I think after Madeleine disappeared many of us examined our own behaviour as far as being lax with our children and whether our parents were with us. I do think most of us will admit to growing up at a time when parents didn't hover over their offspring, in fact there was a benign neglect by today's standards. I recall my parents sending us to bed on Christmas Eve with the intention of getting us up later to go to Midnight Mass and if we couldn't be roused, that was sometimes the case, they went off without us leaving us asleep in the house without an adult. Like most of my peers I roamed my neck of the woods for hours without coming home, they weren't particularly worried, we lived near a common and ponds, I don't think it occurred to my parents or anyone else's for that matter that we might experience a mishap.
Later on when my parents no longer took us on holiday they started to go to more exciting places given they didn't have to pay for us. Off they went to America for about 3 weeks leaving us alone in the house, I was about 17 I think, I can't remember my older brother being around a lot, so most of the time I was on my own, but wild parties were a thing of the future, I don' think I had anyone round. At a similar age we left our son aged 16 or so to stay with a friend, whilst we and younger child went away. We had often taken the friend with us to Center Parcs so it was a bit of quid pro quo. Our son was the teenager from hell at the time, clearly paying us back for being the perfect sleeping baby in the hotel room. Anyway he came back to ours whilst we were away and threw a party. His sister came round and found out about it and broke the news to us in stages with a "he's had a couple of friends round" us "how many is a couple?" her "about half a dozen, or maybe a dozen" Then when we got back she upped that to twenty or so. The final figure came in from the neighbours at between 60 or 80, we'd just moved into this house at the time, which shares communal grounds adjacent to the Thames. 3 day party, kids all over the gardens making a hell of a noise, neighbours asking them to be quiet them responding with "aren't we allowed to have a bit of fun?" cheeky sods The chairman of the residents committee came to see us soon after we came back with the comment "it was quite clear that your son had lost control of the situation" Although there was some mess, the house wasn't wrecked as my son was later to inform me that I should be grateful to him because he got a couple of mates to act as bouncers to oversee the house for us he always had an answer
As far as my own children were concerned with our first, we often left him asleep as a baby in hotel rooms where they had baby listening services whilst we had diner in the hotel. He was such a sound sleeper, we were lucky he never woke, when number two came along, he didn't go off like a light and if I remember rightly those carefree evening meals came to an end.
I did have a horrible experience with my second child on holiday when he was about 7 or 8, fairly large hotel, we were all sitting round the pool, after a while I became aware that he had disappeared he was gone for about 2 hours, I was nearly frantic searching the hotel grounds, getting the reception to put out calls on a loud speaker. Phew! eventually he emerged had made friends with another little boy and they had gone off to his room to see his action men, that was the longest couple of hours of my life he got the lecture over and over after that "tell me where you are going, don't just disappear"