They’re adults, not lost dogs
Are there any guidelines on broadcasting the photographs and details of so-called ‘missing persons’?
I ask because I am tired of reading in the newspapers, and their internet editions, details which the police have released about men and women who have apparently gone missing, as reported by their families, only to read a day or so later that they have been ‘found’.
The latest such case was last Sunday, when a 30-year-old woman was broadcast as ‘missing’ in the morning only to be broadcast as ‘found’ in the evening.
Found? Found? These are grown men and women we’re talking about, not children or lost dogs.
You don’t find a woman in her 30s or a man in his 50s, not unless they’re on the run from the police or a child support agency. This weird attitude towards the privacy and rights of adults in Malta got me thinking. Exactly where do families get off reporting to the police that their adult son/brother/daughter/sister has ‘gone missing’, and exactly why do the police get involved and release details as though it’s some kind of manhunt?
All they need is a Wanted sign and a generous reward.
Invariably, these missing adults seem to be single and childless, indicating that they live in that intolerable situation which so frequently occurs in Malta – where the single person carries on living with the family of origin late into adulthood, acquiring no autonomy and independence, and with very little privacy.
Obviously, this can lead to depression – as it would in any normal person not blessed with the nature of Pollyanna – and it gives other members of the family an excuse to get the police involved. But since when is depression a legitimate reason to hunt a grown person down? People with depression have rights to privacy, too. They don’t relinquish those rights by virtue of being diagnosed or receiving treatment.
It should be obvious why they blow a fuse and buzz off from time to time, without leaving a note on a little yellow sticky-paper saying “I’ve gone out. I might be some time. Don’t wait up.” It must be real hell in that kind of set-up if you’re out for the evening – an unlikely enough event with such unfortunate souls – and meet somebody interesting.
What are you expected to do, at the age of 30 or 40: phone ma and pa at midnight and say, “Listen, I’ve scored. I won’t be back tonight”? Poor things – I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. What a nightmare it must be – the eternal child, and there are so many of them in Malta.
Stephen King would have a field day here; there’s just so much inspiration in the form of grotesquely inappropriate parent-child relationships, many of which involve heavy religion, though fortunately we’ve yet to have our own Carrie episode.
The police should respect the privacy of such benighted persons, even if their families don’t. Mature adults don’t go ‘missing’ – they themselves know exactly where they are. If they have no responsibilities towards offspring under the age of 18, they have every right to toddle off without notice, however inconsiderate this might be to others.
There is nothing in the law against it. I rather strongly suspect, however, that there might be something in the law against the police and concerned relatives invading their privacy in such a grotesque manner by broadcasting their absence to the nation and asking citizens to phone a hotline should they spot them. It is beyond absurd.
The situations in which the police should release ‘missing person’ details are clear: when the person has to be hunted down – as with those suspected of crimes and those who have reneged on their responsibilities towards young children (and quite frankly, even in the latter case it wouldn’t be done in countries which respect civil liberties, because of invasion-of-privacy concerns), and when there is a very real suspicion that some evil may have befallen the person.
Do you remember that girl who went missing some years ago – she had become embroiled with shady people – and whose trussed up corpse was dredged off the seabed? Yes, she was a missing person.
CONTROL FREAKS
Nowhere was the lack of respect for the privacy and individual liberties of others more evident these past few weeks than in the pressure exerted by a lobby of maniacs who decided that Malta should have nothing to do with voting in the Eurovision Song Contest. What is that Maltese saying again?
Jekk ma nilghabx, inhassar – so grown up. The inevitable Facebook group was set up, its aim declared as “don’t vote and don’t allow anyone else to vote”.
What? If you needed insight into the way thousands of people think in this socially undeveloped land, it is that. The group had more than eight thousand members within hours. Those eight thousand people, like the ones who set up the group, see nothing odd in the exhortation to not “allow anyone else to vote”.
Perhaps somebody should tell them that preventing anyone over the age of 18 from doing something s/he wants to do and has every right to do, like voting in a song contest – using physical force or blackmail, which is the only way you can do it – is a criminal offence.
