Home Alone (1 Viewer)

[Daisy's Dukes]

I have so much sympathy for the poor British family whose daughter was abducted from their holiday apartment in Portugal but I'm wondering how people feel about the fact that the children were left on their own while they ate dinner nearby. There was a full babysitting service available and a creche where they could have left the kids in their pyjamas while they were out.

Would any of the parents on here have left their kids in similar circumstances?

 

[mark]

the window was forced. if it was a big apartment it's possible that they wouldn't have heard anything had they been there. they could see the apartment form where they were eating with friends. horrible, horrible situation.

 

[egg_]

Would any of the parents on here have left their kids in similar circumstances?

Depends on their ages, surely. I know the kid that was snatched was only 3 - was he/she alone in the apartment?

 

[Daisy's Dukes]

She was 3 and she was left with her younger siblings who were under 2 I think. Yeah, I should have specified, would you leave kids of their age alone?

 

[Daisy's Dukes]

the window was forced. if it was a big apartment it's possible that they wouldn't have heard anything had they been there. they could see the apartment form where they were eating with friends. horrible, horrible situation.

If they could see the apartment, how come they didn't see the window being forced? They could only see the front of it as far as I know, and not the back part where the window was forced.

I'm not trying to start a debate on whether they were right on wrong. Its beyond awful. I'm just wondering if people here would do the same.

 

[whathappen?]

I for one think its stupid to leave toddlers alone in an apartment in a foreign country even if you are in a cafe only a few metres away. Just 15 euro an hour would have paid for a babysitter.

 

[MDR]

How could anyone leave three toddlers alone in a hotel room for the evening?

 

[zero_hero]

I think that post was meant to read under 12

 

[MDR]

Nope - three toddlers left alone together.

"They were regularly checking on her and their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6636869.stm

 

[muffin]

i read that they were checking on them every half hour...to me a half hour seems a really long time to leave 3 toddlers alone.that said i dont have kids so im not sure how long parents would leave them alone for?

 

[whathappen?]

not regularly enough . i mean you wouldnt leave 3 toddlers in asleep in their own house as you went three doors down to the neighbours for a cup of tea....???

 

[Anthony]

inside job.
I'm avoiding this story like mad. I feel absolutely sick just hearing about it.

 

[whathappen?]

its about as bad as it gets.
it was on the news that it is possible she was sold to a childless couple. but without meaning to be cold surely a tiny newborn would be more "useful" for that. the other suggestion is that she may become a child sex slave. its just horrific.
i was thinking today that at this stage the best they can hope is that the people who took her want to bring her up as their own and love her and care for her.. its almost unbelievable

 

[Pantone247]

I'm with Anthony, it's actually just too much to read about... I thought it was a little strange to leave three under three kids alone in an apartment, but given the circumstances, the forced window, it would seem they could've been in the apartment and it would've made no difference. I'd have more question with it taking a entire day before the borders were secruere...

Awful awful stuff anyhow...

 

[egg_]

I've often left my toddler alone in the car when she's fallen asleep on the way to the shops or something - you drive for a half hour to the nearest town and she falls asleep and what are you going to do, drive home and then drive back agin later? Sit in the car for an hour waiting for her to wake up? Wake up her so she's in a snot and is whining too much to allow you to do what you came for? Obviously I'm going in and out to check her every 5 minutes, but it'd only take someone 10 seconds to break the window and snatch her away

 

[egg_]

I think it's horrible that any kind of blame is being attached to the parents in this case. They were on holidays, their kids are obviously good sleepers, and in their judgement the kids would be fine on their own. I don't think it'd be that big a deal under normal circumstances. I spent a half an hour outside cleaning the boiler last night with Isabelle asleep alone in the house - should I have hired a babysitter to stay in the house to make sure no-one snuck in and stole her?

 

[jane]

I've got no wee ones, but the toddler-snatching story really does freak me out, and I can't really watch.

Everyone leaves their kids alone if they sleep at night in their own room, and yeah, you gotta check on 'em, but there's a fine line between protection and paranoia.

I don't think any of us wants to live in a society where we have to view all children as some kind of temptation to kidnappers and kiddie fiddlers that need 24-hour surveillance, or that if a parent or carer turns his or her back for even a moment, whatever happens to the child is his or her fault.

It probably takes about a minute to snatch a kid. It could happen when you run out to the car to grab something, go to the toilet, fall asleep on the couch, etc etc. Maybe those parents assumed that leaving the children in the apartment, and kept it in view was not a whole lot different than putting the wee ones to bed and then going to sit out in the garden.

I also can't help but think something stinks about this case. Plus, child-napping is the sort of thing that happens all over the world, every day. It's just that this one feels 'different' enough for the media-buying public to engage emotionally yet keep a distance because they assume they'd never do it themselves.

Edit: What Egg said.

 

[Pantone247]

I also can't help but think something stinks about this case. Plus, child-napping is the sort of thing that happens all over the world, every day. It's just that this one feels 'different' enough for the media-buying public to engage emotionally yet keep a distance because they assume they'd never do it themselves.

Edit: What Egg said.

it's because it happened to white people

well you know what I mean...

 

[theweeyin]

I'm not sure if anyone knows but isnt it illegal (in the uk) to leave children under 16 alone in the house? When I was younger (9+) mum or dad would pop to the shops or go a message and leave me in the house, door locked, with instructions not to answer the phone or the door while they were gone. That always seemed ok to me.

 

[Pantone247]

I have a recurring dream I'm on my way down to the local SuperValu and at the same point everytime I realise I've left my daughter asleep back at the house on her own and then everything starts going all weird and I can't get back home

shit dream