Corco65
Well-known member
Nobody, least of all the McCanns would disagree with you in saying their actions were irresponsible and ill judged. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The likelihood is that despite our own individual personal views of what is right and wrong in terms of childcare, I doubt there is a parent alive that hasn’t made a stupid error or errors. Most thank goodness are without consequence. This family have paid a huge price for theirs. Madeleine the highest price of all.
Their will be some families that still do such a thing unfortunately. I guess if there are no consequences then it becomes normalised behaviour
Personally speaking, If you are a family you stick together as a family. I would never act like the McCanns did. However, I would not trust strangers in a hotel complex who provided a baby sitting facility to look after my young kids. Was it a babysitting service where someone actually stayed with the children at all times, or was it more the usual I have come across, where someone pops in every so often and checks? If the latter, isn’t that what the group themselves were doing anyway? Did the service provide listening devices within rooms to staff providing the service? If so, how can people be sure they don’t get distracted by something else at times? I don’t think allowing a total stranger to babysit is acceptable personally, but that might be just me.
We all judge others too quickly and make excuses for our own flaws and slip ups. I think the McCanns are owning theirs tbf. The law of unintended and unexpected consequence applies unfortunately. As I said earlier, despite the McCanns Ill advised actions, the children should still all have expected to have remained safe in a locked bedroom. The fact they were not has more to do with the kidnapper rather than the McCanns, on balance, for me.
The McCann's went on a family holiday and whilst I except we can all make mistakes and lower our guard sometimes, we also have to learn from them in matters of such importance.
The McCann's were notified by the hotel that Madeline had been crying whilst were out the night before the incident happened. Now if that was me and I would like to think that all loving parents would think the same, I would be embarrassed and mortified by my error and hurt at the thought that i had left your children unattended and that they had become distressed and that I wasn't there to comfort them and I would want to do everything possible not let it happen again.
So as a response what did the McCann's choose to do, yes they want out yet again for their own entertainment and enjoyment, leaving not one, not two, but three children under the aged of three once again on their own.
If you so desperately have to go out on a family holiday to a night of eating and drinking with a group of friends, take your children with you, let them sleep in a pram next to you or better still put your children who can't fend for themselves first, one of you stay in and the other go out and change over each night. They positively chose to put themselves first yet again in in light of knowing what they knew, it was deliberate, neglectful and unforgivable in my view.
I don't let my feelings of what might have happened to Madeline who was relying on her parents to care and protect get in the way of what they did and the right and proper questions about their fitness to be the parents.