What are they proposing here – that fathers should severely beat any daughters found dialling the 500 number? That housewives should be threatened with being locked on the balcony all night and their housekeeping money suspended? That husbands should have their precious cars scratched? That as many family members as possible should be locked into bare bedrooms without access to telephony? It’s just incredible.
I think that far too many people here have led a really sheltered life, and the mass hysteria about the Eurovision Song Contest just proves it. Some of the comments on that Facebook group urged Chiara – our unfortunately dressed point of contact with the world outside – to read out an announcement that there are no votes from Malta. Hey Europe, we’re sulking!
It’s like living in one of those remote, isolated communities which explorers used to stumble across back in the 19th century, returning to express wonder at how a world had been created within a world.
And in the age of the internet, that’s really pretty strange. Is it my imagination, or are thousands of Maltese people using the internet to compound and heighten their isolation?
This article was published in The Malta Independent, yesterday.
43 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
I guess it is tricky to really differentiate between those want to be left alone, and those who had something bad happen to them.
Generally speaking, those who had something bad happen to them want to be left alone, unless it is imperative that they are accompanied, in some way or another.
Mine is a layman’s view of depression, therefore, subject to being corrected. It could be either genetic or environmental. There are those that are chronic and those that are acute. In both cases there is medication that helps a lot by increasing our serotonin levels or blocking pain sensation through an increase in endorphins. Many who are in need of it unfortunately don’t take it.
Others suffer from obsessive compulsive disorders and mood swings, but aren’t even aware that there is something wrong with them and so don’t seek help. Then there are those who fear being treated, because of the stigma.
From loneliness to sadness, to anxiety, insomnia, a decrease/increase in appetite and all sorts of weaknesses that are a vicious circle conducive to depression then to low self esteem and all many other negative behaviours that exist.
By bad, I meant things like falling unconscious or similar situations where you would need help.
@ R. Camilleri. I understood what you meant by ‘bad’, and who would need help. Hence, in my first paragraph, I said, ”unless it is imperative that they are accompanied, in some way or another”.
Good points!
Regarding the second, I was astonished in seeing the results of the inevitable “Why did Malta not qaulify for the Eurovision” poll in one of the latest (admittedly not so reliable) timesofmalta.com polls. If the result was anything to go by, half of the population was sulking.
Have these people never heard of sour grapes?
“Is it my imagination, or are thousands of Maltese people using the internet to compound and heighten their isolation?”
I agree. With the interconnectivity and the instantaneity the internet provides, our Lilliputian discussions have become more intense and visceral.
The Maltese seem to be completely oblivious to the hardship their European counterparts are going through, with wage and pension cuts and staggering unemployment. So we get hot under the collar over the Eurovision, the Holy Communion and the utility tariffs instead.
And the local media is not helping, either.
If it’s any consolation we are not the only ones to make a big deal of the Eurovision. This is an article from the Cyprus Mail which could easily have been in the Times of Malta.
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/blogs/mona-daley/eurovision-what-it-all-about/20100531
Ghandek ragun dwar il-media lokali. Il-blog tat-Times of Malta sar online chat room tal-hamalli. Xejn aktar.
Ftit tal-granet ilu kien hemm l-incident fejn miet zaghzugh mis-Somalja f’incident tat-traffiku fil-Blata l-Bajda. Il-moderaturi tat-Times ma nafx kif kellhom il-qalb ihallu certu kummenti jigu ppublikati.
Kien hemm min beda jargumenta dwar kemm swiena dan biex marru l-ambulanzi u hafna aktar.
Xejn sew!
I tend to disagree with the overall principal on this one.
Without going into the merits of the how it comes about, I am a firm believer that even if children are over 18 and still living with their parents, the family house is not a hotel for people to come and go as they please without anybody saying anything.
Irrespective of age, still living in the same house is, in general, implicit to the concept that the individuals are members of a family unit and care about each other’s welfare.
[Daphne – Alan, come on. It all depends on what sort of parents the ‘child’ has. Mine could text me at 4am to say that they’re sleeping over at a friend’s house, but when you’re 35 and your parents are 70 and don’t have mobile phones or aren’t in the habit of checking them for text messages, what do you do? Ring and wake them up? Drive home and risk falling asleep at the wheel or get a taxi instead (or drive home when you want to stay out even if you’re not over the limit or half asleep), just so that your parents don’t go into a panic when they wake up and find your bed empty? This goes two ways: ‘children’ have to keep their parents informed when they live with them, out of respect, but then parents have to make that possible too, by accepting to be informed by text message and more importantly, by not raising hell because, quite simply, what a 30-year-old does is really none of their business unless it involves crime.]
