Back when I was a new mum, Jimmy Barnes played at our local oval.
The most exciting thing to happen around here in decades and I'm a huge fan.
My next door neighbour arranged for us to sit on her front verandah to hear it better, my house was tucked behind hers.
I went to the effort of borrowing a baby monitor, bought my wine and was ready to listen to some sweet tunes.
First of all i had to ask my neighbour to check she heard me as I went back to the babys room to whisper in the monitor. Baby slept soundly but I was paranoid as a mum.
All worked well. My neighbour heard my whispers, the thing was working just fine.
So I went back to the verandah...sat there for about 2 minutes then thought, "is that monitor still working? Its so quiet" so I had to ask the neighbour to listen again, run back to whisper again etc.
It became obvious after about 10 minutes that I was going to miss hearing that concert. My nerves, mothering instinct, whatever, made me go home to my baby. I simply could not trust a little piece of machinery to tell me my most precious possession was safe and sound.
The McCanns did not even trouble themselves with a monitor - the first night or the last, when they KNEW about Madeleine and Sean crying the evening/s before.
They just skipped off without a backward glance.
This is not the action of normal parents. Even their cronies had monitors.