Have You Ever Forgotten Your Kids?

In My Humble Opinion
61

No, I never have, but I only have one child and don’t have a car.

My GF, the youngest of three, was frequently forgotten as a child. She has many memories of sitting on the steps of the church of the shopping centre for ages (probably not actually hours, although you never know, it might have been) until her parents came back for her.

One time last year, when my daughter was nine, I asked my partner to collect her from afterschool club. Time came when she was supposed to be collected, and nobody turned up. They called me - but they hadn’t updated my records with my new number, even though it was on their paperwork - I checked later. They called my partner, but she’d forgotten she was supposed to collect my daughter, and had left her phone in another room while she slept, with a migraine. They called my third contact number, my daughter’s grandmother, but her phone was off because she was working at a hospital. So they called the police and dropped her off at the station.

The police took all the numbers (except my real number), called them, and got through to my partner. She wasn’t allowed to collect my daughter, because she’s not her legal guardian. She also wasn’t allowed to even see my daughter, at the police station a few minutes’ walk from our house. So my partner sat on a bench inches away from my daughter, and gave them my current number. That was the first I heard of this. I left work, ran down and fetched her, got an hour’s lecture about ‘always leaving my phone on and always leaving the correct number,’ and we got told that we’d been flagged on the child protection register.

My daughter was without a parent for 30 minutes.

I’d have to say, it would be alien to me to forget my daughter for even a second. But perhaps that’s just because I’ve never been in a situation where that was likely. I’d never get the chance to!

Seriously, though, she’s always on the back of my mind now, too, even though she’s ten, but sometimes she’s at school, so she’s not always with me. If this woman thought she’d dropped her daughter off at daycare, then her daughter would be at the back of her mind - wondering how she was enjoying daycare, whether she was playing with lego, how she was getting on with the other kids and so on. :frowning:

One thing’s for sure: the older child, and any subsequent children, aren’t going to be forgotten.

62

I almost did this once but it was both of my children. They were two and four years old and they were sitting right next to me in the cab of the truck. I just turned to get onto the freeway heading to work when :smack:. The kids laughed at me while I called myself silly names.

It was to late to turn around. I had to drive to the next exit and get off and then back on to go back the way I came. The sitter wondered why we were late.

63

Dad drove off and left me at church. I was in choir, so he sat during the service by himself. A school friend got left at a lookout at the Grand Canyon for two hours. His parents drove for an hour before they missed him in the crowd of kids they had. It actual wasn’t unusual for a kid to get missed for a short time, when the families were large. A block down the road and they turned around to get the kid that didn’t pile in.

64

I haven’t.

Yet.

My mother did, in a moment that she never 100% lived down. I was 10, and my mother needed to run to the shopping center with one of my brothers, to pick up something at Sears. I begged to go along - there was a small library branch right there in the center, and I wanted to swap out my books for new ones. Mom tried to talk me out of it - she insisted she only needed about 10 minutes at Sears. I assured her I’d be done in less than that.

It was about 7:45 PM when she dropped me off outside the library. True to my word, I was done in 5 minutes and waited outside for her to return (the library was at the far end of the center from Sears).

At 9 PM, the library closed. Brilliant me, it didn’t occur to me to ask them to phone home for me, I just started walking home - about 2.5 miles. At night. Along a road with no sidewalks or streetlights.

After most of an hour I was nearly home. Some neighbors were driving by, saw me, and stopped to give me a ride the rest of the way.

I walked into the house and heard everyone was down in the basement, watching TV.

I walked downstairs. Nobody said anything.

I sat down and watched TV for a few minutes. Nobody said anything.

Finally I said “Thanks for leaving me at the mall, Mom!”.

Mom: :confused: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :smack: :smack:

65

Oh wait - I remembered something analogous I did with Moon Unit. We live about a quarter mile from her best friend’s house, but there’s a 4 lane main street (not with lights / stores, just the main road through our development) in the way. We frequently cross this on foot, but only with an adult in tow. We’ll call the friend ‘A’.

We live about 100 feet from friend B’s house - across our cul-de-sac, and the kids go across that way unsupervised all the time. They also frequently simply play outside, anywhere on our street.

We had plans to pick up A for an outing at, say, 3 PM. After running errands, we got home at 2 PM. Moon Unit was naturally excited about the outing; I was distracted putting away groceries etc.

She asked "Can I ride my bike over to B’s house?"or so I thought. I said "Sure, but wear your helmet. Then I went back to putting away groceries.

About 2:30, A’s mom called me to check on the time for the outing. She said “And the girls are having fun right now”. I remember I was a little surprised that A had another child over, when she was going to be leaving shortly. Then my mind went :eek: and I said “Moon Unit?”. “Yeah. she got here a few minutes ago and they’re playing downstairs”.

I hightailed it over there, ready to tear a strip off of Moon Unit’s hide for crossing that major road by herself… then as I thought on the way, I realized that maybe, just maybe, she had specified A’s house when she asked.

I got there, and she looked upset and was afraid she was in trouble. I calmly asked her to verify where she’d asked permission to go. She confirmed she had really said A’s house, not B’s.

Yeah, I completely spaced out and missed the MOST IMPORTANT PART of the request… and allowed my child to endanger her own life. :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :frowning: :frowning: :frowning: :frowning: :frowning:

I apologized to Moon Unit, as I was certainly the one at fault. I did however remind her that if I ever again told her to do something that went against her sense of the usual, that maybe she should ask me to repeat / clarify the instruction.

Oh - and we did go on the outing as planned, though as I told A’s mom “Are you sure you want to trust me with your child? I just sent mine to play in traffic, heaven knows what else I’ll do!”.

66

I don’t have kids; however, I was a child once.

The last of six kids.

I got used to hanging around the school/field/playground/doctor’s office/friend’s house/neighbor’s house/…/…/…

67

Last weekend, my husband lost our 2-year-old. We were having a backyard cookout with some friends, and he assumed the kid was in the kiddie pool with the others. Nope, he had taken off and was standing by the side of a very busy road, waving at cars. Some nice older lady pulled over and brought him back to our yard.

My husband didn’t even realize he was gone until one of our guests (the husband of another Doper) came around our neighbor’s fence with our 2-year-old in tow, after he had claimed him from the kind stranger who rescued him.

68

Really, it’s one thing to have both parents show up to pick up one kid on one side of town only to realize that means neither of them is picking up the other kid on the other side of town. Or getting your wires crossed about who’s driving the car pool, or forgetting to tell the kid not to get on the day care bus because he’s got a piano lesson.

Forgetting you have a baby in the car, and leaving it there, is quite something else.

I am awfully absent-minded, leave a trail of things wherever I go, usually can’t get out the door in one shot leaving for work in the morning, and the same when leaving work for home because of stuff I forgot. But the kids? Once they’re in the car? Never.

69

Not for me. The baby still died a horrible death, all alone. Poor little things. Didn’t matter to them whether Mom was absent-minded or callous.

70

My son knew how to unlock the front door before I knew that he knew how to unlock the front door. I was running a bath for us, and had just gotten naked when he decided to reveal his new trick.

There was a moment of “was that the front door? Who the hell is coming into my house?” followed by me frantically chasing the 1 year old out into the driveway in my birthday suit.

I haven’t forgotten him anywhere, but when we visit his grandmother’s for dinner (usually once or twice a week) I have been known to stand up and say goodbye to everyone, and head for the door without the kid. I haven’t actually made it outside without him yet, though.