listening service, but they could have used the evening creche, but instead decided the very young children were safer alone. And that not one of 9 people was willing to miss out on a single evening out to sit with all the kids when they could have taken turns to do this. I find them taking both those decisions inexplicable.

I don't. I wouldn't have done it myself but I can see how they found it acceptable TBH.

I doubt they decided the children were safer, just that they felt it was sufficiently safe. Obviously different people would make a different choice.

See I loved kids club when I was little!

Used to spend most of my holidays in them whilst my parents lounged around the pool.

I hated staying around the pool. If we went out of the resort, I was happy to go, but if they stayed, both me and my sister went off to the kids club.

I know we were older than Madeleine but some kids do love club

I don't know how widespread the practice was - my parents weren't able to afford more than a couple of holidays before they split up when I was about 9 and those were farmhouse holidays so there was definitely no leaving children alone. When my mum could manage to take us away it was usually Butlins and she never left us alone in the evening. We would see the evening show, go to the ballroom where there was a 'disco' which finished at around ten. We'd have a hot drink before retiring to our chalet for bed.
My dcs were born in the 1980's and 1990's and we always took holidays where they would be able to be with us in the evenings. They were never left alone.
I'm sure that to some it is perfectly acceptable to leave your young children unattended in a strange place, but it's clear that to many, me included, it really isn't.

In the cultural circles of the McCann's, I suspect this was normal. They absolutely fit the stereotype of married doctors - him fulltime consultant, her part-time GP. And at that time Mark Warner holidays were the thing for doctors with kids to do, probably still are.

They were doing very normal stuff for that sort of social group, even down to the going on a group holiday thing.

Personally I don't have kids and can't see the appeal of Mark Warner at all, but I know loads of medics who would and this is exactly the sort of thing they go on, bit like group skiing holidays in the winter with all the kids in kids club or ski-school. And just because they are in kids club doesn't mean it's all day - might be a couple of hours only while adults do an activity.

Madeleine taken = parents not to blame (that blame would lie with her abductor)

Madeleine had an accident because she was able to leave an unlocked apartment who's to blame?

unlocked apartments? Who on earth would leave their holiday apartment unlocked. Nothing to do with the kids.

What about possessions, jewellery, cameras, phones, money, passports etc all getting nicked - just for not bothering with a key?

I didn't think it was that common and remember being shocked that any parent would do this. Primarily, as others have said, because of the fire risk! It just seems so reckless to me simply because of that and I am really not an over protective parent, but I think I'm a sensible one.

PS I would absolutely put my kids in holiday club though! I don't see that as an issue at all.

As for the leaving the kids in kids clubs all day......my experience of kids clubs are a couple of hours in a morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon. And the places are like gold dust. So they could have actually had their kids in a kids club just a few times during their holiday. The documentary said they were in a kids club that afternoon. Doesn't mean they were in there all holiday.

We always went abroad with my parents who liked to go out at night. When we were little (in the 80s) mum and dad took us out with them and when we flopped it'd be pushchair, or two chairs pushed together, or sometimes we'd all go back to our hotel room. I can remember my little brother singing baa baa black sheep at 10pm on the stage on karaoke night. I can also remember him asleep in his pushchair.

My inlaws used to holiday in uk hotels and used hotel listening service. My parents never trusted a listening service, but they never worried about routine or having time with just them and no children!

I became a parent in 2013.

My experience of those kind of holidays as a kid (went on a lot) was that kids club was not all day at all. I remember ski holidays, for example, where the kids were sent off to ski school in the morning and then parents picked us up for lunch, did stuff as a big group in the afternoon and then post dinner we were put to bed while adults socialised. I don't think I ever felt unloved - rather I had loads of other kids to play with (much more fun than just parents) and exciting activities. Obviously kids are different but I suspect for high energy kids those things are a godsend and no more an abdication of parenting than sending your kids to ballet or gym class at home.

I'm actually still friends with some of the other kids from those holidays thirty years later by the way. They were great days which is probably one of the reasons I'm being a bit defensive on this thread - some of my fondest childhood memories are apparently foul neglect on the part of my parents!

Mine were born in the 80s and I never did this. I remember one year going away with another couple and staying in a first floor apartment which could be seen from the bar. They wanted to go down but I wouldn't, so ended up babysitting their child by default, really pissed me off and we never repeated the experience with them. One night I noticed a child wandering about in pyjamas in the garden and it turned out that the parents were 20 minutes away in town. There was just a gate between the garden of the apartments and the beach, so could very easily have had a tragic outcome had no one noticed in time.