Smug Parents

I'm sickened.

All over the Internet yesterday and today, threads are popping up on news sites and in chat rooms about the decision of the Portugeuse Police to remove Kate and Gerry McCann's arguido status. Posters everywhere are quick to blame the couple, reminding readers ad nauseum that Madeleine's parents left her unsupervised in the holiday apartment. The absence of sympathy and compassion for this couple beggars belief.

Imagine the torture of going through every day not knowing where your baby is, without the basic comfort of knowing that the authorities are doing everything in their powers to recover her. Imagine the dawning dread-filled realisation that the full resources of the law will not be deployed in the search because they think you harmed her. All this in a foreign country where you neither speak the language nor understand the laws; where the world's media is camped out on your doorstep, where the unravelling of your family is suddenly headline news; where your grief and despair becomes media currency.

Much has been made of the adverse headlines and cruel press coverage and of the guilt that the McCanns must be feeling. But all of that must pale into insignificance when compared to the fact that their child is missing and they don't know where she is.

How then can people say they got what they deserved, that they have no sympathy for the McCanns, that they should rot in hell? And it's other parents who are most judgemental. Who are these smug, self righteous parents who can't wait to throw the first stone? The McCanns made a mistake but all parents make mistakes and the vast majority of us get away scot free every single day. I understand why people feel so strongly that the McCanns decision was a poor one. But I will never understand how people can be so devoid of human kindness and empathy to say such terrible things about them.

Have you ever:

• Left a child in a car for a moment while you pay for petrol/ drop back a video?
• Gone to bed at night without checking a smoke alarm?
• Had a little too much to drink while caring for your child?
• Walked out of the bathroom for a split second while your child bathed?
• Allowed your child to travel in the car without proper restraints? (Before you say NO, the RSA tells us that 80% of car seats are installed incorrectly).
• Taken your eyes off your child for a second in a public place?

If you can say no to every one of those, congratulations. I know I can't. Even the most conscientous among us put our children at risk on a regular basis. You don't have to leave them unsupervised in an apartment for disaster to strike.

All week long, I keep thinking about 22 month old Lucy Bennet who tragically lost her life earlier this month in Alicante when she fell into a swimming pool. Her parents weren't negligent; they just weren't close enough to save her. I keep thinking that the previous night her parents put her to bed and didn't know it was the last time they ever would. And then I think about Jamie Bolger where a moment's distraction gave his killers the opportunity to snatch him from a Liverpool shopping centre in broad daylight.

Dreadful accidents happen and unfortunately, crimes occur. How can we expend our energies blaming those parents when they are most in need of comfort, solace and the space to grieve their loss? I feel nothing but sympathy for the McCanns - except, if I'm honest, enormous relief that I'm not in their shoes. 

I really agree. I can't quantify the horror of what they're living with. And people's responses to them and the case boggle me. She was too calm on tv. They did this, they did that. They killed her, you could see it, because she didn't act the way she was expected to. And of course, they left her.

This, more than the exhaution and loss of self involved, is the biggest danger of parenting. Being thrown into a nightmare like this scenario. If they did kill her, I'm happier, because the reality of their daughter's abduction is harder to bear. I think that's where the cruelty comes from - it's a way to handle the appallingness of their reality.