No doubt you all remember the case of Madeleine, the British four-year-old who was taken from her hotel room in Portugal in 2007. Besides the pure horror at her disappearance and the ensuing, huge search efforts, I despaired as her parents were pilloried as neglectful fun-seekers and were even, at some points during the investigation, cited as potential murder suspects. This is not unusual in Britain. If you let your child out alone, or leave him/her unattended, and something dreadful happens, you, the parent, are to blame - almost as much as the assailant. British children are driven everywhere and more fool you if you buck the trend and allow your child to walk. The implication is, it would be your fault if something happened. Every stranger is potentially evil. Trust no one, talk to nobody.
I know, the tone of this post is horribly serious (I did warn you). But when something weighs on my mind this much, I can't conjure up amusing anecdotes about Bavarian life. Last week in a village not far from Bovinia, two sisters, eight and eleven, were murdered in their bedroom during the night while their mother was working at a local pub. Horrendous. No official suspects as yet. A whole community is grieving and the media is full of it. The media response is what I find most interesting. Not once, not in any of the 'expert' commentaries, or vox pop interviews, has anyone even insinuated that those kids shouldn't have been left alone overnight. This in itself doesn't surprise me too much, as I have long been aware of the Germans' laidback approach towards children home alone. I could - but won't - cite countless examples; one will suffice. A friend in north Germany regularly left her two-year-old at home while she took the older one to school, a round trip of forty minutes or so. Horrified, I asked her how she knew he'd be ok. She breezily replied that she locked him into his bedroom. I rest my case.
This attitude is so blatantly inconsistent with the German model of mother-at-home, who struggles to find a job that fits in with the minimal school hours and is expected to supervise and participate in homework every afternoon. The finger is pointed if your child starts to underperform. Schools deflect educational and pastoral responsibility onto parents as much as they can get away with. So how is it ok for this same mother to leave the precious child home alone?
Germany's lack of blame culture, in this respect, allows parents and children to live much more freely. As a mother you can be concerned about your child's whereabouts as all mothers are, but it is fully acceptable to let them wander around on their bikes, walk to school alone or in a group, go to the baker or whatever. I believe this is a confidence so deep-rooted in the German psyche it is subconscious. In a way, though, it is a good thing. How does recrimination and blame and being made to a social pariah really help anyone - the guilt one must feel in such a situation is instinctive and painful enough already.
I am waiting to see whether an attitude shift might now occur. Meanwhile I have adapted as much as I can to the German way. My paranoia has often been scoffed at by other parents, and even my own children have begged me to back off sometimes. I've had to abandon my natural overprotectiveness just to avoid embarrassing them. It's a tightrope walk. My heart goes out to the girls' mother. And I hope that it might make everyone just a little more vigilant. Better safe than sorry.
http://www.findmadeleine.com/home.html
Reminds me of my mother being horrified being horrified that her sister (i.e. my aunt) was seen to send her four year old daughter off to the local shop along a main road clutching a five pound note (ten times as much in today's money!). There were no ill effects and my cousin has grown up commendably self-reliant!
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