In England the McCanns would be arrested

[LostPuppy]

Off the bat, I of course hope with all my heart that Madeleine is returned safely

But her "parents" are a disgrace. They left Madeleine and two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie sleeping in the apartment ON THEIR OWN. They had taken turns to return from the restaurant to check on their children.

Now hang on! In this country that is illegal, for very good reason.

Even if they 'checked on them' every five minutes that's plenty of time for one of the kids to wake up and try to go to the toilet and crack it's head open slipping on the bathroom floor, or something equally disastrous. They'd never hear the screaming from a bloody restaurant down the road!

Obviously it's unlikely, but I just cant comprehend the mentality of leaving three children under 3 alone on their own, ever, let alone at night in a foreign country!

I quite agree with what you say here expat.

IF she is found.

I think they were foolish.

I have been foolish many times. If someone were to call me on that, I would agree with them. 'Only hypocrites get offended when called by their rightful names.'

I don't know much about Mark Warner holidays but why would anyone want to go on a holiday where you weren't allowed to have dinner with your children in the first place? Not much of a holiday if you are getting your mealtimes dictated to you.

Were the McCann's not with a group? They could have taken it in turns to babysit.

I also heard on BBC or Sky News that they had done this (leaving the kids alone) a couple of times before so anyone who was watching them would have known their routine. I don't think this was by chance, who would have known that the children were in a back bedroom, so easily accessible from the street unless the family had been watched.

I like Squonk's idea - truly I do - and I hope she is found safe and sound.

I agree with whoever made the class/race point. If the McCanns were not white and middleclass and professional, the tabloids would be baying for their blood right now.

That wouldn't be right either. It is not mudslinging though to make the childcare point. Please let's all put our infants first.

For my part, I haven't had a proper dinner on holiday for 8 years. I have either eaten in or eaten out at around 5pm. I do remember one red-letter day when we found a sitter. Cor, that was a night out and a half. We stayed out until 11.00 pm

That was the deal, no?

Why would I do that, IF? How does writing them and telling them anything at all have to do with expressing an opinion on a website?

Because that is all the OP has done.

Not a popular one on MN, but one nonetheless and no worse than many which have been expressed on this board about all kinds of topics without instant lynch possees constantly springing up braying for deletion.

What purpose? To understand other people's point of view, to measure one's own decisions against other people's. Because I kept reading on MN these posts about how normal it was to leave your children and go out to dinner, I started to feel that I must be weirdly overprotective.

The thread won't bring the child back. It won't help the parents. We can't do either of those things and it would be presumptious to pretend that we can. We can pray for her safe return and hope that there will be a positive outcome.

But the question about whether it's okay to leave children could have been posted any day on MN.

I'm with expat on this one. I think the thing that is irritating with all of these threads is that if you dare to question or challenge their decision, you get shouted down.

As for the time to have these discussions, I don't think there is ever a good time when something like this has happened. Hulababy - I think you're assuming that this media story will have a happy ending, but I'm afraid that as time passes, I believe statistically that becomes less and less likely.

But what's the point? This isn't a discussion, one can't discuss whether or not one should leave kids alone clearly one wouldn't. Who would? So the only outcome is to point out the mistake of the parents which we all know as do they.

One of the reasons I started this thread, and apologies if it is a duplicate but I couldnt see the same thing said, was because there are a lot of parents like the McCanns at my eldest's school.

One of them I see on the train occasionally, and he told me without a hint of irony (when this first started)that he wanted to try and keep this story from his wife because they were going to a mark warner resort in half term, and he was unhappy that she might no longer leave their kids in the room while they go out for their 'adult time'!

What's the point?

You can say that about a lot of these threads, where people have asked what is the point of all the public grieving.

Yet whenever that's challenged, it's shouted down right away as being insensitive.

mumpbump, but where is the discussion? It goes nowhere?

Nobody thinks they were right to leave their kids like that. Do they? I haven't come across anybody who does.

So what was the OP about? What was it for? To say what we all know only in a nasty way?

What is the point of any discussion, IF? You can rarely change the things that happen around you, but people discuss things either to try to understand what they can't or to vent their own feeling about stuff. I think everyone has the right to do that and no individual has the right to censor what someone else says.

Message withdrawn

I'm sorry NFK, but that is the biggest load of codswallop!

The OP put the words 'parents' in inverted commas, meaning he/she obviously views Maddie McGann's parents as beneath their title/role - sub-parents, if you like. How absolutely hideously judgemental and lets be blunt 0 b&astardly - can you get? WTF?????

If this thread HAD have been started as a genuine point of debate I would still have thought it in extrenely poor taste timing-wise. However, I don't believe it was started in that spirit.

I'm all for freedom of speech and genuine debate - but I also value a little bit of taste and social grace.

the point to me is that everyone should be allowed to express their opinion in coordination with MN policy.

but the abuse is uncalled for, it really is.

Hello Imaginary Friend

You say that "clearly one wouldn't". But if it was not clear for the McCanns - who else is it not clear for?

This is the root of my worry. I see so many neglected children. Middleclass children can be neglected too - only in a different way - interesting article by India Knight on this very subject.

But lots of people have said it IS OK to leave your children alone. It is never OK and it should not be accepted as such. As others have said, what abouth the other risks? What if there was a fire? Electrical fires start without warning. And it DOES happen. What would 3 small children do then?

I don't see the point of the public grieving either.

There's no point in going over the failings of the parents. Or the utter misery of the situation.

I think the failings of the parents here makes the misery all the worse for what it's worth. It's a horrible tragedy.

Well, we don't have to make the debate so personal. It might have been inspired by the terrible story in Portugal but it doesn't have to rake over their individual details. It's perfectly possible to have a discussion about risks on holiday without everything becoming so hysterical.

And to clarify, I don't think the McGanns should have left their children - I wouldn't have done the same - but for crying out loud, what is the POINT of discussing it?

The point is to try and make people aware that it is NOT such a good idea to leave children sleeping alone in hotel rooms or at home whilst the parent go off for a quiet dinner at a restaurant.

expat the abuse in the OP was also uncalled for.

'Taste and social grace'.

Those are subjective, too.

Some people feel just as emotive about say, breast-feeding, csections, racism on Celebrity Big Brother.

But w/o all the lynch mobs springig forth instantly calling for deletion.