Fiona MacKeown Ticks All The Boxes In Anorak Bingo
FIONA MacKeown, mother to murdered teenager Scarlett Keeling, is the subject of heated debate among the newspaper columnists.
Much of the opinion is prefaced by the word “sorry” or “forgive me”. This is always followed by an attack. “Sorry, but I blame Scarlett’s mother,” says Allison Pearson on the Mail’s front page.
Readers can join play along. It’s all part of Anorak Bingo - the game that’s taking the press by storm. The aim is to get the names ‘McCann’, ‘Matthews’ and ‘MacKeown’ into your article. Get all three and score double points. Pens at the ready…
THE PRESS: “What was her mum thinking?
Says Mike Bentley:
Well forgive me, love, but if you hadn’t decided to cart your eight (repeat, eight) children off to India for a six-month holiday, and then left one of them to fend for herself while you cleared off with your partner and the other kids (exact number of fathers unknown, but at least four), then there’s an even better chance that Scarlett might not be dead now.
Bentley has done his research. He manages to tick all the boxes. Madeleine McCann. Tick. Shannon Matthews. Tick.
Fiona MacKeown is a “soap-dodging, pikey mother”. DAILY RECORD: “Terrible Price To Pay For One Bad Decision”
Joan Burnie writes:
FIONA MacKEOWN, the mum of 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling, who was raped and murdered in Goa, is unlikely to ever win Mother of the Year. There are those who also, even if they don’t say it right out loud, whisper it about Kate McCann.
Tick.
DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Hands-off mums do their children no favours
Says Alice Thomson:
“Though the children stayed away for many moons, the beautiful mother always left the window open for them to fly back. I do like a mother’s love, don’t you?” Wendy tells Peter Pan.
“You are wrong about mothers, Wendy,” Peter replies. “When I flew back to my mother, the window was barred, and there was another little boy asleep in my bed.”
Mothers in the 21st century are even more divided than the ones described in JM Barrie’s book.
Fiction. Fact. Can you spot the difference?
But by allowing her children to drift in and out of schools while living off government cheques and a home-grown vegetables, she did little to prepare them for adulthood. Scarlett’s 17-year-old brother, Silas, wrote on his Bebo site: “My name is Si, n I spend most of my life either out with mates get drunk or at partys, or going to da beach.” Their mother may have been attempting to live the good life, but she hadn’t given her children boundaries or taught them how to look after themselves. She had opted out of her tedious parental duties, as had the five fathers of her nine children.
THE SUN: MUMMY’S CURSE!”
Jon Gaunt:
“Let’s not beat about the bush, Fiona MacKeown is an irresponsible mother.. Fiona is typical of the kind of mother who wants everything and sees her kids as an inconvenience that can be palmed off at any excuse – she’s a clear example of the ME, ME, ME generation.”
So says Jon Gaunt in his eponymous column.
It’s the same kind of attitude that allowed the McCanns to think it was acceptable to leave Maddie and the twins alone in a holiday apartment…”
Tick.
“It’s the same attitude that has led Shannon Matthew’s mum to have kids by multiple fathers.”
Tick.
THE GUARDIAN: “Mothers and monsters - In the media’s hands, Fiona MacKeown has become a scapegoat for the middle classes”
Says Madeleine Bunting: “Compassion is not a response the media seem able to sustain. That small window that affords a degree of respect for the grief of the bereaved seems to shrink ever more, but even so the treatment of Fiona MacKeown, the mother of the 15-year-old murdered on a Goa beach, has plumbed new depths of harsh judgmentalism.
While MacKeown struggles to get the police to take on the case of her daughter’s killing, she has a second child lying in hospital in the UK with a broken neck from a car accident that happened shortly before her daughter’s death. This goes well beyond the platitude of a mother’s worst nightmare. Yet even such circumstances have not inhibited the torrent of criticism and contempt that has poured down on this woman’s head. Open season has been declared on every part of her family life, her parenting style and even her appearance. She is blamed for abandoning her daughter in a resort while continuing her travels; accused of a recklessly indulgent style of parenting; and criticised for her mode of grieving. Almost every article refers to her hair - it is “lank”, a “curtain” and, most unforgivably, grey.
As does this article. Bunting mentions Kate McCann.
Tick.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
where is Scarlett’s father?
March 14th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
who is Scarlett’s father?
March 14th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
1
i-dont-believe-them
aint you a bit obssessed with kids fathers????single mothers???
this thread is purrfect for you to lash out your pent up anger at single mothers
March 14th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
In Britain: What is a father?
