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

[Northernlurker]

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.

Yeah the problem with that argument, is that the OP didn't help the kid, did she, she posted on Mumsnet to let everyone know that some random parents didn't respond correctly to their kid being missing.

How's that dealing with child neglect?

Also, have we now decided that losing a kid is child neglect?

Or just that not responding with visible panic is?

Should every parent who loses a child and not show a correct amount of visible panic, have a SS investigation into them?

Obviously, losing a child for 10 minutes and not knowing they're gone deserves a pat on the back and a certificate.

The OP did do something. She stayed near the child to make sure they were safe and got her dh to alert the shop to the lost child.

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

That's a false binary. I don't know if the parents the OP described were neglectful or just ordinary parents who care but slipped up. I'm choosing not to judge because I don't have the available evidence. This is not to say that if I genuinely thought a child was in trouble I'd sit back and do nothing. It's just that I would want to know more than what their immediate reaction was when their child went missing before passing judgement on what parents are like.

There are several possibilities between the two things you mention Banana which involve making careful, informed judgements over a period of time and then doing something a lot more useful than posting anonymously on an internet forum that the parents may never see.

See this is one thing I find really about MN. The OP was actually there, none of you were, yet feel entitled to really lay into the OP with all kinds of justifications for people they don't know and have never met and you seem almost definitely angry with her for even daring to post about something out of the ordinary that happened in her life today. Bizarre. Why not just discuss it without telling her to "fuck off" etc?

The OP wouldn't have had a hard time had she not been so far up her own behind.

The first post is actually cringeworthy.

But if we aren't sure, we have to act anyway to protect the child involved. That's the advice always given on Mumsnet. There is no time to wait amd make careful considered judgements. Other than posting here, what could Northern have done? So many posters have chosen in my opinion to project. Yes Northern may well have got it wrong but these things do happen. And it is upsetting to witness.

There is a film doing the rounds on Facebook at the minute where a child is acting. The child is scavenging in a bin for food in a busy street. And many people ignore this child, don't notice them. People will walk past a child in distress. And do nothing because they just don't notice them. It is worth reminding ourselves of that.

Can we now just open up the discussion a bit instead of constantly kicking the OP. Really those who are doing it now are doing it to make themselves look big and clever. It's getting boring now.

I'm just reacting to comments.

I lost DD when she was 4 - in a large cinema, bowling alley venue. One second she was by my side, the next she'd vanished. I was totally besides myself with anxiety, could hardly breathe with distress.

Calm I was not when I saw her with some anxious looking adults. My distress must have been obvious.

I couldn't help but feel the same as you Northern.

Good post Banana

It's just silly to believe that all the good parents would react in a way of wailing and crying when reunited with their lost child and all those who neglect their child would act nonchalantly.

I don't believe that farrow and it doesn't matter how parents react. Of course all parents are going to react differently and every parent has had that heart stopping moment of losing their kids. I lost DD aged three in Splash Landings for about half an hour and was pretty calm about it because I kept reasoning to myself that she must be with an attendant which she was. And she was happy and fine.

It's also quite silly to post a long list of possible reasons why you wouldn't notice your child had disappeared, Farrow ; which includes:- the mum might have cancer, might have just this morning discovered her mother had died or might be in an abusive relationship.
Very silly, in fact.

Those are valid reasons why someone might appear to not give a shit that their child had gone missing.

My daughter once ran out of the supermarket and crossed two roads before being caught. I was paying at a self checkout and DC were behind me, it was not long. DS said DD wasn't there, I searched the shop meanwhile she was running up the road. Luckily a very nice man found her and brought her back in the direction she had come from. Thank god, I was so beside myself I could barely speak.

I totally agree, Flogging.

This is not to say that if I genuinely thought a child was in trouble I'd sit back and do nothing.

Frankly, many of the posters on here set the bar quite high, because they are so desperate to come up with excuses for why a parent wasn't parenting well, that they totally ignore any adverse effect on the child. Which is not right. People have been having a go at the OP, apparently unaware of the irony that she was concerned about the child's safety and distress, when those attacking her have not given a shit about those things. And my priority would be the child because an adult, even a recently bereaved / in an abusive relationship one, has more control over the quality of their life than a 4 yo does. Anyone's first thought should be 'is this child being looked after properly?' not 'what might be going on in the adult's life that makes this ok?' And it's laughable that people go 'I'm not judging without evidence' then make up various reasons for the mother's behaviour, all of which they have no evidence for, but apparently see as far more likely than the alternative.

Youthecat, the OP said 2-3 minutes, not 10.

No-one's giving anyone pats on the back.

Just saying this incident on its own, isn't enough for rational people to decide the kid needs to be taken into care.

He had clearly been alone for longer as the op found him in the car park and saw him being reunited with his parents after the shop assistant had arrived. So some time had passed. Enough to be thinking where the hells my kid.