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............

(Can't believe I'm actually posting on one of these threads...)

Leati, every single adult in the UK already knows a LOT about the Madeleine case. It was literally on the front of every national newspaper for weeks. It was one of the top couple of TV news stories for weeks. It is still in the news regularly. Showing an ad before Shrek in the UK will give no additional information to any adult or any older child who already knows about the case. All it will achieve is introduce to young children the idea that children can be "snatched from their beds". I don't see that there is anything positive about it to outweigh that negative.

I'm not personally affected as I hear Shrek 3 is a bit rubbish so wasn't planning to see it and wouldn't be taking DS anyway. But I think those parents who haven't yet chosen to share with their children the idea that strangers can come into their room at night and snatch them should at the very least have been warned that the cinema was planning to toss out that little bombshell.

mentioned here today.

That's true, lemon.

Leati, the coverage here is on par with say, if the same case happened in your state. But because this island is smaller it was nation-wide.

Thats a good question but I really don't know. I know that in Mexico, that is right under us and half our size kidnappings are much more prevelant. But the motive behind the kidnapping is more likely to be money in Mexico. Where as in the US, most kidnapping are by parent who do not have custody of a child. Those children that are not kidnapped by a parent are usually the frightening ones and rarely do you hear the motive was money.

Notice the first comment on there is someone keeping her kids 'streetwise'. Only Madeleine was in her bed so any amount of stranger danger she was taught would not have helped her!!

That is very true, Leati, kidnap for ransom much more common in Mexico.

I grew up quite terrified of that.

Now, I am grateful, because my street smarts has kept me aware in a LOT of situations that could have gone wrong and preventing me from putting myself at risk in a lot of others entirely.

LOl MrBatters of course well brought up mn kids would politely refuse the offending popcorn and point excitedly at the carrots.

Oh no! The child scarers are back!

Even now, tho we are moving to the middle of nowhere, I bought window alarms for the girls' rooms.

Lemonad, do you not feel that since it is so publicized that your children are likely to find out, anyway. Whether it is from a movie, a poster, the radio, the television, or just overhearing adults discuss it.

Teaching your kids street sense doesn't have to be scary, wells.

See, that's the American in my coming out, I guess.

I'll never get the whole British-head-in-the-sand thing.

BUT, as I stated, this is the UK, not the US, I chose to live here and bring up children here and this happened in a UK cinema.

So fair enough!

Nope. Little kids just aren't interested in stuff like this unless adults ram it down their throads. Stop terrifying your children people!

Street sense has nothing to do with the Madeleine case or terrorism. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Leave the poor little children alone.

Luckily when I took my 3 1/2 yo to see Shrek3 they didn't play it, but I would have been annoyed. Children of 6 ish might be better off being told, but not a 3 1/2 yo.
I also lived in the States during 9/11 and tbh I would not have told her if I'd had her then. Not at that age.
They don't fully understand, she saw MM on the front of a newspaper with a picture of her mother crying and got very upset when I told her the mummy had lost her little girl. She went on about it for days, so now I don't want her to hear about it anymore.
She has also seen ribbons on the surgery in our town which is where MM's mother used to work, so don't tell me that we don't care either.

Kids of a young age just don't need to know some things and the parent should be allowed to decide not have it forced on them.

FGS, wells!

The ad's been PULLED!

Even the OP who started 'that' thread is sick of it.

Oh, the lady one the times pages also says all our children are easy pickings as we are wrapping them up in cotton wool.

The ridiculous comments on here and the news lately amaze me.
If one person can actually explain how Madeleine could have protected herself had she been 'streetwise' i'll admit defeat!

Angeliz I never said anything about keeping my kids streetwise. And yes if Madeliene had been taught to scream, kick, and through a fit. If she had yelled, "help me, help me. I am being kidnapped." it probably would have made a difference but we can only speculate because we don't know.

But all harks back to the actions of her parents, though, Angeliz, and we all know ad nauseum how those threads go . . .

I know it's been pulled. This is about all those nutjobs who insist that we should spend our time terrifying our tiny children with tales of bogeymen in the bedroom.

And what if they put their hand over her mouth, I doubt it's very hard to keep a child quiet if you want to

Help me I am being kidnapped!!!
FGS

at thje age of 10, a teacher decided to tell us about car bombings. she told us that IRA would take men and fasten them into car which were filled with explosives. there was no way the man, 'which could be your daddy' could escape and he would have to drive into palces and wait for it to blow up.

WTF was she thinking? I hadnt been told much about the spate of bombings in the 80's, so was blissfully unaware of details. i knew there had been bombings, but didnt need to know details. in one morning she terrified a group of kids.

she had no right to tell us anything about it. it was up to my parents the details of what happened.

By no means do I think that you guys do not care. The public outcry when it happened, clearly shows the caring in your country. I just think that the ad is not as damaging to your child as you all seem to think. Children are resilent and usually forget about stuff like that in a few days. However, I obviously do not understand you culture.

Here we go again...'Now darling, remember the little girl who was grabbed from her bed while she was sleeping and taken away from her mummy and daddy forever? When it happens to you, remember to scream, OK? Now, sleep tight and don't have nightmares.'

I guess so expat and i actually rephrased my comment as it looked like i was having a go at the Parents and didn't want that debate!

I was referring to the lady on the Times site saying streetwise Leati but i still actually beleieve that if a man plans to take a 3 year old from her bed, the 3 year old would have no chance.
Although in normal circumstances yes, we might hear a scream.