As a husband, for example, I would never dream of not telling my wife where I was or at what approximate time I would be returning home.
[Daphne – The relationship between a husband and wife is completely different to that between parents and grown sons and daughters, and you just can’t compare it, even if you all live in the same house. You are obliged to tell your wife everything, not just what time you are coming home. Your grown sons and daughters are not obliged to tell you anything, except to keep you decently informed of their comings and goings when they live with you.]
This has got absolutely nothing to do with either insecurity, control or similar matters.
It is a safeguard for both of us. If I should have an accident or anything of the sort, then I know that I will be ‘missed’ after a certain time, and a ‘search’ can begin by retracing my steps of where I’d say I’d go and be.
You may say, il-madonna x’pessimist, Malta qedhin ta, mghux f’xi gungla jeww il-Bronx ! With my apologies, but the notion of better safe than sorry applies in my eyes. You can NEVER tell when ANYTHING, no matter how bizarre, may happen.
U darba tigri.
Therefore, I also expect (to do) the same from (for) my children. If they are going out, I insist to know where they are going and at what time they will be back.
[Daphne – The only way you can know what time they’ll be back is by giving them a curfew and forcing them to keep to it – but that gets difficult the closer they get to 18 and especially if they are boys. And anyway, I know through personal experience – my own, not my children’s – that strict curfews are absolutely pointless. They are there for the convenience of parents who don’t want to stay up all night worrying.]
Pertinent to say that I never interfere with where they are going or at what time they are coming back. Heck, sometimes my daughter tells me she is going to sleep at her boyfriend’s house, or be gone for a couple of days. I am not shocked in the least.
Min hawn jeww minn hemm, they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, so what’s the point ? Rabbejta seww, and now all I can do is trust her judgement. But at least I know, for example, where her boyfriend’s place is if she doesn’t come home the next day and, for example, her mobile is switched off.
It’s a simple matter of caring and prevention is better than cure, not paranoia or control.
If they are still living with us, then even if they are over 18, in my eyes, they are still under our moral responsibility as a family unit.
If they get a place of their own, I would never dream to even think to ask for their whereabouts and so forth.
In that case, they would become a separate unit of one (or whatever) in a different house, and therefore it is not our business to butt in in any way.
Under our roof however, the ‘our house, our rules’ apply; and if one of them doesn’t show up at the pre-advised time, I would leave some time go by. If they cannot be contacted after reasonable efforts are made (asking their friends etc), then yes, I would involve the police.
And yes, if we are not at home and they leave, I insist they at least sms one of us saying they are going out and at what time they will be back. Unchaged battery in the mobile ? yes, leave a post-it note.
Lastly, decency and consideration also come it to a certain degree too. For example, how many will we be for lunch/supper? Do we cook for 2,3,4? To waste food is intolerable and our house is not a walk-in canteen.
I hope our children will pass on these values to theirs.
So as not to put this ramble out of context – if for some (unfathomable) reason they are still living with us at the age of 30, and for some even stranger reason we haven’t by that time grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and thown them out of the house to get a life, the same “our house, our rules” would still apply.
[Daphne – Your grown sons and daughters are not obliged to tell you anything, except to keep you decently informed of their comings and goings when they live with you.]
Agreed. That’s the crux. By decently informed, our basic rule to them is “Where, with who, what time will you be back” ?
[Daphne – The only way you can know what time they’ll be back is by giving them a curfew and forcing them to keep to it]
Curfews have gone out of the window in our house yonks ago. A time-frame for return is what we insist on knowing. If they, as you put it, scored, or whatever reason, then an sms to say they won’t be home is expected, even if it’s 3am. At least our hearts won’t skip a beat when finding an empty bed the next morning.
An sms at 3am is a ruddy pain, but preferable to worrying at 7am with wild visions of your children lying in some alley in Paceville or in the hospital because they got a ride with some sloshed friend.
