It makes me mad to still be hearing pompous, judgemental, illogical people criticising the parents of Madeleine about their decision to eat nearby while the children were in the room, and even going so far as to say that social services should be involved.
Here's why. If you have ever been to a Mark Warner resort you will know that there is (or used to be) a baby sitting service available whereby a nanny walks around the floors of the hotel while you dine in the restaurant somewhere else in the hotel. We have used this ourselves. Now, if someone was determined to abduct a child, they could walk into the hotel and take a child from the unlocked room while the nanny is walking on other floors, or is inside a room comforting a crying child. Like most hotels, people come and go without reception turning a hair. Security is usually incredibly lax in hotels and no-one knows who is staying there, who has come in just for a meal or drink and who is a friend of guests. Equally, someone could let themselves in/out of a downstairs window or back entrance if they did not want to walk past reception.
Are the critics suggesting that all the parents who have used such services should have their children taken away by social services?
Ditto with the baby listening services that people use in hotels when reception listen in for crying babies. A person of criminal intent could let themselves into the room, (assuming it had been left unlocked due to a fear of fire) and abduct a child.
You could be asleep in you house and someone could break in and take a baby/child while you were asleep. You could be sitting in the garden while you child was asleep in the house and the same thing could happen. Equally, in my experience, schools and hospitals are often extraordinarily lax about security with people coming and going. One of my daughters had to spend quite a bit of time in hospital and the staff were incredibly laissez-faire about security with hoards of people traipsing in and out of the ward day and night. Someone could easily have taken my child while I nipped off to the loo.
You could watch your child 24 hours a day and something bad could happen - a wierdo could grab them and hurt them etc. Someone was attacked in the park by a wierdo recently - if that had been a child, would the parents have been deemed neligent for allowing their children to walk (with them) in the park?
The point is - if someone is determined to snatch a baby/child, or do something horrible they will find a way to do it.
In terms of risk assessment, the most dangerous place for your child to be is near the road. Yet we all happily put our children in cars every day. Every single week children are killed in cars on the roads, driven by law-abiding, caring parents.
There is also a danger associated with babysitters. We used one for a stage who came highly recommended (she was a nanny at the creche at the prestigious Harbour Club in Chelsea). In fact, she was a criminal with a huge history of stealing. Another friend used one who again came with glowing references but who was in fact a serious drug-addict. I would rather have my children on their own in the house than locked up in a house with a drug addict/criminal.
There is also a danger of putting a child in a creche. One of mine was once badly attacked by another child and could have lost her eye. This would not have happened if she had not been in the creche.
See what I mean? There are risks associated with every single thing we do/don't do. In the context of the big bad world, the possibility of accidents and the reality that not all people looking after children are necessarily very responsible (and that other children can cause accidents), having the children sleeping nearby on their own might have seemed like the lesser of a number of evils.
Having said all that, I do not want to scare people. I do not think that there are bogeymen around every corner. We give our children quite a bit of freedom and do not worry. The main thing I worry about is road accidents as statistically this is by far the most dangerous place to be.