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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To hope these parents are Mumsnetters so I can actually say what I think to them

269 replies

Northernlurker · 26/03/2016 18:28

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?

Angry

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.

OP posts:
Floggingmolly · 27/03/2016 18:22

Can't speak for everyone, but none of my kids are on Mumsnet,, 22sailors Confused

YouTheCat · 27/03/2016 18:23

Bollocks, 22. Seriously, there are some times when only a really good expletive will do the job. How would you judge the Princess Royal's upbringing? She's well known to like a good old swear. Hmm

Farrow, no one has proclaimed themselves to be perfect. My kids, both with additional needs, are 21 now and I've never lost either of them even though I tried my best .

usual · 27/03/2016 18:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

GarlicShake · 27/03/2016 18:27

She may be in an abusive marriage.

My first thought, but I didn't post because it's pure projection. My father would regularly order me to leave - get out of his sight, literally - from a very young age. When I was returned to the parental bosom, Mum would be relieved and Dad would be polite. If I had actually got lost they'd be very emotional about it. Not if I'd been sent away. I assume they were more interested in making things look OK than my safety.

It is entirely projection, of course - so I'm in the spirit of the thread Grin

Northern, you did the right things of course.

FarrowandBallAche · 27/03/2016 18:31

Northern did the right thing? What's that then? Taking a small, lone child back into the store to find the parents?

Well quite. Any person with half a brain cell would have done that.

YouTheCat · 27/03/2016 18:34

That wouldn't be the right thing. And that wasn't what she did.

She stayed with the child in case the parents turned up in the car park and sent her dh to alert staff in the shop.

FarrowandBallAche · 27/03/2016 18:38

The fact is she didn't just drive off.
The child was safe. All good.
The fact that she came on MN to slag off the mother and make herself look superior or try to is a different story.

If she was that outraged I doubt she would have been able to contain her scorn.

Floggingmolly · 27/03/2016 18:40

No harm came to the child. It doesn't follow that the child was safe.

FarrowandBallAche · 27/03/2016 18:42

The child was safe once the OP had hold of him.

Gabilan · 27/03/2016 18:46

Pretty much any normal human being would reunite a lost child with its parents. What's less clear is how much you'd feel the need to police the reaction. Hitting them would make me judgey. Shouting I can understand more in that it might be a reaction of shock and fear. Apparent nonchalance would seem odd but could again be shock. In some cases described above there's a much more definite lack of care.

But the problem I have with the OP is that there doesn't seem to be much evidence of what the parents' reaction was and that either way, starting a thread patting herself on the back just seems a bit OTT. Just that really. Not that she deserves the flaming she's had but that yes, there is a bit of a sense of "how lovely and nice am I?"

22sailors · 27/03/2016 18:53

If nothing else you should commend her prompt action, I am sure there were many others who did nothing. I guess many would agree with the people who wouldn't go near a person collapsed but looking drunk being left alone by when the only 2 people who did help saved her life as she was having a diabetic fit and only needed a taste of glucose but most wouldn't touch. This was on a very busy Blackpool sea front. What would you have called her if she had come on here saying she had seen a child wandering but lather heard the child had been murdered. How many people dare to touch a child nowadays,it's frowned on to talk to them.

RufusTheReindeer · 27/03/2016 19:37

I suppose that although northern obviously did the right thing i find it a bit hard on the internet to say "oh well done" when its something that most people of my acquaintance would automatically do

And i absolutely dont think that northern is posting on here for praise but the "not the right reaction" part of her post is the bit that grates. Probably bacuse the two times that hapoened to ds2 (at 3 and 8) i didnt react that way

Dh did when we lost ds2 at the age of 3 on Weymouth beach...convinced himself that someone had stolen him. Some people on here would have judged me and not judged him

LogicalThinking · 27/03/2016 20:06

Ok a genuine question but why is everyone so quick to flame the op for making the assumption that the mother wasn't bothered, when they are quick to assume that the mother knew the child was missing and just wasn't showing emotion?
It's a simple matter of which is more likely.
There are some really shitty parents who genuinely don't bother looking after their children and don't care what happens to them.
There are also parents whose reactions are outwardly calm.
Far more will fall into the second description.