But those are other topics – dealing with teens & twenteens (not a misprint) – that would put the volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica to shame.
…. which brings to mind the sheer lunacy of Musumeci having Nikita ‘look-how-nice-I-pose-while-he-grabs-my-ass’ Alamango on his show to discuss serious issues.
On first reading I tended to agree with your argument, but Alan set me thinking here.
Without going into the merits of any particular case, if at 30, 40 or 50 an adult is still living with the family of origin he/she cannot really expect to be treated as an adult.
@DCG: I have mixed feelings about your article and I’m one who left home at the age of 22 (still unmarried) when it was still considered highly exceptional to do so.
Parents may be worried about a son or a daughter or relative whatever age they might be if they have no inkling as to their whereabouts.
[Daphne – You’re confusing two issues here: parental concern and individual liberty. Parental concern does not give parents the right to infringe individual liberty. Child/parent boundaries barely exist at all in Maltese culture, and this in itself is a major source of stress in families and marriages. Parents simply do not know when they should butt out, and when told, they just don’t accept it. For example, the culture militates against the formation of a nuclear family, and I am sure – based on what I observe – that this is one major reason for the collapse of one marriage after another: the new spouses are not given the time and space to form an autonomous unit, but remain an extension of their previous units. I am completely against this business of going to ‘his’ parents or ‘her’ parents for lunch every blessed Sunday, for example. What is it all about? The grandparents say that they are doing it to gather the family and for the sake of unity, but actually it makes for the weakening of their children’s families and they just can’t see it. Sunday is the one day in the week that a couple can spend together with their children in THEIR home, with no errands, cooking and eating lunch and relaxing – but they are expected to rush out of the house for mass, then onto one set of grandparents, then out for a walk, not returning home until evening. Then they sleep and it’s back to the weekly routine.]
I’m ferociously jealous about my privacy but having someone look for me if they think I’m in trouble wouldn’t really bother me. I assume the police allow a reasonable time before they publish the notice. I think the word “found” may be substituted by “located” or “has returned home” or something similar because I do agree with you that it recalls finding a pet or a small child.
Surprised about invasion of privacy? What about the revelation that the government has business in our bedrooms? What next? Business getting in between the sheets to make sure we don’t digress from the missionary position?
[Daphne – Oh come on. There was an explanation published this morning. You’ll find it on timesofmalta.com. Frankly, I agree. If you expect the state to pay for the consequences of your actions, then expect the state to interfere in those actions. Yes, I think the state has a duty to police single mothers who claim benefits on the grounds that there is no father from whom to claim maintenance, especially when we know that with many of them this is not true at all, and that some of them even live with the father. Those who don’t want to be checked on have a simple solution: don’t claim benefits.]
Anyway, not that the Labour Party is arguing any differently. Have a look at the latest from the Forum Zghazagh Laburisti. Apparently, you should only be permitted to form a “civil partnership” if you’re homosexual.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100604/local/time-for-law-on-divorce-civil-partnership-for-homosexuals-fzl
They’ve got themselves caught in a trap – if they argue that heterosexual couples wouldn’t want to form a civil partnership, then they are implying that it is less than marriage.
If they argue that all couples can form a civil partnership, then where does that leave us? With two classes of marriage – one first and one second – and with homosexual couples with fewer rights than the former.
All that crap about homosexuals having fewer rights – and now they want to institutionalise that very status.
Daphne, your ‘Sunday culture’ point is spot on. I have never experienced it in any other country in which I have lived. I find it terribly disruptive for the new spouses – especially if one of them has been raised in another, ‘more free’ culture and is required to cope with this inane conduct.
Harry Purdie, the fact that we live so close to each other is a contributing factor to “Sunday culture”. Then there is what I read as the ‘slavery of love’. This is another terrible reality and it manages to intrude in and upset many lives.
Thank you, Daphne, for making us aware of the danger of certain customs we take for granted as being a healthy sign of strong family ties.
On the other hand, there is what I call ‘abuse’ of parents whose children believe that grandmas are there to look after their grandchildren. Mind you, some grandparents are quite happy to comply.
