“I come over here and I called 911. Like I’m supposed to do.”
Um. You’re SUPPOSED to keep tabs on your kid at all times. I understand that sometimes “miscommunications” occur, but wow. Who LEAVES A RESTAURANT without being 100% CERTAIN where their child is?
And who doesn’t follow up on their kid for days afterward? Really.
“I really don’t even know what happened.”
You suck as a parent is what happened. I can’t even understand how this man can be taking it so lightly. No big deal. We found her.
I think the bigger outrage was that she was left at a Chuck E. Cheese with the vomitey pizza and the migraine-inducing noise from bratty, undisciplined little shits and their bratty, undisciplined asshole parents.
If she were left at a Mickie D’s Playland this would be a big yawn. Who hasn’t “forgotten” a kid or two?
Or, what Billdo said
To be fair, from the video it sounds like the guy was working the whole weekend, and also works the overnight shift so he may sleep during the day and leave without really checking on his family. He was the one who noticed on Monday that the girl wasn’t there and started pushing the issue. So yeah, he sounds a little mild about the incident but I wouldn’t be so quick to blame him. IIRC the mom was the one who brought the kid to Chuck E. Cheese? She should be the one smacked down for leaving without firmly establishing if the girl was going to be staying with relatives or not, if that’s what happened.
I dunno. I inferrred from the video that the extended family “swaps” kids every once in a while and that the sisters each thought the other one had the girl.
Not a good thing, but hardly a sign of major neglect or stupidity. (There are several Dopers with stories of having been left at rest stops on vacation and their parents did not even have the excuse that they expected that another family member had the child.)
Yeah, this is the impression I got too. This seems like an overworked family, not a dysfunctional one. The father’s sure sacrificing for the kids. The poor guy looks exhausted. I’m even willing to give the mother a pass.
Sure it was an avoidable error, but when you get right down to it, how many errors aren’t? I think CPS should intervene to at least get to the bottom of this, and I think that the family should get dinged, because this wasn’t exactly a small matter, but from what I can see, this is smoke and no fire.
Call me a jerk, but I’m not so quick to give a pass to any of the parents. Kid swapping with the relatives is fine; but how about you take a minute to verify that that person has your kid before trapsing off?
2 days? What family member is ok with watching your kids for that long without any checkup from the parent?
Whichever parent was the one at Chuck E Cheese gets no pass from me. I don’t care about stories from similarly neglectful Dopers (I’d be just as quick to call out any parent who leaves their kid at a rest stop) – this is just insane that a kid can drop off the radar for days at a time. I mostly blame the father for his ho-hum attitude about all of it.
I wonder if the willingness to let it go and attribute it to “oops, just a miscommunication” would stick around had the girl been carted off by a child molester, and ended up dead?
You keep saying “two days,” but it seems that it was really only one. Saturday night to bedtime is less than a day, then Sunday. Monday morning, dad gets up and starts looking for the girl.
I don’t think it was OK and I have no problem with CPS doing a review to make sure that the parents are competent. I just think you are getting a lot more recreation than outrage out of this story.
A stupid person makes a stupid mistake. With the greatest respect, why do you care? I suppose enough people do that it makes it on to the news, but I don’t think THAT is a very good indicator of anything.
A much better news story of similar relevance to our lives that I heard yesterday was about the suprise a Polish gentleman felt upon discovering his beloved working in a brothel he decided to make use of. They are now getting divorced. I could probably find a link if you like.
I can’t view the story until there is a text link, but I can answer this question - every family member I would feel comfortable leaving my child with overnight or overweekend. Same when we would watch nieces and nephews. If I wouldn’t trust someone enough to take good care of my child for a weekend without a checkup from me, then I wouldn’t leave my child with them at all.
We went to Mexico for a week and left the kids with my mom and dad. The house we stayed in had no phone and was out of service on a cell network, so it was a mile walk into town to call. We called home - not every day - and more often than not got the answering machine. I think I actually spoke to my children once over the week.
I trust my mother with my kids and there isn’t anything “checking on them” is going to accomplish regarding their safety. Talking to them is a good chance to let them know I love them and miss them, but they are so busy at Grandma’s that when I do call when they are up there I get “yeah, Mom, gotta go” (and have since they were old enough to talk - there are FROGS to catch at Grandma’s.).
Agreed. My father, my sister, and my best friend have each on different occasions taken my daughter for over a week, with only a couple of calls back and forth between us to check in. I’ve done the same for their kids. We completely trust each other.
The story also said at least one of the relevant parties (the father and/or the two aunts) don’t have a phone. I think they meant it was the father.
It could have been Saturday night to Monday morning, which isn’t that long to go without calling to find out how the kid is doing esp. if the father was working all weekend. The rest of the story made it sound like he’s a responsible working man with no previous problems with CPS.
I think this is a lot less bad than the stories about people who drove to work and forget their kid was in the back seat so just left him there all day in the hot car. Forgetting that you put a kid in the car and then zoning out on their crying/breathing/smelly leavings seems more whacked to me.
And yet, that too is easy to do. I remember when one of those stories was causing a lot of recreational outrage, one of my coworkers admitted he had very nearly done just that. He was a relatively new Dad taking a relatively new baby to daycare - usually his wife had daycare drop off duties, but they’d been up all night because SHE was ill. So he was a little sleep deprived and off his normal routine. He put his son in back - and fortunately set his briefcase down next to the baby. Drove off. The baby fell asleep and was quiet, and by the time he reached the daycare exit, he was on autopilot heading into work. Pulled in, parked the car, reached in back to grab his briefcase…got back in the car and drove to daycare.
Sleeping babies are quiet, if you have the radio on, you aren’t going to hear them breathe (even in a quiet car, you may not hear a sleeping child, just road noise will cover up the breathing unless the kid has a cold or something), and the chances they are sitting in stink to remind you they are there is rather small - unless you are a bad parent in many other ways.
If his briefcase would have been in the front seat - or if he wouldn’t have been carrying one, he’d have killed his son.
This is a very responsible guy. A good dad who loves his kid.
Do you know what it’s like to be poor and working a job where you can’t just make phone calls at will? Guy is probably working a physically demanding job and just came home to collapse to sleep, trusting his sisters to take care of his kid and they got their signals crossed. Seems like these folks need some resources and monitoring from CPS, not any outrage.
Is this supposed to be a valid excuse for forgetting your kid? “He’s new… I’m new to this dad stuff…” Okay. Burger joints that hire fresh sixteen-year-olds don’t even buy that. “It’s a new job… I’m new to this having a job stuff… I was up all night… that’s why I forgot to come to work.”
And is this the accompanying justification?
And I’d be all about trying him for murder.
And that one act could have quickly turned him into an irresponsible guy. A good dad who loves his kid, but sucks at being a parent.