I am disgusted at the Madeleine McCann/Shrek debate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bigmamie]

I have joined this site solely to remind all you thoughtless, forgetful, selfish ba#@ards that Madeleine McCann is missing!!!!!!!! I cannot understand how anyone can sit with their arms around their own children, in the comfort of a cinema whilst feeding their children popcorn and Coke that there are lots of mothers in this world who cannot do this. Their children have been taken from them and I wonder if any of you had the money or the resources available to them, I wonder if you would have campaigned this long or this hard for their daughters return. I wish the McCanns every success and only wish I could physically find their daughter for them. I am taking my 6 kids to see Shrek tomorrow and I hope my cinema is still showing the Madeleine film. I hope the publicity generated stays in your faces for a long time to come. Tell me, if she passed in front of you down at the shops or at the park could any of you be bothered to actually tell someone. Or are you all just to happy in the knowledge that its not one of your children. There but for the grace of God............

Well said Pan. It should be our decision.

I can see your perspectives and it probably is the difference in culture, I do agree that you should have the choice to approach your child how you want but since this is such a high profile case, you had to realize your child might hear about it somewhere. If you don't want your child to know that a little girl was "snatched" then maybe you should keep your child at home. I am not trying to be mean but how can you honestly justify that your parenting preferences are more important than the importance of publicizing this missing childs information.
Seriously, your child could have learned about this from a thousand places. They could have heard on the television or radio. They could of overheard their teachers talking about it or they could have heard to other parents talking about it. I live in the U.S. and I know about it, so what is the likelyhood that you can keep it from you child when you are so much closer.
When 9/11 happened there was nothing I could do to keep it from my children, so I talked to them about it before they heard it from somewhere else.

I have one more question for you. Is freedom of speech in your country limited to your home? If a comment might offend a parent does that right no longer exist. I guess I just do not understand.

I was thinking about this again yesterday.

1. In the US, IIRC, it it common for missing people to be printed on the side of milk cartons - therefore children are exposed to it from a young age. This does not happen in the UK.

2. Can a 3 or 4 or even 5 year old, really understand the fact that just because a young girl being snatched from her bed while her parents were 30 feet away, does not mean that after they are put to bed this evening and Mummy or Daddy leaves the room, some bad person is going to come and get them?

And thinking about target markets, every single one of us who is a parent has Medeleines image implanted on our brain. I, as an adult, are far more likely to be able to help find her than my 3.5 yo son. They should therefore be targetting the campaign at the 15y plus, who could actually add some value to the campaign, not trying to scare the bejaysus out of our young children.

And, for what it's worth, i find it heartbreaking if it's tru that kids in the US have to be taught the difference between good touches and bad touches at a young age.

This advert should never have been classified as a U as it is not IMO suitable for children of any age. According to the BBFC who passed it "Guidelines state that at 'U', "Treatment of problematic themes must be sensitive and appropriate for a younger audience". I really don't think using the phrase 'snatched from her bed' is sensitive! Had it been classified correctly as a PG then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Or perhaps all those who think the advert is great would think that children should be shown it anyway?

Leati, do you tell your children about every single child who goes missing on the offchance that they might hear about it from somebody else? Or when a woman is brutally raped and murdered because she might hear about it anyway? Do you give them all the gory details, because they might hear them anyway on TV you know?

It's not about "offending a parent" fgs. It's about subjecting young children to an unnecessary level of fear without the consent of their parents.

Imagine if the cinema chose to show scenes of young babies in Darfur starving to death before the showing of Shrek? There would be outrage. Imagine if there was a trailer for a true life film about kidnap?

I also come back to the point of what it's hoped to achive by showing this "advert". In the UK we have had wall to wall coverage in the media for 2 months now. That is entirely understandable and we all know what Madeleine looks like and we all still think about her. What's the purpose of showing this advert before a children's film? Is the idea to get these very young children to go looking for Madeleine? Of course not.

It was a very poor judgment to show this advert.

As was previously stated in the United States we do post missing children on milk cartoons that are distibuted at school. Our missing children are a priority to us. The problem is you guys are thinking me me me. All about yourself and yours, if you thought about your community more you would realize that this publicity is important in finding missing children. We have systems in place in the United States to spread the word of a kidnapped child immediately and guess what more children our found because of that system.
Somebody stated that is sad that we teach have to teach our children about good touches and bad. Well guess what Britian has the largest child predator database in the world. You have child predators, too. Your babysitter, your childs teacher, a karate instructer, a soccer coach, or any other number of people you come in contact with maybe a child predator. It is a fact that child predators often put themselves in a position to work with children. Educating your children is protecting them. Our children are taught what to do if someone grabs them. They are taught, how to get someones attention and how to fight back.
Maybe, you think my children our unnecessarily frightened but they know where the lever in the trunk of car is and they know how to attact attention if someone tries to force them into a car. My children know to never talk to strangers and not to open the front door. So from my perspective, they are safer than yours.
Finally, I guess that your rating system is different than ours. We would never change the rating on a movie because of an missing child add.
One last comment to address. Do I tell my children about every brutal rape and so on? Of course not. Are you suggesting that the add at the beginning of the movie was that visual. I seen it and it was not. I suggesting that you filter that information in a manner that is unfrightening to your child.
You guys just had a bunch of horribly sad terrorist attacks. Are you telling me that you don't discuss this with your children either? The simple fact your children are smarter than you are giving them credit and if you do not talk to them about these kind of things, they will hear about it and draw thier own conclusions. And sometimes those conclusions leave them a lot more afraid than if you had just talked with them.

actually, Leati, no, I haven't discussed the terrorist attcks with my dd- she doesn't need to know.

and, we didn't have a "bunch of horribly sad terrorist attacks". We had three FAILED bombings- the only person hurt was one of the perpetrators. I do not feel the need to explain that to my dd.

