Stranger Danger
As I toddled to the swings with my daughter this week, an absurd thought flashed through my mind: What if people imagine I've snatched Madeleine McCann? Even if they don't, do they think I've abducted this little girl?
Call me stupid, but perhaps I'm not alone.
Of course, on one level the media's concentration on Madeleine is playing a crucial role in keeping her plight in the public eye. On another level, however, we have to ask what effect all the coverage is having on how we view our relationships with children.
We are already paranoid about interacting with other people's kids. Forgive the image, but the good folk at my son's nursery won't wipe his bottom when he goes to the toilet, presumably for fear of wrongful accusation. When it comes to engaging with children, most of us feel more acutely than ever that we are the stranger they shouldn't be talking to, and so we keep them at arm's length.
On the other hand, we seem more relaxed about letting children stay trapped in poverty. Our eyes glaze over when we hear yet more statistics about Aids orphans in the developing world.
It is, of course, easier to identify with a British, middle-class family like the McCanns than it is to empathise with millions who live below the breadline overseas. Any of us could have been on holiday in Portugal; many of us might have risked leaving our children to sleep while we ate in a restaurant close by. The story plays to our greatest fear, and it's almost impossible not to feel involved.
But how do we provide a distinctively Christian alternative to both the atmosphere of fear produced by cases such as Madeleine's and the greater threat to children that is generated globally by unjust economic forces and governmental policy?
Our Christian communities should be subversively safe spaces. It's right to complete police checks and be rigorous with child-protection policies; but can we also provide permission for adults to engage deeply with children without feeling afraid?
And might we, at the same time, be more strongly exercised by the fact that every three seconds a child somewhere is killed by extreme poverty?
Perhaps if every one of us who (rightly) prays for Madeleine commits to one practical act of support for a child far less like our own, we would start to feel the difference.
Brian Draper
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