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June 29, 2005 I cannot believe the insensitivity of people. I first came across the article when I read the rebuttal by Mr. Larsen and I so totally agree with his assessment of Mr. Reyes comments. While, I do not personally know Natalee, one of my boss's sons was on that trip and it has become very personal in our office. I work within the community that Natalee Holloway lived and have seen her aunt shopping in Publix grocery store. I did not stop her but smiled instead, unfortunately, other people, some of whom may have personally known her, did stop her in the store to discuss the case and that days spectacular events, which included the father's arrest. I talked to my boss about the issue of the chaperones because I misunderstood the purpose behind the adults being on the trip. I thought that they were there in the position of chaperones but that was not the case and all the parents were well aware that the adults would not be keeping tabs on their children. They were there merely as facilitators in case any problems arose. They were not there to do bed checks or anything else. What surprised me was that over half of the kids on this trip were girls. Over 130 kids were on the trip and over 1/2 were girls. Their parents also did the math and decided that Aruba was no more dangerous than sending their children to Panama City or Pensacola. Aruba does or did have low if not nonexistent crime statistics and the majority of the kids that were on this trip were well seasoned travelers. They all come from very affluent families and they were used to traveling. This could just as easily have happened in Panama City or Pensacola but because it was a senior trip that was outside the country, people are looking in askance at the parents and their decisions. When I was in school, there were school trips to Europe, Washington DC, etc, point being that at a much younger age, our parents were presented with opportunity of allowing their children to participate with school sponsored trips to other states and totally different countries and no parent that allowed their children to go to Europe on those trips was slammed for making a bad decision. It is true that today the world is a much more dangerous place than it was 20 years ago and one must take that into account when making decisions such as allowing your children to travel unsupervised; however, Natalee was not a child. She was a 18 year old young woman who would have been leaving for college in the fall and for her to go to Aruba on a senior trip with over 130 other school mates would not have seemed unreasonable to her parents. That something "terrible happened to her" is devastating but things like this do happen ;however, as we all should know, you don't blame the victim. She was not doing anything any different than any of the other kids on the trip; unfortunately, she did let her guard down and we all suspect the result. The community of Mountain Brook has rallied around the Hollway-Twitty family. Several fund-raisers have been held to raise money so that the family can stay down there and continue to search for Natalee. I have a 4 year old daughter and I can truly appreciate Beth Holloway's vow to stay in Aruba till she finds Natalee. How could she leave her child in a foreign land? With as much time that has passed, I believe that most everyone accepts the fact that Natalee was killed. How horrible it must be for the mother of the missing girl to have to read other people's comments concerning her daughter's behavior and her lack of parenting skills! Her child was a honor roll student with a full ride to the University of Alabama. She was not a blonde bimbo. She was an extremely smart and ambitious young woman who had the potential to do many things with her life and for her mother to be robbed of that and then have total strangers condemn her parenting and say that "Natalee got what was coming to her" is reprehensible. ------------ About the author: Valerie M Chapman is a technical sales support rep at Watt Stopper/Legrand. Email: Valerie.Chapman@WattStopper.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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