Let me get this straight. You talk to your children on a need to know bases. You wait until they here highly publicized news, from another source, of which you have no control over, and then you get mad.
I really am not trying to offensive, I am simply shocked. When 9/11 happened the only way I could stop my children from hearing about it would have been to lock them in the house. Unless your children are deaf and blind, they have probably heard about these issues. So you have a choice as parent, either break it down into terms they understand or let them draw thier own conclusion.

and, if we indeed do have the largest child predator database in the world, it is not because all the paedophiles in the worls live here, it is because we are good at catching and registering them. I'm not saying there aren't any out there undiscovered, of course there are,but we do have a system, which is more than can be said for a lot of countries.

As for the first alert system (or whatever it's called). No-one id saying that's a bad thing,, on the contrary, what we are questioning, is whether an advert shown in cinemas in the UK is going to help find Madeleine McCann. Let's face it, the last place she is likely to be is the UK. This is where the most publicity has been, there isn't a single adult in the UK who doesn't know her face- whoever has her is unlikely to bring her here. BUT as aparent, I insist on the right to educate my children as I see fit. I don't want MM's parents, the Odeon cinema, or anyone else dictating what my child should know.

You obviously know very little about UK life - it's certainly not all me me me here. We put our children and their happiness first.

Incidentally a lot of the stuff in your last post was inaccurate. Kidnapping in the UK is very very rare (don't forget that the abduction of Madeleine did not happen in the UK) and the vast majority are found.

The risk of your child being blasted to death at school by a classmate in the US is far higher than the risk of being kidnapped either in the UK or the US.

I have work to do so I'm leaving this thread now.

Perhaps, you do not see it as sad but I would consider it sad. When people are so filled with hatred for me and mine, that they willing sacrafice thier lives to harm us that is sad. The fear that these types of attacks put into the hearts of all people is sad. And finally the damage done to the image of an entire culture because of few bad seeds is definitely sad.

Patty, I never said more children were kidnapped. I said that the UK has the largest child predator database in the world. Child predators very rarely kidnap thier victims. This was in reference to someone stating that it was sad that we have to teach our children about good touches and bad. And I would sadly have to agree with you, that a child has a greater chance of being shot in thier classroom.

my child is 5. We didn't have a 9/11, we had two bombs which were discovered before they went off, and someone driving a jeep into the airport, where no-one but one of the perpetrators was hurt. I do NOT need to tell my dd about that. When we had the Juy 7th bombings in London, my dd was a lot younger, and if I recall correctly, she didn't ask about any of the news coverage. If she had, I would have explained in words that I chose, what was going on.

My dd DOES know about MM, she heard at school, and had a worried few days thinking she was going to be taken away from us. What I told her was that the little girl was missing (true), that nobody knows what happened to her (true), that many people were helping to look for her (true). She has now settled down, and I don't want her frightened to go to bed in case someone "snatches" her while we're asleep. We DON'T know that is what happened, we can only surmise.

TBH what can we tell our children to do if they are snatched from their beds? Scream? That is about the limit of it. I think that they are a bit powerless in that situation. There are other dangers that we should be educating them about.

First of all, I think it is pretty safe to say they do know she was snatched in the middle of the night. Second of all, you just admitted that she had heard about this at school. Just like most children probably had, what you didn't like was the words they used. This was meant to get peoples attention and make them take notice.
Why not tell your daughter that she does not have to worry about being taken because her mommy is in the next room. Then you can double assure her by showing her that your home is locked up at night before you go to sleep.
I thing that this little bit of extra work and assurance will go a long way and is better than derailing this ad. Children really are more aware than adults and what if you child see Madeleine and recognizes her from that ad. I know its a stretch but it could happen.

Leati - how old are your children?

I am not saying that there shouldn't be any publicity about Mdeleine McCann, simply that an advert that could frighten a child even if they already knew about her going missing, is not appropriate in a U-rated film. I wasn't suggesting altering the rating of the film, but the rating of the advert so that it was only shown before films that are for older children/adults. Or why not take out the voice-over altogether and just have a picture of her to remind people? That wouldn't frighten kids but would serve the same purpose which is to remind people that she's still missing (as if we could forget)

Irishbird, you are the first person who has said anything that has made since to me. I can understand wanting to protect your childrens innocents. At two and half most children are not old enough to understand that ad. By the time they are old enough to understand these types of tragedies it is nearly impossible to keep it from them. It is better to discuss it with them and give them a chance to voice thier fears and concerns so that you can offer reassurance.

As for the movie theatre, they are simply trying to do thier part in reuniting a little girl with her family. If your child was missing...would you tell the theatre to please not run that ad anymore because you do not want to frighten other children?

Hang on, Leati, "snatched in the middle of the night"? No.

It was evening, and her parents weren't in the apartment, so we don't know she was "snatched". We don't know what happened. Unlikely as it is, she may have wandered off, and been taken from the road.

We have an indeterminate threat, in another country. My dd does not need to know about that. I don't want her scared to go to sleep in her own house.

DaisyMoo you have a great idea about taking out the sound and maybe they can put some writing there for older children and adults to read, just in case they did not know about Maddie. I think you should suggest that to the movie theater because it would be a great compromise.