I found your small child in the car park at Waitrose today. I think he was no more than 4, if that. Dh and I saw him as we drove in and when I realised he was alone I leapt out of the car and went to speak to him. The first thing he said was that Mummy had 'gone'. He was scared and bewildered and had clearly made it all of the way out of the shop and around 150 metres across the carpark to your car looking for you.
So what I want to know is why you weren't looking for him? Because I stood talking to him for a good two or three minutes and then I sent dh in to the shop to get an announcement made. When the assistant came out at speed a minute later I thought it was because you had already reported him lost but no, she was just following procedure. I saw you when you 'found' him though you can't really call it that because you clearly hasn't registered he might have wandered. The assistant told you he was found in the carpark and you didn't seem bothered at all.
He is a very sweet child. I could see that from the couple of minutes I had with him. I think he deserves parents who notice when he disappears don't you?
I should have told you what I thought there and then. But I was being terribly British about it and I couldn't really believe what I was seeing tbh.
I really hope you see this and do things differently because he won't always make his way safely across a busy car park and he won't always run in to nice Mumsnetters like me.
AIBU?
To hope these parents are Mumsnetters so I can actually say what I think to them
Northernlurker · 26/03/2016 18:28
I completely agree op. You will get flamed. But most people realise within 30 seconds that there child is missing! Well done fore stopping and helping the poor thing 
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Heaven forbid the person who found him wasn't a mumsnetter. I can't imagine what would have happened then 
You have no idea whether she was looking or not. Some kids are blooming lightening quick at getting away. I assume you have never made a parenting mistake?
I have been in this situation op, two little girls walked out of the car and into the Threshers I worked in. Mum was in the takeaway across the road. They were there for a good 10 minutes. No one was watching them and she was not bothered in the slightest when she came to collect them. The girls didn't have a clue where she was. Must have been aged about 4 and 2. She drove off with the two of them in the back. No car seats, not strapped in.
As the parent of a runner you can have a big ol' fuck right off from me.
Most of us have lost a child in a public place, actually. When ds2 disappeared in the supermarket, I made a holy show of myself...
I was at the checkout; and he disappeared from sight in the 5 seconds it took to key in my card number.
I ran the length of the shop screaming "anybody seen a little boy in a red tshirt" "someone call security" into the faces of everyone I sprinted past - my one goal was to get to the doors before he did.
By the time I'd actually reached the doors the security guy was pointing back to where I'd just ran from; ds had literally walked behind a large cardboard advertising board about 2 feet from where I'd been standing 
Everybody within a radius of 2 miles 100 yards were aware, though.
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