You have a point.
I am very sympathetic to Natalee's family, and by now they should know definitively what happened to their daughter.
BUT you just wonder what it is in today's parents who think that an 18-year-old, just graduated from high school, has the critical thinking skills which could possibly prevent her from ending up God-knows-where.
SOMEBODY has to be the parent, SOMEBODY has to set the rules. And one rule should be you don't go for a week's vacation basically unchaperoned on a tempting Caribbean island full of legal goodies not legal at home.
My mother would not let me go to our senior class picnic at Lake Logan Martin (from Birmingham). She threw a loud, long fit at the very idea of a senior trip to Panama City, FL.
Guess she would have stroked out at the very thought of Aruba.
My parents would have never let me or my sister do something this stupid. The mother takes big blame on this one.