Well, it depends what you call loving and caring, and what you call firm evidence. By my standards that assumption is questionable, but we all have different standards. You see I wouldn't have taken my three children on holiday and spent the bare minimum of time with them. I wouldn't have gone out five nights on the trot and left them alone. I had three children under five and didn't need relatives to come hundreds of miles to help me if I was alone with them at the weekends. As an army wife I was alone with my children for weeks, not weekends. If one of my children had disappeared no-one would have separated me from the others the following day. If my friends came to help I wouldn't have complained that I had to pick my children up from nursery because my friends had gone out searching for my missing child. I wouldn't have asked them to stop searching and come back and look after my children for me. If I took a camera on holiday with me I would have had lots of lovely photos in my camera by the sixth day of my holiday, I wouldn't have had to use a six month old picture to give to the police. You and others may think this is how loving and caring parents behave, but I don't. Different standards.
Madeleine and the twins had been on holiday before they went to Portugal, they had played on the beach and done all that small children love to do.
Although I haven't used crèche facilities myself I have been away with friends who have. The children WANTED to go, they played with other children of the same age and did things that maybe their parents wouldn't have done with them.
As the McCann children had already had a holiday before they went to Portugal I can't see how letting them have fun in a crèche whilst they had fun learning to play tennis is not 'loving and caring'. The weather wasn't exactly brilliant and Madeleine enjoyed interacting with other children, they went to the beach and went on a boat, would she have gone on a boat if she hadn't been going to the crèche? I really can't see how the McCann's can be called mean for having a week where they got to have a break too. Who knows they may have been planning another family holiday for later on in the year.
Yes they left them alone something they shouldn't have done. They thought they would be safe asleep in their beds, they checked on them regularly. That doesn't mean they were not loving and caring, they believed them to be safe.
As for family coming hundreds of miles at the week-end to help with the children. How do you know they were asked to do this? Have you had twins? Maybe the family WANTED to help out.
You say you wouldn't have been separated from your other children if one of them disappeared. You really can't say what you would do in those circumstances, no one could say what they would do.
I would like to think though that I would be thinking how Kate was, she wanted life to go on as normal for the twins so they went as usual to the crèche. What would have been better? Letting them stay among a strained atmosphere with their parents crying, not knowing why they were crying, watching confused? Not only their parents crying but their Grandparents, Kate said it was awful to watch her Dad who suffers from Parkinson disease, sobbing his heart out, how do you think children of two years would cope with that? The McCann's had to go to the police station anyway so they would hardly have been able to spend a lot of time with them.
Though Kate says this in her book - Gerry and I saw much less of them than would normally have been the case. When we did, we tried to make it up to them by giving them proper quality time with lots of cuddles.
They did have photo's, the police wanted one that showed a clear picture of Madeleine's face. There were numerous photo's but they were of Madeleine with other children, or Madeleine not looking straight at the camera
I would really read all the police files and think hard before you label parents as not being 'loving'. The McCann's have shown what loving parents are they are parents who will never give up the search for their daughter.