Daphne, that’s a somewhat dangerous argument I think. Extending that logic, the state would have a say in most things you do. It should have a say in whether you eat too much, whether you are too lazy and don’t exercise, whether you engage in any risky sports, etc. as it would pay the price in terms of health care.
[Daphne – In fact, it does so already. That’s why it’s mandatory to wear a seat-belt in a car, a safety helmet on a motorbike, be accompanied by a licensed instructor when diving until you get your own certificate, and so on. It’s also why the state bans hard drugs like heroin and soft drugs like marijuana (because it has to pick up the pieces) and why it slaps high excise on spirits and cigarettes.]
Not so simple at all. Depressed lonely people are very prone to suicide and to become victims to crime. Concern about their safety must not be shrugged off as an unwarranted invasion of privacy.
To my knowledge a missing person becomes one only after a certain number of hours have passed from the last time the person was seen. For the genuine cases this is usually too long for the cases when the person is not missing but just did not inform anyone this is obviously just a waste of time.
If the police are doing something then we should be happy… from my experience, to get the police to take any action is like moving a mountain and if there is a small fraction of doubt they will try to get out of it…
Isn’t it funny that in the description it says “last seen wearing a black knit cap”?
What are the chances that a bank robber (?) spends his free time wearing the same rolled-up balaclava?
Talking about Maltese parents, please don’t get me started. Having your mum phoning you every other day to check on you if you cooked anything and if you’re eating well – and this 12 years after you left home and living 4,000 miles and a few countries away.
Anyway on the other hand, having first-hand experience of how police in Malta deal with a ‘missing’ person report, I have to say it is not that easy to convince them to start working on the case let alone publish the information.
I worked in hotels in both St Julian’s and Bugibba resorts, mostly niight-time, and the amount of tourists going ‘missing’ on a night out was unbelievable.
We had people going bananas about their missing partner or adult children – well, you can imagine being in a country you don’t know, yet the cops always insisted on at least an extra 24 hours period (grace time) since the person was reported for them to open a case.
I have to say they were always quite professional when dealing with these situations, and even more professional when dealing with minors’ cases.
We agree about one thing at least: going to parents of one side or the other. As a couple, we almost never did that. But then I was never one to go along with the tide.
As for the bedroom business, you probably realize I said it tongue in cheek. But to me the unfortunate language used may be a Freudian slip: I do believe there is far too much interference from the State in private lives and most of it is based on the misconception that if the Roman Catholic Church says so, then it must be good and all should abide by it, willy nilly.
This anacronistic conservatism makes us stand out in any crowd of European and western states. I cannot see this stranglehold loosening any time soon unless some drastic change occurs.
Perhaps the Police, and the newspapers, should start charging a fee for these reports. A good way to weed out most of them.
Agree with you 100%.
If I were one of those ‘missing persons’, I’d really consider going missing for good.
Granted, seeing your children grow up into mature adults takes some adjusting to. Apart from being their right, I feel an over eighteen year old’s independence should be encouraged and celebrated.
If they can afford to move out, then they should.
If you are part of the family of some adult who went missing, you will find it very difficult not to worry about a ‘dissappearance’ , how would you know if this would be temporary or for ever.
[Daphne – Again, confusing two issues: anybody would worry, but that worry does not give us the right to invade privacy. Parents carry on worrying about their sons and daughters for the rest of their lives. It does not give them the right to telephone day and night, interfere, check up on them, or demand regular updates. It certainly does not give them the right to call the police unless there is a very real suspicion that some evil has befallen the person in question. To act on your worry is not necessarily altruistic: it can be the result of selfishness (I don’t want to worry) and often is.]
In our village we have parents who are still ‘waiting’ for their grown-up son who went missing some two years ago. Sometimes police find these missing persons dead in some disused field or quarry or in the sea. We don’t have the whole picture in Malta because we never hear news about suicides, which are not uncommon in Malta.
[Daphne – I know. I’ve read the reports. But short of having a severely depressed person sectioned and incarcerated under the equivalent of the Mental Health Act, there is precious little that can be done about it. I know two women who killed themselves while under 24-hour watch at home: one by the simple expedient of drinking an infusion of oleander leaves from the garden, and the other by jumping off a balcony when left alone for precisely two minutes.]
