I’ve refrained from making a lot of comment on the story but it’s the weekend and so I thought I’d propose a thought that has been running through my mind.

Obviously the big controversy is over whether this is fake or real. The evidence certainly suggests it could have been a publicity stunt but the father insists that it was for real.

We’ve seen lots of discussion about how it would be bad if this were a stunt, that  the family had played with the emotions of the country and had wasted time and resources of the police.

But let’s assume the dad is telling the truth, that this was not a stunt. In that case we have a situation where a mom and a dad spent several hours thinking their child was dead. The child spent several hours hiding with that terror that we can all recall from our own childhoods, the moment of knowing we screwed up and worrying about all the punishment that was coming our way.

In that case isn’t it worse that the family reacted not by coming together, comforting the child, explaining to him why it was wrong, etc but instead by taking him on a round of talk shows (even when he was physically ill) ?

Part of me hopes it was a publicity stunt because being a publicity whore is perhaps worse than an unfeeling parent.

What do you think ?