I have to chime in about the missing toddler, Madeleine McCann. The (astoundingly high profile) story of her abduction is too terrible for words and I can’t help but think of the words of Morgan Freeman’s character in Se7en - hence the title of this post.

The story itself has provoked a considerable range of different reactions. On the whole (the measuring criteria being a Technorati search and a scan of the general feeling of returned posts), there is sympathy and good will and group hugs. There are, however, a few posts which level criticism at the parents for leaving their Madeleine and her two siblings unattended while they went to a restaurant for a meal.

These criticisms are easy to make (although I also note that many of those making this judgment are not actually parents themselves) but while it is one thing to read that “the parents were at a tapas restaurant” and that “the resort offered a child minding service”, it is another to actually know what that translates to and the thought processes that go through the minds of parents on holiday with their children.

Last year we ventured abroad with the hatchling to a resort run by a company not dissimilar to Mark Warners, the holiday company the McCanns were with. We have, in fact, considered Mark Warners as a holiday provider too. You see, the selling point for holidays by companies like these is that they are child friendly. Very child friendly. They have a creche and nannies and organized activities for your sproglings from 6 months onwards. They even offer some sort of childminding service for parents who want some time to themselves.

Now, pay attention to that phrase “time to themselves”. It’s important.

The thing is that the what’s advertised in the brochure and the expectations of a loving and caring parent often don’t match the reality of the situation. For example, the brochure tells you that baby monitors are available to all parents on request. The reality is that the baby monitors are walkie talkies with one of the talk buttons taped down and that don’t give a very good reception through the thick stone walls of a holiday apartment block. They don’t really let you hear your child do anything unless they start crying and screaming by which time they’re already awake and upset and, regardless, you find yourself going up to the room every 15 minutes regardless just to make sure he’s okay and to test whether or not the monitors actually work.

The child minding service for parents dining in the complex was not, as one might expect, someone sitting in the room minding your child but was the resort receptionist at the reception desk with one of the walkie talkies.

There is always a baby sitting option for parents who might be going outside of the resort and it pretty much runs the way it’s described on the Mark Warners website - take your child/children down to the creche where one of the nannies will make sure they go to bed and then watch them for you until you come back and take them awake to your room. Two important points here: firstly, this service is generally unavailable if you’re eating in one of the resort restaurants and secondly, there’s always the risk of the child waking up when you pick them up and take them back to the room and then not going back to sleep when you put them in the cot in your room. This might not sound like a deal breaker to non-parents but it’s a pretty big consideration to those with young children. It’s the trade off between getting some quality time to yourselves and potentially another sleepless night trying to cajole and persuade your child that it really, really does want to go back to sleep.

Generally, if there’s a choice, you’ll stay in the hotel restaurant because you’re on the premises, you’re close to hand, you’ve got some dubious walkie talkies and can get to the room in virtually no time at all. (At the resort we were staying at, it took less than a minute to get from the bar and restaurant area to the room and less than 30 secs if I went at a quick, not quite running pace. I can’t say how long it took the McCanns but looking at the map, it doesn’t seem to be that much further than we ever were.)

We were talking about this over the weekend with some friends (one of whom is a paediatrician) and we did note how odd it is that while you’re on holiday, you standards change. At home, we’d never dream of leaving the hatchling alone in the house by himself. Hell, we hardly ever leave him alone except when he’s asleep upstairs. But while we were away, we didn’t really give two thoughts to putting him down to sleep in our apartment room and then going downstairs for a drink and a meal. There are several factors to consider though, chief amongst which, as I’ve already discussed, we were still on the resort and could get back to the room in very short notice. We had a monitor (of sorts) and we regularly checked on him.

Some people have suggested that the right thing to do would have been to have the child with you at dinner time. Yeah, that’s all well and good in principle but it can by pretty trying. If you’re lucky, the child will fall asleep in its pushchair - although you still face the trial of getting her back to her room and into her bed with minimum of disruption. If you’re not quite so lucky, you’ll have a child who is too stimulated by everything going on around it and doesn’t fall asleep in his pushchair which means you’re constantly watching out for it, interacting with it and playing with it and are unable to eat your meal properly, talk to other people or pay attention to any conversation or relax fully. If you’re extremely unlucky, you’ll have a very tired and grouchy child who will cry, yell and throw all kinds of tantrums at you because the only place they want to be is in bed.

That’s with one child. Imagine having 3.

The only alternative to not leaving your child alone and not bringing them down with you is to stay in your room. Again, I don’t know about Mark Warners but I know where we were there was no room service and no way of getting any food to your room beyond a dry and tasteless baguette with a slice of plastic cheese and processed meat of dubious heritage. If you were lucky and had the foresight to preorder, that is.

I suppose the other alternative is not to go on holiday at all.

There are parents to whom the idea of leaving their child at all is anathema to them. These are the parents who devote their whole lives to their child, who won’t leave with them with a babysitter, be it a relation or the teenage neighbour and won’t go out for a meal with their partner until the child’s nearing school age. That’s their decision and their choice and I’m not going to judge. (Well, not out loud anyway). We’re not that sort of parent. We went out for dinner when the hatchling was six weeks old, leaving him in the capable hands of my mother in law (who, luckily for us, lives conveniently close by). We do that occasionally because we need to have time to ourselves. Happy parents mean happy child. Going on holiday with him was something for all of us, as a family, but that still means that we, the parents, need some (not a lot - just a little) time to ourselves. Like when he’s asleep after a long, fun filled day in the pool and on the beach and in the creche and all the other ice-cream fuelled activities he took part in.

The thing is that we weren’t the only ones who were “negligent parents” leaving their kiddies in their room - just about all the other parents in the resort were doing the same. I sincerely doubt the McCanns were the only ones at their resort doing so either. We used to come down to the bar, have a small beer/glass of wine and join other parents and discuss, once again, how nice it was to be able to come on holiday to such a child friendly place and what good facilities they had to cater for families and how, as much as we absolutely adored our sprogs, it was still nice to be able to sit down for a little while without them and enjoy a drink, a meal and some adult company.

Of course, this whole sorry affair makes you think twice so if you asked me whether we’d feel comfortable again going on holiday and leaving our son in our apartment room by himself, the answer at the moment would be probably not.

My heart goes out to the McCanns and I feel terrible for them. I think they were astondingly unfortunate and unlucky but I don’t blame them for what some are calling irresponsble parenting and I don’t think they deserved to be punished as much as they are for wanting a little time to themselves. I really do hope that little Madeleine is found, alive, safe and well. I really do hope that there is a happy ending to this whole tragic saga.

I just don’t think there will be.