I think the police practice a ‘better safe than sorry’ policy.
If a person is found dead in some place in Malta after a week from his/her death, the relatives of the dead person would surely be questioned why they did not report the person as missing.
[Daphne – I am quite sure that bothering about that would be the last thing on anyone’s mind when grieving. Who gives a stuff? And as I said earlier, adults are not responsible for other adults, even if those adults happen to be their children or parents.]
If a mature and sane person wants to get away from it all, and wants his/her privacy protected all he/she has to do is tell his relatives about his/her intentions.
[Daphne – I think you fail to understand the dynamics at work in intense situations. Sometimes, the only way to get a message across about how angry you are is to go off WITHOUT leaving a note.]
“Adults are not responsible for other adults, even if those adults happen to be their children or parents.”
I know what you’re trying to say, and agree that there are parents who never let their grip off their thirty-year-old ‘children’, for example.
But we should not go on the other extreme and not bother about a member of the family who lives with us under the same roof. When our twenty-year-old children are not at home by six in the morning the first thing we do is check the mobile for any messages or phone them to check wether they’re OK.
[Daphne – Obviously. But worry doesn’t give you the right to hunt your son or daughter down. There’s a difference between worrying and acting on the worry purely to assuage it.]
Maybe in the US or the UK they don’t do this but here on this tiny island in the Mediterranean we have everything at arms reach and expect to know whether our young adults who live with us under the same roof -called a home-are OK. There is this thing called a family living at home, where among other things they find nourishing food prepared up to their individual tastes and where they can drop their dirty laundry to find it neatly stacked in their rooms within a few days,its the place where the members of the family take interest in each other.
[Daphne – Oh yes? And who does the cooking and the neat stacking of laundry? The fairies? No wonder so many Maltese ‘children’ can’t fend for themselves for more than a week in a foreign city, living alone. Do you know just how many young people don’t take up Erasmus programmes because they don’t want to live alone ‘abroad’? How many are discouraged from taking the full ITS course because it means spending a WHOLE YEAR IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY? That the Maltese translation department at the European Court in Luxembourg can’t find enough young people from Malta to fill vacancies because interviewees get cold feet at the thought of living away ‘from home’?]
Our young adults are not stray dogs, and are not living in a hotel.
[Daphne – Yours seem to be living in a hotel, John. They find food cooked and laundry miraculously stacked.]
What if there’s a car accident involving someone who fits the same description of some member of your family who’s not at home? Wouldn’t you pick up the mobile phone to see if this ‘adult’ is OK by asking whether he’ll be eating out that day?
[Daphne – No, because unlike many parents I had the imagination to put myself in their position and to remember what it was like to be 20. Would I have wanted my parents ringing me to check whether I’d been killed in an accident? Like hell I would. You just have to tell yourself this: if they weren’t living with me, would I be ringing them to check? No, I wouldn’t. So there you are.]
They find the laundry miraculously stacked and at times ironed by one of them. We sometimes find the dishes miraculously washed by one and wiped and placed in the cupboards by another. Sometimes we find a (very) spicey meal already prepared which we have to eat like when they ‘have’ to eat minestra. Mine live in a self-catering apartment if you want an analogy.
If they weren’t living with me, would I be ringing them to check? Of course I would Daphne, even if they were Down Under. Hearing their voice would be enough for me, it’s up to them if they want to tell me more details which they normally do.
I find it funny how you reason things out. Wouldn’t it be easier to tell yourself that your relative who is living with you could be badly needing your support. What’s wrong if a mother phones her son asking ; ” how are you sonny boy? How about pizza tonight “.
[Daphne – What’s wrong? It annoys them. And if it doesn’t annoy them, there’s something wrong with them, and they’re heading for Big Trouble With Women. An essential part of male development is cutting off from the mother. A fundamental problem with men in Malta is the failure to do so. It’s a significant factor in marital discord and marital breakdown. Faced with a choice between keeping their wives happy but annoying their mother or keeping their mother happy but annoying their wives, very many men go for the latter. They are actually more afraid of upsetting their mother than they are of upsetting their wife, more loyal to their mother than they are to their wife. The fact is that there is no room for two women in a man’s life unless one of them bows out gracefully, and that should be the mother but in Malta it rarely is. The mothers compete with the wives. I believe that mothers of sons should get into training even before steady girlfriends and wives are on the horizon, because it is that much harder to make an overnight switch.
