Home Alone (1 Viewer)

[zero_hero]

I'm not a parent but I've been thinking about this case alot and trying to make sense of things. We were talking about it today at work and I heard the interview with the english lady who has lived in Portugal thirty years in the area that this girl was taken from. She said that this is not normal that the Portugese people are confused as to why the children were left alone. It's not fair that the area is getting such a bad going over, its not like they invited whoever did this. Furthermore the Portugese police are being accused of not reacting fast enough but in fairness that may be just distressed parents not thinking straight. The general consensus otherwise is that they have done their jobs in the numerous interviews I have heard.

It is a terrible thing to happen. I was thinking how easy would it be to bug a room and hear parents leaving or wait for a babysitter or parents to fall asleep. It costs 50euro for a bugging kit.

I heard another horror story of a family that were on holidays with the kids in adjoining rooms with a door connecting. They were all asleep and the dad woke up. He heard a noise and found his daughter fully dressed all her stuff packed up and his passport with the little girls name added gone hence she was intended for kidnapping.

Apparently the doors on those hotel rooms are very easy to open and break into making holiday makers an easy target. I dont understand though how people would be less protective of their children on holidays in a strange place, I'd imagine it would be the other way around

 

[RSJ]

Somebody could easily climb up to my son's window and snatch him out of his cot. I hope that I would hear the commotion, if any [being downstairs] but clearly it is not possible to physically watch over him 100% of the time.

There's a big difference (as you said) between being downstairs in your own home and being in a restaurant in a foreign country. The two don't even bare comparing. As shite as this is for the parents i'd have to agree with Ro on this one, there's leaving your kids to sleep in your own home while you're there and there's leaving them alone in a hotel room in a foreign country while you're out at dinner. Huge difference.

 

[Mitchum]

There's a big difference (as you said) between being downstairs in your own home and being in a restaurant in a foreign country. The two don't even bare comparing. As shite as this is for the parents i'd have to agree with Ro on this one, there's leaving your kids to sleep in your own home while you're there and there's leaving them alone in a hotel room in a foreign country while you're out at dinner. Huge difference.

What age ought children be, do you think, before it's acceptable to leave them 'unattended' by a trustworthy adult?

While the disappearance of 'Madeliene' is a singular horror for her family I'm not too convinced the ensuing media attention has been a good thing.

 

[benni]

yeah this certainly is a horrible horrible case - however i must agree that i think the parents definitly should not have left the children on their own. At the end of the day while not everyone out there is a child napper ... nowadays more than ever we know that there are lots and lots of organised groups of people, 'professionals' if you will, who are extremely efficient in kidnapping children for all sorts of reasons. As a parent you should always always be trying to limit this possibility and leaving my son on his own in a hotel room is not one of the ways I would think of doing that effectively.

When i was on holidays with my little boy in France a few months ago - he went to bed at 9/10 each night... and so did I. Watched TV, ordered room service, whatever, but i did not leave that room. Your life changes in all sorts of ways when you children and so if it meant that i didnt get to nip up to the hotel bar for a few nights on that holiday thats just the way it was.

At the same time I do feel terrible for the parents and cannot begin to imagine what they must be going though and hope that the little girl is found soon.

 

[RSJ]

What age ought children be, do you think, before it's acceptable to leave them 'unattended' by a trustworthy adult?

I have fairly limited experience with kids aside of my niece (4) and my girlfriends two brothers (9 + 12), but the niece i wouldn't leave on her own, much less in charge of two smaller kids. The younger of herself's brothers i'd just about trust on his own.

 

[Mitchum]

I have fairly limited experience with kids aside of my niece (4) and my girlfriends two brothers (9 + 12), but the niece i wouldn't leave on her own, much less in charge of two smaller kids. The younger of herself's brothers i'd just about trust on his own.

Well here's one I just remembered...my missus works in a creche in Dublin's northside city centre and her and a colleague look after twelve 2-4 year olds. They are regularly getting broken into by junkies/homeless types while the kids are there. The local police Community Liaison Officer is 'monitoring' the situation.
...a potential disaster on our own doorstep, perhaps.

