Like most parents in the UK and perhaps wider, over the last week I have followed the news coverage of the abduction of Madeleine McCann. My initial reactions last week were shock and disbelief that such a thing could have happened to Madeleine as she lay sleeping with her brother and sister in an apartment in the Algarve. I wondered quite why her parents had left them on their own while they went out, even if they did pop back regularly. But then I remembered doing something quite similar when my own son was about 3 years old and on holiday in Furteventura in the Canary Islands. I distinctly remember putting a very tired little boy to bed after dinner and going to the bar across the other side of the pool area from where our own apartment was. Someone snatching him was the last thought on my mind and indeed a lady on the BBC breakfast news this morning said it is more likely that your child will be struck by lightening than be abducted in this country.
Criticising the actions of others has become a national passtime here in the UK. We all do it, perhaps partly due to the encouragement we get in the media. I haven’t had a newspaper this week as I am meant to be concentrating on people’s experiences of action learning, but I have caught sight of a few headlines and seen the news on TV. With a lack of news about where the little girl has gone, the space is filled insead with discussion about whether we should leave our children alone ever (probably not), whether the Portugese police have done a good job (not sure about that) and the like. Last night, and not something anyone really said anything much about I noticed the toll this whole dreadful experience has had on Madeleine’s distraught mother. She looked a tiny shadow of the person we saw on those first couple of days, she looked like someone whose life had been ripped apart and of course it has. Compassion seems to me to be the thing that people need to show now, not accusations and criticism. I can only imagine what Kate McCann must be feeling, but seeing her in the full glare of publicity gives me all the information I need on that one.