Do you know just how big a problem the mother/son relationship is in Malta? It’s huge. Let’s just say that mothers phoning their sons to see how they are and what they want to eat are a major source of relationship discord – MAJOR. MAJOR, MAJOR. I have the imagination to understand this: every time I am even remotely tempted to do something of this nature, I remember what my visceral reaction was when I dated a young man whose mother was at the other end of the line with questions about food and laundry, and I say, god help me not to metamorphose into a Jewish (Maltese) mother.]
Hold your horses; I’m not stating here that parents should phone their children morning noon and night. I’m stating here that if there is an accident which neatly fits a relative of yours, say, your son, you should phone him without letting him know about your worries, the excuse would be favourite food for example, or what was the name of that song where your favorite singer mentions Galileo?
[Daphne – What crap, John, honestly. If I were to phone one of my sons to check that it wasn’t him in that accident, I would tell him straight out: “Oh good, it wasn’t you.” I hate all this coy behaviour. I can’t abide this mother/son/favourite food business either – it makes me see red, largely because I’ve had too much experience at the receiving end of mothers who see food and favourite dishes as a means of communicating with (and exerting power over) sons. Fortunately, my sons have my independent mentality and can’t abide it either, so that makes four of us. They regard it as pestering and ‘sad’ behaviour.]
I agree with your worries of Maltese mammoni. I have worked with some who were really pampered by their mothers. They wouldn’t know how to prepare a coffee for themselves, let alone a hot dish. The problem is not only in Malta it is also widespread in nearby Italy.
A perfect example I met lately has his mother turn on the air conditioner an hour and a half before he arrives home to sleep after work, temperature setting: 16 degrees centigrade. Mummy pays the bills but the government should do something about the utility bills of newly married couples!
During a meeting at work the mobile rings, he gets out of the room because it was an important call from……mummy. His father buys him selected horse-meat from a friend who is a butcher. Naturally it costs that bit more – only the best horse meat for Rodney as long as daddy pays.
[Daphne – Ah, now hang on. This is where we part company again. Spoiling has nothing to do with buying things for your sons or daughters. Spoiling is an attitude. The most desperately spoiled people I know came from a family which couldn’t afford much.]
At a tangent if I may…
These are lost dogs not people
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=9592
famous words – even Jesus wept
I have a question. If parents fail to report that an adult child is missing and that child turns up dead a couple of days later, will the parents be under suspicion for having failed to alert the police?
[Daphne – No, of course not. Parents are not responsible for the whereabouts of offspring over the age of 18.]
Brilliant article Daphne. I couldn’t agree more, particularly with the missing person issue.
I do not think that ‘sparing the rod spoils the child’. I got the best results when I showed that I believed and trusted that the other ‘party’ wouldn’t let me down that they responded in a more positive way.
Even better than I expected. Threatening is very often counter productive. Explaining briefly about YOUR benefits of being punctual AND NOT MINE without having to pontificate about my home’s 10 commandments to yield better results. And this, inany relationship. Be it with my children, my employees and my colleagues at work.
Now, that we have warmer days, I have the window open for fresh air. Whenever my wife insists that I close the window when I am ready, as though she’s afraid I’ll forget, I do forget. But whenever she forgets to give me the instructions I automatically remember. I guess it’s man’s intuition.
[Daphne – No. It’s called passive aggression.]
Dear Daphne, thank you for putting me right on the correct choice of terminology to describe the psychological reaction which I described as intuition.
I agree and I don’t, both with your choice of words and their connotations and associated ideas.
If I consciously and knowingly had attempted to not to do so, as she wished, then I agree it would have been passive aggression, on the other hand, although my forgetfulness to do as she wished, miffed her, this cannot be called aggressive because my omission was not meant to hit out at anyone.
I strongly believe that aggressive behaviour (passive or otherwise) must be deliberate to be defined as such.