 

[egg_]

Ah look, I don't know the exact circumstances of the kids being left alone, but if as Mark says they could actually see in the window of the apartment and were checking regularly I'd say they were guilty of a fairly minor sin.

But whether you agree with me on that or not, a lot of the arguments on here are implying that you are expected to protect your child from child-snatchers. I think that's an unfair expectation, unless you're in a known child-snatching hotspot, as child-snatching is so rare and I don't think that level of paranoia is healthy for you or your child

 

[nlgbbbblth]

What age ought children be, do you think, before it's acceptable to leave them 'unattended' by a trustworthy adult?

While the disappearance of 'Madeliene' is a singular horror for her family I'm not too convinced the ensuing media attention has been a good thing.

We have a right to know the facts.

 

[benni]

But whether you agree with me on that or not, a lot of the arguments on here are implying that you are expected to protect your child from child-snatchers. I think that's an unfair expectation, unless you're in a known child-snatching hotspot, as child-snatching is so rare and I don't think that level of paranoia is healthy for you or your child

Child snatching isnt that rare! It just doesnt happen in western european countries as much as in eastern european and asia etc and you dont hear about it as much! And it happening once anywhere is enough to freak me out! I'm not over protective freaky mom or nothing. But if it means that i have a certain level of paranoia in me - i'd prefer that than leaving open oppertunities for something to happen.

And even apart from that - what if one of the kids fell out of bed or got sick or woke up from a nightmare screaming crying? I mean the other two children were so young aswell - recipe for disaster if you ask me.

I know you cant sit by their bedside all night but at least if you are in the same building you can hear them. And I doubt very much that the parents of the little girl will ever be leaving any of their kids in hotel rooms on their own again.

 

[egg_]

Child snatching isnt that rare!

According to that guardian article around nine children (age unspecified, but I'd presume "children" means "under-18") go missing in the UK every year, which is way more than I expected - but most of those are probably teenage runaways, so the rate of actual child-snatching is certainly much much lower. By way of comparison 30-60 people get struck by lightning in the UK every year. It really is a tiny tiny risk

And I doubt very much that the parents of the little girl will ever be leaving any of their kids in hotel rooms on their own again.

Ah jaysus what does that say? Parents whose children drown in swimming pools probably never go back there either, but that doesn't mean that bringing kids to swimming pools is wrong

 

[RSJ]

hey egg, i think you're missing the point (i also think you're taking it more personally than you should but you have kids and i don't so i suppose that's fair enough) . The view isn't "those parents left those kids totally open to abduction by leaving three very young children alone in a hotel room", it's "those parents were taking a big risk of ANYTHING happening (fire, choking, crying, falling out the cot and yes, abduction) by leaving three very young children alone in a hotel room for half an hour at a time, especially when there were creche facilities and babysitters available". Abduction in this case was a total horror story thing to happen, but as easily as nothing could have happened, something else could have happened.

 

[benni]

what it says is - they left an open opportunity which was taken advantage of... obviously not intentional but gave the napper a hell of a lot of an easier time. According to the reports the police feel that it was planned and not random - whoever did this was probably watching the family and saw them leave the kids in the room on their own before and thought - well thats a hell of a lot easier than sneaking into a room with the parents in there.

And in relation to the swimming anecdote - you could go on and on with examples like that. 'Whats if one of your children got hit by a car.. would you never let your other ones cross the road again...' and so on. But if you wanna give the swimming example - if your child drowned in a pool after being left on her own at 3 years of age while you went around the corner for a bite to eat... i doubt you'd do it again would you?

 

[egg_]

The view isn't "those parents left those kids totally open to abduction by leaving three very young children alone in a hotel room", it's "those parents were taking a big risk of ANYTHING happening (fire, choking, crying, falling out the cot and yes, abduction) by leaving three very young children alone in a hotel room for half an hour at a time, especially when there were creche facilities and babysitters available".