March 14th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
The main issue is State sponsored, State condoned, and State promoted, bad parenting.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
4
i-dont-believe-them
you should know: you are a father or you were a father?
March 14th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
And how come we whisper it about Kate McCann and how come it’s just Kate and not Gerry too? They both made the choice to leave the door unlocked and their kids alone.
Much more stupid than Fiona or Karen Matthews.
Do the press judge parenting skills by how many men we know the Mother’s shagged???
March 14th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
7
karren
Witch hunt
I must admit I feel 103%”closer” to the witch Fiona than the mcWitch.
For various reasons
March 14th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Karren
The mcPrecious do not shag! They have tube babies
March 14th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Well Karen, there is something to be said for a stable family life. I had one, my kids had one, and now my grandchildren have one.
We all paid our way, took nothing from the state, didn’t live in a carvan in the middle of a mud hole, didn’t wind up dead on a beach in India (Not that it couldn’t happen but I dont think it’s likely)
And… what the hell are a family on benefits doing on a six month holiday in India anyway? Who pays for that? The British taxpayer I assume.
Makes me happy I emigrated.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I am aking myself a few questions :
- Is our society more dangerous for youg people than it used to be, say, 50 years ago? (I am not speaking of wartimes, which have maimed and killed enormous numbers of children, and young men). If there are more children raped, kidnapped, killed, is it related to more sexual freedom, more drug consumption, more crime?
Or are we just more aware of it now? It would be interesting to check the crime statistics.
Second set of questions :
- Is it right to blame the mother when some small child or teen ager is harmed? My answer is “why not?”, considering the power and responsibility that the parents have on the welfare of their children. Yet, when there is also a father, he should share the blame.
Besides, I find it strange that the blame comes from the media, all of a sudden, and only when some problems have occurred, which are more spectacular than the every day, humdrum, children’s tragedies . They get indignant about the Jersey monsters,about the “naïve” or careless mothers, about paedophilia… after the tragedies have happen. It is much easier than an in-depth reflection on our society, and it sells much better. The same press that now lectures the mothers produces magazines for teenagers and for mothers that do not encourage down to earth thinking and safe, realistic values. Attractiveness, glamour, and interest for the celebrities come first. Look at the quantity of advertisements, and at their contents, and tell me I am wrong about the type of culture they convey.
It is rather amusing that the journalists working for them now set themselves as morals lecturers.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
How does having lots of children characterise the ‘Me Me Me’ and ‘because you’re worth it’ generation ?(Gaunt) Unless you are loaded it is hard hard work and leaves little time for self.
Woman’s Hour BBC quoted a poll which said that 4/5 parents would permit their older teenagers stay with their boyfriend’s family, isn’t Fiona McKeown simply one of this majority ? I doubt if she pawned her daughter off for her convenience but simply allowed her daughter have her way.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I don’t think lifestyle explains tradgedies as these articles suggest. If you compare these crimes against children with crimes against adults you can see how little the media covers the lifestyle of adults who are victims of crimes, and when it does lifestyle is not seen as the cause, and used as an excuse to bash relatives and generate fear about adults’ freedom of movement.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
shannon found alive. such good news.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
THANK GOODNESS Shannon’s be found! i’d always hoped this was no more than a case of a child having run away from home (given the tales of her crying and not wanting to go home), and good to know she had the good sense to go somewhere safe.
March 14th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
dying to hear the full story on it..unconfirmed reprts say she was found hiding under a bed in her grandparents home..if thats true id say there will be some serious questions asked as to why she did not want to go home..
March 14th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
which grandparent’s house? father’s or mother’s?
March 14th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
“”"”Joan Burnie writes:
FIONA MacKEOWN, the mum of 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling, who was raped
and murdered in Goa, is unlikely to ever win Mother of the Year. There are those
who also, even if they don’t say it right out loud, whisper it about Kate McCann”"
*******************************************************************
I’ll be proud to bloody well shout it out….you simpering hack….Kate McCann
is unlikely to ever win a Mother of the Year Award.
March 14th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
not sure now they are saying a 39 year old man has been arrested under suspicion of abduction..i think it will be a while until something solid comes out about this..think it is mainly rumours at the min
March 14th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
19 The Original Stan,
weird: first there were reports of her having been found at her grandparents’ house, now at the house of a loner ?? see new story in Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=533944&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
March 14th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
How many of the better off leave their children with au pairs or nannies not only in foreign countries but travelling in economy class while they are in first class. Poor choice but not generally fatal.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Stop blaming Fiona and blame the rapist.