Don’t agree with everything you said this time, Daphne. Maybe you cannot really understand because thank God you have not experienced what it’s like to have a son or daughter at home (even over the age of 30) who makes use of drugs. When under the influence, they can become paranoid, have hallucinations, lose their sense of judgement, and much much more.
You are a mother yourself so you can understand that a parent will be ready to go to the grave just as long as the child gets better. You can`t ever lose hope in them. So I am sure that in those cases, if a person goes missing, it will be crucial for the parent to report to the police and, maybe, just maybe, save their son’s or daughter’s life.
“But since when is depression a legitimate reason to hunt a grown person down?”
Perhaps when there is a genuine concern that person might harm him/ herself.
How nice! Put him in a straitjacket so he can’t top himself, but never mind about his problem. So bloody kind aren’t we? Preserve human life at any cost, even when it’s a continuum of misery.
Daphne
I am out of subject but any thoughts on the loss of EU funds in the education sector? Apart from Govt ministers (who always seem to be infallible) we seem to have a bunch of incompetent civil servants ( and ferry captains for that matter).
[Daphne – Yes, I have plenty of views on the matter, particularly because all three of my sons went through the system so I saw the crass incompetence at first hand.]
Sinjura Caruana Galizia, xi haga fuq l-izvinturat skrivan tal- Awtorita’ tat-Trasport li qala sentenza sospiza ghall-mizerabbli tixhima ta’ zewg liri ma sibtx xi tghid? Laburisti mgiddmin m’hemmx involuti did-darba, imma xorta nittama li tasal biex tikteb kumment favurih. Nispera ma telliftekx izzejjed fil-krocjata tieghek kontra l-uzu errat tal-lingwa. Ferm iktar importanti min-hajja ta’ bniedem din, m’ghandiex dubju.
I’m sure that many people would love to move out by the time they’re twenty, but it’s very difficult, especially if you’re a student or have low income. Buying a car is already no mean feat at that age, when you have to study all year while subsisting on the money you manage to make during summer, which doesn’t amount to much since you’re essentially a mere hireling.
Also, the thought of paying a ridiculous price (monthly, that is, until you’re 50 or something) to buy yourself an apartment in an overcrowded street, is not an easy one to live with at that age.
“And in the age of the internet, that’s really pretty strange. Is it my imagination, or are thousands of Maltese people using the internet to compound and heighten their isolation?”
Daphne, no it’s not your imagination I’m afraid. Plug Lilliput to the grid and, counter-intuitively, what you get is the reinforcement of petty cultural traits rather than a broadening of mental horizons, a leap from a local to a global way of thinking or else a rich cross-fertilization of ideas. You get Lilliputians to share their insular values and norms on hyper-drive.
The internet (or rather the web – the internet is just the underlying hardware infrastructure) is value-free. It is not intrinsically good or bad but just a magnification of what we are.
Hence this is the web for most Maltese and at the same time this is our contribution to the online world community – the upload of ‘xi marc tal-festa’ with lots of colorful language, our national obsession with the ‘ewrovixin’, sublime (and not so sublime) xenophobic and homophobic messages and all that.
Fascinating for some anthropologist or sociologist, scary for a co-national.
jekk tifla taht it tmintax il sena titlaq mid dar u tizzewweg bir registru il genituri mhumiex iktar risponsabbli, fil fatt il ragel ta tifla jista ma jghatiex informazzjoni fejn it tifla qieghda toqghod, dejjem jekk il pulizija jkolla kopja ta zwieg civili. f`dan il kaz il genituri ma jistawx jghamlu rapport li it tifla taghhom giet nieqsa mid dar.
jekk it tifla qieghda tiko abita allura il genituri huma ghadhom risponsabbli minnha u jistaw jghamlu rapport li it tifla nieqsa
jien hekk kont nafa, issa jekk tbidlu l affarijiet ghiduli.
[Daphne – This is a VERY simple concept: nobody is responsible for anyone who is over the age of 18, and who has not been interdicted or placed in care due to mental incapacity. The legal responsibility for women which is transferred from father to husband is something that went out – well, not with the ark, but in our lifetime. Believe it or not, women are now responsible for themselves. Missing person reports are not filed out of legal duty but out of normal human concern. You can file a missing person report about your flatmate.]