Ok, maybe I'm picking the vibe up wrong, but I do think the two things are being mixed up a little bit.

But even on the second thing - don't you think that the parents are qualified to judge the risks for themselves better than, say, yourself or myself? I don't think the fact that a freaky one-in-a-million incident proved their judgement wrong entitles people to judge them.

 

[RSJ]

Nah i'm not buying that either egg. The situation that they left the kids in just sounds too wrong for me to say "ah, i'm sure they knew what they were doing". But i'm not going to judge them as bad people or bad parents. They just made a mistake is all.

 

[benni]

Re: child abduction cases and missing children - the report from europa below state far higher statistics

http://www.europa.eu/rapid/pressRel...format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

 

[egg_]

The guardian stats are "missing and unaccounted for". The number of abductions is much higher, but the vast majority of them are parental (divorce cases and the like) ... and even the unaccounted for kids, no-one knows if they were snatched, there's a zillion other ways for a child to go missing. When my brothers were quite little they'd sneak off out of the garden to go exploring the fields around us, if they'd injured themselves in a ditch someplace or fallen in a marlhole they might never have been found

 

[benni]

Yeah i know that. I'm not saying every child in that report had been abducted - that was stated further down in the report anyway. But the report was focused on the fact that there are a large number of children being abducted and going missing that are not accounted for in various European countries and the knowledge of children being sold into sex slavery amounst other things.

You just dont hear about that kind of thing very often over here but it is still prevelant. And leaving yourself and your children open to things like that when you are in a foreign country is irresponsible. Of course things happen to children all the time that are our of a parents control - freak accidents etc or when the parent has their back turned for 30 seconds - but not half an hour at a go for christ sake!

A child being abducted from a room where 3 children under the age of 3 were left alone is def not a freak accident. At the end of the day if the parent(s) were in the room with their children at the time the probability is less - not nil... but definitely less. Thats a given. why would you want to minimise those odds for your childs saftey?

 

[RSJ]

The guardian stats are "missing and unaccounted for". The number of abductions is much higher, but the vast majority of them are parental (divorce cases and the like) ... and even the unaccounted for kids, no-one knows if they were snatched, there's a zillion other ways for a child to go missing. When my brothers were quite little they'd sneak off out of the garden to go exploring the fields around us, if they'd injured themselves in a ditch someplace or fallen in a marlhole they might never have been found

In the UK, police recorded 846 cases of child abductions in 2002/03[3] , while the total cases of missing children (runaways for any reason) is estimated at 70.000 annually

...

 

[egg_]

Em ... sorry RSJ, but do those two quotes contradict each other? I don't see that they do.

"Abductions" includes parental abductions
"Missing" includes runaways
"Missing and unaccounted for" includes accidental deaths where the bodies are undiscovered

All of those numbers are higher than the number of children actually snatched by strangers

benni - obviously there's no way of giving an exact figure for numbers of chilren actually kidnapped by strangers, because no-one knows what happened to unaccounted-for kids, but that report doesn't even attempt it, it just gives some vague and scary large numbers. What has 70000 runaways got to do with child-snatching?

 

[benni]

Jeaysus - its a report about ALL missing children, covering ALL factors from runaways to abductees... thats why those numbers are in there. Its a small percentage of course but so is being in a car crash - still i wouldnt drive my car without my little boy being in a car seat.

Anyway whatever - id prefer to take as many measures as possible to prevent anything like that happening to my son. It's not nuerotic or paranoid - its being aware.

Each to their own in all aspects of parenting of course. But taking the abduction aside you cannot justify leaving 3 children under 3 on their own in a locked room. ANYTHING couldve happened. The guardian were saying that 'A pool, hedge, wall and alleyway are between the bar and the apartment. 100m=300ft'.

And i'm sure in a tapas bar, lots of activity and music to drown out any crying if it was just a case of one of their kids waking up crying.

Seriously now......