Not unless the caretakers lived nearby. Depends. But the last minute imposition on another family is a bit much to ask unless they knew they were plan b in case of issues. I’m curious too!
I don’t know the relationship between the two families but I like Jake’s family so I’m tending to give them the benefit of the doubt for the moment.
The only thing I’m certain about is how embarrassed they will be when we meet next.
I would hope so. And apologetic, AND aghast at all the things that coud have very easily gone wrong (ie, what if the people picking up the kid at the airport were delayed for hours, or had an accident?) (Or Jake was nowhere to be found when they did show up?).
Keep us posted. I’ve read too many threads like this on Reddit where the kid’s family is oblivious as to how irresponsible they were, and just thank you effusively.
Meanwhile, Jake won’t talk to them and starts setting fires in wastebaskets…
That kid would be on a predators radar in an instant he was alone.
And, yes these awful people are everywhere.
Even other than America.
My daughter left her boys in the toy department at Walmart a few weeks ago. In 15 min. a man was talking to them about Lego, when she walked up.
She doesn’t think he was anything but an adult Lego person. But it could’ve easily been something else
At the time my daughter got involved, the people were 20 to 30 minutes away, so I don’t think it’s likely they would be hours late. While there is always the possibility of an accident, the odds would be against that, IMHO.
The larger question would be if Jake would stay where he is supposed to. I know kids who you couldn’t trust them to stay put. Others could.
I probably wouldn’t do this, but I’m pretty sure my mother would have, and that I or any of my siblings would have been fine. It sucks for Jake to be excluded though, which is why I wouldn’t do it.
No fucking way. I trust that most likely nothing would have happened, but hell no would I leave a ten-year-old alone for twenty minutes by themselves at the airport. I let my kids roam relatively free and am fairly opposite of a helicopter parent, but just no.
This is my main concern. Airports are pretty safe. Japan is pretty safe. I spent a certain amount of time on my own at US airports when I was about that age, and I don’t remember it being stressful or difficult. (I got shipped to visit my cousin in another state. Usually some family member walked me to the gate, but my aunt was pretty flaky, and sometimes I was on my own.) There are people coming for him, and backup people to help out.
I think it depends a lot on how the kid felt about the trip. But my gut feeling is that leaving one child behind is problematic.
I would leave my young son like that about as fast as I would tell my teen daughter to hitch hike somewhere. “Oh, be safe, take a friend”
Yeah, nope.
Good point. I know everyone is different, but to me it’s very strange logic to go from “my son can’t board the plane” to “let’s leave him home” to “will he be safe alone at the airport?”
Giving a young child certain ldvels of independence in a community is so different from leaving a young child alone in an airport for 20-30 minutes.
In a community (like a small town), people know all the kids. And the kid knows where he can go for help in any emergency.
In an airport, you have people from all over the world. And some of those people are not going to be nice.
An airport has endless places to hide, should one of those not nice people be drawn to your child.
I wouldn’t leave a tote bag containing my phone, my tablet, and my wallet on my chair while I walked a few steps over to the window to see the airplanes. And I sure as Hell wouldn’t leave my kid alone for twenty minutes in an airport waiting area.
Just…no.
~VOW
Follow up.
Sunday, I talked to the mother and found out the rest of the story.
This isn’t a gotcha because when I wrote the OP, I didn’t have the complete information. I was relaying what my daughter told me, and it seems we didn’t communicate well.
Most importantly, the mother had found someone at the airport watch her son, so he wouldn’t have been alone for the 10 to 20 minutes. While this was a stranger, someone she just met, it was a family with kids so she felt it was a reasonable risk. The boy had a tablet so he could keep himself entertained.
However, when the mother saw my daughter, then she asked my daughter to watch for son for the short period since we are friends and the son knows us. That helped her make up her mind.
A few people have questioned what would have happened if something went wrong and the friend didn’t make it.
Because she was in contact with her friend, she knew her friend was 10 to 20 minutes away. She felt that was a reasonable risk.
If something did happen to the friend, then we would have taken care of the boy for a few days. They are family friends, so we would have done that.
She and her husband had discussed having her stay behind, but the husband suggested having the son stay with some friends and the boy was really excited about it. They had him stay with two different friends for three nights each and he apparently had a great time.
For the passport, she knew that his passport had less than six month remaining, but when she had googled it, the information she found showed that was not going to be a problem.
However, the mistake she made was not seeing that this is limited to people on US passports and not Australian passports.
Having heard the whole story, it was anticlimactic. She wasn’t going to leave the boy alone. I know some people here would disagree with leaving your child with a stranger, even a mother with a family, .
After 20 years I think Annette Sørensen should have forgiven. Especially since however safe Denmark is, New Yorkers may know something about their town and how safe it is for children.
I was reminded of this comic.
Where you live apparently it’s not a big deal and no worries there. Sounds idyllic YMMV. But I would bet that same family traveling from Atlanta or Miami or LA would not be looking around for a friendly mother type to park her kid while waiting for a friend to retrieve them. Or would they?
And if I was approached by a woman looking to off load an unaccompanied child in my care I would be very suspicious.
I walked home from school by myself long before I was 10, and I lived in New York. Not to mention that what struck me when I was in Tokyo for work was that the homeless people left all their stuff in subway stations, and no one touched it. (And it was neat and clean.)
I also went to the NY World’s Fair myself multiple times when I was 12 and 13. I’m not sure the world is less safe today, we just hear more about the problems.
I’m a bit younger than you , I think. And NYC is absolutely much safer now than it was in the 70s when I was roaming around with my friends - and responsible for walking my three younger siblings home when I was 11 or 12. It’s absolutely in part because we hear more about the problems . And some other issues too - granted, I was a kid so I didn’t necessarily know what was going on but it seemed like there was more craziness when my kids were young than when I was. For example, I remember when that incident happened with the Danish woman and everyone was talking about the risk of kidnapping. I wouldn’t have left my kid in a carriage outside a coffee shop while I sat inside for all sorts of reasons, but fear of kidnapping wasn’t one of them.
My grandfather’s baby brother died when he was left outside a shop in his carriage, and a careless passerby flicked away the match he’d used to light his cigarette, and the bedding in the carriage burst into flames.
That wouldn’t happen today for a lot of reasons. But i think that kind of danger is a lot more likely than kidnapping by a family you approached. (A single adult who approached you, maybe.)
My husband took the NYC subways by himself when he was quite young. Certainly by age 10.
His mother was playing near Flatbush avenue, Brooklyn,as a child when a strange man approached her and offered her candy. She followed him to his basement apartment, where he told her to take off her clothes. At that point, she realized this wasn’t a situation she wanted to be in, and burst into tears. The man was a pedophile, but not a sadist, and when it was obvious that she was miserable, he told her she should go home. She said she wasn’t allowed to cross Flatbush avenue by herself, so he walked her back outside and across Flatbush avenue. 
Anyway, i don’t think the world is more dangerous for kids now than back in the good old days. I think it’s mostly about hearing more about the problems, and partly about having higher expectations for the safety of children.
Thanks for the update! I think the decision making to cover that 10-20 minutes was ok, and I’m really glad the son had an adventure with friends during that week.
I still wouldn’t have made that decision though; I’d have stayed back and gotten an emergency passport and/or spoiled the kid something fierce for having been “left out” of the trip because I, the parent, didn’t execute my responsibilities correctly. Knowing myself as a kid, as responsible as I was and as fun as my friends may be, I’d have carried a lot of resentment going forward, but that might just be me.