I know that this will prove unpopular, especially to anyone who may not be a regular visitor to this site, but in the interests of objectivity somebody has to say it. God knows the media probably wouldn’t dare, not even the good people at the Sun or NOTW.
A lot was made in the 1st week after the poor girl’s disappearance of the parent’s terribly irresponsible behaviour in leaving their 3 very young children completely unsupervised in a foreign country while they fucked off to the pub. Quite rightly, common sense prevailed and people came together to do all they could to try and find her, leaving the recriminations well alone so they could focus on the task at hand.
I was mildly surprised when, just a few days after her disappearance, her parents were shown on the news casually strolling down a Portugese street, appearing to be quite at ease with themselves and the media circus that surrounded them. Still I thought, ‘I’m not even a parent, what the fuck do I know?’, which remains a valid point, but this event with others since has steadily taken on a growing significance in my somewhat naturally paranoid brain.
When I saw that they were off to Rome to see the Pope I couldn’t help thinking that this was bullshit, I mean what’s he going to do? I can just imagine him saying ‘Father Sanchez, get the Vatmobile, I shan’t say another mass until we’ve found her.’
Then I discovered that they weren’t taking the other 2 kids with them. Now I’m pretty sure that you don’t actually have to be a parent to realise that if you’ve had 1 kid pinched you wouldn’t let the others out of your fucking sight, not even for an instant, and you sure as hell wouldn’t leave them under someone else’s care for a day or two in the same country where you had the last one nicked while you toddled across to the other side of Western Europe for ‘spritual enlightenment’ or whatever the fuck they found there. Also, what if she’d have been found while they were gone? A poor, frightened, half dead, distraught little girl that’s just been pulled out of a 45 year old virgin’s basement and wants to see her mummy and daddy – ‘Er..yeah..sorry love, your mummy and daddy aren’t here right now, they had something more important to do.’
So let’s return to this issue of them leaving their 3 kids alone in a room in a foreign country. The more I think about it, the more I realise that I don’t see it as irresponsible at all. I see it as downright unbelievable. At least 1 of the parents, or maybe both I’m not sure, is a doctor – a consultant no less. That means he’s earning more than £100k p/y. They’re on what must be a pretty cheap holiday in Portugal and they want to go out for dinner or a drink and leave the kids – I don’t have a problem with that. The complex they were staying on, like nearly all of its type, understands this and offers an in-house baby-sitting service. Now even if you’re paying some extortionate amount for a couple of hours, say £50, is this too much to ask for the peace of mind of leaving 3 children under the age of 5 alone, especially for someone who earns more in a year than I probably do in 4??
The police say that there was no sign of forced entry – so they didn’t lock the door perhaps? How did that conversation go?
Dad: ‘Shall we lock the door?’
Mum: ‘No, if there’s a fire they won’t be able to get out.’
Dad: ‘I suppose you’re right. Shall we just ignore the fact that our kids are probably too small to cope with a fire and get out safely on their own anyway?’
Mum: ‘Well, we wouldn’t want to spoil a nice evening with such negative thoughts would we?’
Dad: ‘Excellent point dear. What about burglars? If we leave the door open surely anyone could get in.’
Mum: ‘Yeah, perhaps, but I’m sure there’s even less chance of that happening than a fire.’
Dad: ‘You don’t think that the local chavs would see British tourists as an easy target?
Mum: ‘No, especially not in the evening when our national stereotype suggests that we’ll all be out getting too pissed to realise we’ve been robbed until we arrive back at Gatwick.’
I also read somewhere that her parents wer ‘disappointed’ that she had not been found. Disappointed? No, no, no. I’m disappointed when Hull City lose, when I don’t win the lottery, or when my girlfriend catches me having a crafty one. If my own flesh and blood was missing I’d be suicidal.
A close friend of mine said to me that his first reaction was that it was the parents, as 80% of all serious crime involving small children is committed by the parents. That’s a staggering statistic if true.
However, what I’m not saying is that they definitely did it or had something to do with it, whatever ‘it’ may be. What I am saying is that their behaviour at the time she was kidnapped and afterwards doesn’t appear to make sense. It’s almost as if they’re playing through a sequence of events whilst already fully aware that there will be no positive outcome. The media and public kneejerk reaction when something like this happens always begins from the point that the parent’s grief is an issue that is so sensitive that it is beyond reproach, and therein lies the problem.