The OP made an assumption that because the parents didn't react in the way she felt they should, it must mean they didn't care. One does not mean the other.
She didn't contemplate any other possibility.

I suspect that the OP is annoyed that the parents didn't show huge appreciation to them for saving their child.

22sailors · 27/03/2016 20:10

I know how you feel but since someone tried to abduct a friends child in Turkey and someone luckily warned her she was being watched I'm extra careful. Many peoPle now are afraid to,touch a child because of current laws but I'm afraid I would not see a child lost and do nothing. I used reins as its a long time ago but at 4 he did know better than to leave my side. As a child I was a very different matter and I must have driven my family crazy.

RufusTheReindeer · 27/03/2016 20:16

22

Oh i didnt just continue chilling on the beach, dh ran to the amusement arcade and i went to the lost childrens area, where ds2 was chilling on the beach Hmm

I agree with you, usually fairly paranoid with my children myself

PerpendicularVincent · 27/03/2016 21:24

I don't blame the OP for not coming back, having seen the sack load of hassle she's got and all manner of excuses given.

Thisisnotausername · 27/03/2016 22:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bearleftmonkeyright · 27/03/2016 22:13

A judgey reaction may well have been warranted. The tragedy of this situation is that it would have made fuck all difference to the child concerned. And I think that is why Northern posted. Because she couldn't have done anything to change the situation. I am finding it hard to establish why so many posters are finding it so difficult to believe that the parents didn't notice or care that the child was lost.

22sailors · 27/03/2016 22:28

Apart from the language used I agree with the last post. Why is this listing running On and on surely it's been beaten to death. Whatever anybody thinks Northern did the right thing and please let's have an end to it. Would anybody get so passionate about the vote i. June which affects all our lives and the lives of all to come ?

22sailors · 27/03/2016 22:29

Please will those who run this site end this now!!!!

LogicalThinking · 27/03/2016 22:59

I am finding it hard to establish why so many posters are finding it so difficult to believe that the parents didn't notice or care that the child was lost.
Because it's the least likely reason. The vast majority of parent do care about their kids.

BiscuitMillionaire · 27/03/2016 23:04

There is so much projection and defensiveness on this thread. 'I'm a good parent and I've lost my child on occasion, therefore the OP is judging me so I'm going to attack her. And I'm a good parent therefore all parents are like me and care about their children'.

Do you know which is the most common form of child abuse?

Neglect.

I come into contact with parents who don't really give a shit about their kids, at work. Yes they do exist.

PerpendicularVincent · 27/03/2016 23:15

Well said, Biscuit.

The posters who are calling the OP judgemental, fail to see how judgemental they're being of her. She isn't sanctimonious, has never held herself out as perfect, and seems to me to be genuinely concerned.

bearleftmonkeyright · 28/03/2016 00:57

From everything that Northern said it seemed to me to be the most likely reason. I would have judges. I would have been upset. I still think about the incident I mentioned earlier in the thread and that was 10 years ago. Did that mother love her daughters? Probably. Did I think in the 10 minutes I spent with her daughters she was a good parent? No I did not. I truly believe she was massively negligent. What could I have done? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She drove away with her two young daughters and still neglected them by not keeping them safe in the car. And as biscuit said, neglect is child abuse. Happens every day right in front of us. At our kids school, in our street, in the supermarket. It happens. And I say this as a parent of three and I have lost them all at some point.

BananaThePoet · 28/03/2016 14:07

What is likely to lead to more children being safe?
Admitting there are a LOT of parents who neglect their children/or worse ( there are even if they aren't the sort of people you know/recognise ) and then keeping an eye out for the telltale signs in a non-intrusive way.
Refusing to admit there are a LOT of parents who neglect their children/or worse and labelling people who don't take the same view as you as 'judgy' and 'nosy' and other blamey insults.
Because at the end of the day I'd rather be sneered at by someone who sees the world as full of sunshine and roses than look the other way and by my inaction for fear of being 'judgy' allow a child to continue to be harmed when I could have done something to help them.
If parents were all wonderful and kind and the only bad ones were obviously bad there would not be so many kids and adults struggling with the aftermath of horrendous childhood experiences. Feeling cosy about the world is not a luxury we indulge in without dreadful consequences and harm.