Few days ago I was watching a program on the tv.A kind of a talk show about crimes perpetrated against children.I won’t mention the crimes in details because they are not the point.The point is my astonishment in listening at the comments that were done ,more or less openly in front of the cameras.There was shock and sympathy for the victim’s family but at the same time a clear judgemental criticism.The suffering of the parents of a 13 years old girl, who disappeared on her way home from football practice, was obviously stated as unimaginable but, was it not an hazard to let a girl of that age walk home alone at 6 in the evening when pitch dark?!Never mind the football field was only 10 minutes away form her residence and she was supposed to walk with a friend that happened to be sick that evening.There was outrage and fear for the story of a little boy abducted from a playground,basically under his mother’s nose.But would have happened if she was not distracted talking on the phone with her husband?I was outraged myself by these so called journalists that obviously never left their kids in the car while paying for petrol at the garage or collecting the older siblings from school.I imagined them like an army of kangaroos with their kids always safely stored in their pouch. I thought they had wise parents who didn’t correct their being squint so that they could use one eye for whatever they have to do and look at and at the same time keep the other always on their kids.Unfortunately,I didn’t have such good wise parents an by the age of three I have been provided with a pair of glasses with the patch on one side.I am not squint anymore and occasionally I take my eyes off my girls.I do it ,exactly like everybody else does.I positively include “those eminent judges”, “those resourceful sinless parents” who were animately discussing in the talk show.They just do not admit it.In complete honesty I don’t think it is a malicious type of judging.On the contrary,I think is done without even realising it.It is a sort of reaction in front of something so terrible and despicable.Something too scary to face.It is a cope mechanism, a way to exorcise an unwanted reality.Nobody likes the idea that the girl abducted from the street could have easily been their own daughter because, unfortunately,things like this just happen.They happen for no reason and they can happen to everybody.This is too much to bare.It makes us feel unsafe.What then,if it someone’s fault? It won’t be something that can happen to everybody anymore.It becomes something that happens only as a consequence of a specific behaviour.Your daughter will be abducted because you let her walk back home in the dark;your child is taken because you were not watching him properly!Here,sorted.We feel safe again! Except it is not true!It is a big fat lie!The true is: nobody is perfect!Everybody makes silly things at times and nobody can predict what they would do in a specific situation unless they are in that situation.Excuses are found and judgements are given with the only purpose of distancing ourself from those who lives in a mad evil world that we refuse to knowledge as the world we live in too.Example: let’s say I am sitting on a bench inside a playground,a busy one,my child is on the slide ,I have a clear visual of him.My other child is strapped in the buggy,he drops his toy,I bend down to pick it up,a fraction of a second.I lift my head and can’t see my boy on the slide anymore.This is what it takes a fraction of a second,exactly like they say.May be I am an incredible unwise mother.I should have instead let the toy on the ground and go to my child on the slide,take him back with me to the bench,pick the toy up,give it to my other son(the one in the buggy that I,of course, dragged with me back and forth all the time)and, always keeping the eldest boy by hand,bringing him back to the slide to play.Walk back to my bench backward,so to be sure of never take my eyes off either of my kids.

I don’t think so!I don’t think there is anybody who does that.In the aftermath it is too easy to give opinions and the right advices.It is too easy to judge when,what should be done instead, it is simply sympathise and being grateful it did not happened to us…..because it could have happened to us!I lost my younger daughter once.It is being a terrifying experience that I wouldn’t wish to my worst enemy.We were at the shopping centre.I was returning an item,my two daughters were with me,they were behind me at the till.Once done I turned around and the youngest was missing.I was not concerned,I was sure she went back to see the toys just beside the till.She was not there.Still I didn’t think I lost her.She is a bit of a wanderer so I thought she was browsing around the shop.We started to call her,no answer.We called her again,no answer.It was a very small shop.It was impossible she could not hear me or her sister.At that point I was petrified.My other daughter was in high distress.I panicked but could not show it in front of her.People started to encircle us asking details about the missing child.The shop manager tried to calm me down saying there was already the emergency plan in place.All the exit were locked and her description was sent to all the security guards.I just kept thinking that if someone had taken her they were already out of the mall.

That thought could not leave my head.After what it felt like hours but it was probably 15 minutes,a security guard came to tell me that my daughter was at their station down in the main floor.I run down, my other daughter to follow.The missing child was happily chatting with a girl guard.She went out the shop thinking it was the way back to the till were I was,couldn’t see me so she stopped a guard ,told him she lost me ,described me and here I was…..she lost me and she found me!!!