All I’m saying is that an open mind doesn’t rule anything out without good reason, and just assuming that the parents definitely don’t have anything to do with it because they’re her parents isn’t a particularly good reason.
I expect the parents are being looked at.
But, world as it is, i think it’s a perfectly rational for a worried parent to do everything they can to keep the story on the front pages for as long as possible.
The kid’s parents getting tabloid love from his holiness is going to keep pressure up on the police in Portugal (84% roman catholic) I would think.
I call bullshit! Where the fuck was this kind of “help” from the media when little Ben Needham went missing 16 YEARS AGO? Or the 450 other kids that went missing in the two weeks after Madeleine first went AWOL?
No, fuck her and fuck the parents. The fuckers shouldn’t have left the kids alone in the apartment to start with and now they’re becoming fucking ‘celebrities’ in their hunt for “poor little Maddie”. How is any of this bullshit they’re doing actually helping to find her? Is the pope a clairvoyant? Has she been spotted in Spain? No, I thought not!
The original post hit the nail right on the head I think and I hope the parents are strung up and crucified for their downright fukkheaded behaviour. How stupid would everyone look if the parents do turn out to be involved as is often the case in these things?
Fuck the McCanns.
Rant over! 🙂
P.S. Yes, believe it or not I am actually a parent myself. 🙂
I’ve left this post on, but I’m well tempted to take it off.
For the record Mr Unholy, I think your (usually sound) theories and comments are way off the mark this time. I assume that you’ve written this out of a sense of perverse humour and your usual insatiable urge to generate debate. Well, I applaud your provocative style, but would observe that, because the situation you describe is a) ongoing, and b) pretty tragic, it probably means we really shouldn’t be commenting on this issue without a degree of sensitivity.
However…. As Rupe suggests, it doesn’t surprise me at all that the parents are doing everything they can to keep the ‘eyes of the world’ on the increasingly slim chance that they can find their kid. I do think that the idea that the family are trying to become celebrities is extremely cynical and moreover pretty ridiculous (though I am sure in a strange way the experience they are currently living is novel and exciting in it’s own sickeningly unpleasant way).
The pope thing doesn’t really fill me with good cheer, but fair play, this makes it a world wide issue.
Finally, I don’t really think that we need to ‘fuck’ anyone over this event, regardless of whether or not we have kids (believe it or not) ourselves.
Shit man, in a dark world, on a dreary Sunday evening, wouldn’t it be pretty nice, if for once, things turned out ok?
sure it would be nice but that isn’t the world we live in is it? i kinda agree with the guy. i don’t see what makes them so special that they should get this special treatment. it is after all their own negligence that led to the girl being snatched. what makes them so special that they are beyond criticism?
Groover,
You’re right, it would’ve stood better as a straightforward peice of writing. I just couldn’t help myself as I was writing it and experienced pangs of regret soon after publishing it. If you’d prefer I’d be happy to modify it, but I can’t agree that the overall point should be removed entirely.
Surely it isn’t their negligence that led to the girl being snatched. It is someone snatching her. If someone was intent on snatching a kid, they probably would have managed it somehow. Maybe not that one, maybe not from a hotel room, but some kid somewhere. Ultimately, they have been punished for lacking the level of precaution and planning that is necessary in a world that is not entirely friendly and moral, taking things at face value. Will be interesting to find out what happened… if we ever do.
Word up from Harlem fellow boloists. It’s been a long time since a post has aroused such debate – and I can understand why. I think that El Naggio’s rant was essentially the fault of the British tabloid press – it makes me sick the way they leach on to these stories, yanking violently on as many heart strings as possible. The Diana situation springs to mind as a comparable event. A tragic occurance without doubt, hoisted up before the nation, above and beyond all other world events, so that the public can be united in their outrage and grief. I don’t think the McCann’s can be blamed for their reaction to the tabloid attention – keeping a high profile can only be good for their cause, as has already been said. However, I’m sure they feel desperately guilty for having left their kid sleping unattended. This is something people should be able to do without fear of kidnappers and peadophiles, but unfortunately the overreporting of cases like these means that kids are being understandably more and more carefully brought up. The knock on effect of this is that the kids of those parents who bing up their offspring with the freedom considered ‘normal’ 15 or 20 years ago are actually much more at risk as most of their piers are locked up at home. Any way you look at it, it’s fucked up.