Lunch Break: Mom of 10 leaves child behind
by LauraLoo
A Texas mom of 10 leaves one of her daughters behind at a Chuck E. Cheese and doesn’t realize she is missing until the next morning.
Hello?!?! How could this possibly happen? No accounting for each child before she drove home? Or, at the very least, shouldn’t she have noticed one of my children’s beds is empty.
What’s just as bad… no one else in the family noticed either.
Moms with very large families – we’d especially love your input!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkF-O6UuSas[/youtube]
Email LauraLoo with your Lunch Break suggestions.
[HT: ABC 7 Chicago]
Mar.12, 2012 12:00 pm |
Video of the day |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Woopsy!
there once was a woman who lived in a shoe…….no seriously thats awful. my exes sister has 8 kids and we went to chucky cheese once. i know they give you a braclet to keep track of your kids. it was a bit hectic keeping up with my daughter and her kids but im the nervous type and i always do a head count!
My husband and I only have 4 but we do a head count every time we arrive or leave someplace, just in case. It’s so strange that this could happen, and weird that none of her siblings said anything.
“The mom of 10 threw a birthday party for the little girl at the restaurant…”
Listen to that sentence at the beginning of the report! The party was for the little girl who was left behind! This leads to some even deeper and more troubling questions:
Nobody turned to ask the child, either on the way home or at dinner, if she enjoyed her birthday party?
Nobody sought the child at home to ask if she enjoyed her gifts?
Why would the child not have panicked or sought help when she realized she was all alone without siblings or friends?
Is there no bedtime routine where the children are prayed with or kissed goodnight?
I can understand an overwrought and distracted mother at a party, and afterward. However, at a place like Chuck E. Cheese, one’s normal diligence is usually heightened.
When I was around 10y/o my sister took me to the hospital while she went to visit her husband.
She left me in the lobby like children had to be then. So I patiently waited and was surprised to see my sister come off the elevator, race right by me and head down the front stairs to the door. Old big city hospitals often had front stairs, not exactly practical. Anyway, I chased her down and she suddenly remembered she brought me with her!
If I hadn’t seen her she probably would have gotten home still not remembering she had taken me to the hospital with her and left me there.
its very upsetting to hear about children being left on a school bus and there was a case in Florida where that poor little girl fried to death on the bus. the daycare workers were checking the head count box that all of the kids were present;(
I can understand that a mom of 10 might miss one child for a short period before realizing. That many kids is a lot to keep track of, and even responsible parents with fewer kids loose track sometimes. A whole day, however, goes way above and beyond that range. Doesn’t this girl matter to her family? At all? How could they not notice she was gone?
Hey, now, let’s remember that the Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph once had a little miscommunication and lost Jesus for 3 days! When I was in Judea, our tour guide explained: The women travelled together in the center of the group and the men often brought up the back of the column. It is likely that Mary assumed Jesus was in the back with Joseph and Joseph assumed he was in the middle with Mary. They didn’t realize their mistake until they stopped outside Jericho to camp for the night. They returned to Jerusalem, as the Gospel tells us, and discovered Jesus completely safe sitting in the temple with the rabbis. And the Blessed Mother only had the one Lord to keep track of, lol! Can you imagine her horror, “Oh my son, I just lost God’s kid!”
Something else is going on here. I’m not sure what the entire story is, but I have a feeling we’re not hearing it. To have a child go missing and no one–not even siblings–notice until the morning? No.
My Grandma raised seven children in several countries (Grandpa was in the Air Force). Five boys and two girls and if one of them wasn’t there. believe me–she would’ve noticed.
There’s more to this story.
if i had taken that many kids to a party id bring a few people with me. like i said im the nervous type. there was a case here where a father forgot his kid was in the car seat and he went to work and forgot. he came out and his kid was dead and he lost his mind! human beings screw up. there are a lot of stories like this that dont have a happy ending.
Why do the parents have a 5-year old out at 9:30 on a school night?
Not sure if this is the same story?
Anyway, I tend to stay off threads like this as all they come down to are folks commenting what horrible mothers/fathers they must be. sigh
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/07/parents-realize-left-toddler-at-chuck-e-cheese-after-seeing-her-on-news/
Hi Carla, different story — in the one you mention, separated parents each thought the other had the child.
Thanks Eric. :)
hi carla..where have you been?
Reading and not commenting. LOL
Hi Carla! Where’s Bobby these days?
I have a friend who, on the way home from Grandma’s when he was little, told his sister to duck down on the floor. After they’d driven awhile, he asked, “Mom, Dad, where’s Laura?” His parents, in a panic, turned around and drove allll the way back to Grandma’s, just to find their daughter in the back seat when they got there. Needless to say, he got into trouble. (He’s now a priest.)
Kids will do strange things, but yes, someone should have noticed by bedtime.
Eric- if she just turned five, she’s not in school yet.
I’d like to know how an unemployed mother of 10 affords a party at CEC. It ain’t cheap!
I could see an honest mistake like this happening. The premise of “Home Alone” was not so different.
Stuff happens. I am just glad the kid is okay. I bet she won’t ever let it happen again, lol.
I live in mortal terror of this happening to me. Once I went to Costco and took about ten paces away from my car before I realized that my four year old was in the car sleeping. Thank goodness for the habit of head counting.
Reminds me of the story my grandmother told me about her sister-in-law. She was at a funeral for a family member, and when everyone left the church to go to the cemetery..which was about 30 miles away..she realized she’d left her baby asleep in his carrier on the church pew! They went racing all the way back to the church, and there was the baby..still sleeping peacefully.
It happens. Especially when there’s a bunch of kids/relatives to keep up with!
Whatever story everyone else is referring to..a child being left and not noticed ’til the NEXT DAY…that’s a whole different thing. I’d say there’s no excuse for that particular situation.
She’s just a bad mom, there’s fourteen of us and our mom’s NEVER accidentally left ANY one of us ANYwhere for ANY amount of time.
Like Santa’s list, children require checking twice; to and from.
What I can’t get though, is the other children not noticing it. and the fact that it was a little one who got left behind, the youngests are always the ones moms check on the most.
poor kid. i really don’t see how it could have been an accident.
And “ninek”
Bear in mind Our Blessed Lady and St. Joseph were traveling in a whole caravan of friends and relatives, so a twelve year old boy not being missed (He could have been with His cousins) wouldn’t be unreasonable – especially considering that the men and women traveled (though together) segregated.
Besides, Our Lord was a good boy, He was perfect, why shouldn’t He be with either His Mother or Foster-father? why would He stay behind? – What happened there was perfectly reasonable, What happened here certainly was not.
I almost never buy these ‘forgotten’ kid stories. Walk out of the store without one of 10 kids? Understandable. But after having piled everyone into what had to be a very full car the mom/someone doesn’t notice the empty seat? Doesn’t notice the missing kid when shoes/hats/coats/etc are stripped upon entering house? When bedtime bickering begins over who gets the bathroom sink (why isn’t toothbrush wet?) Etc? Beyond belief. At least, beyond belief if mom is any sort of decent mom.
Now the ‘I thought she was with you’ deal between two parents or given a planned spend-the-night with a relative or friend is certainly a possibility. But even then it gets sketchy the longer the mistake isn’t found out.
While I can understand being absent-minded and frazzled–every parent has been at some point–I just find the idea that no one would’ve noticed this kid missing until the morning very hard to believe. A child that young would probably still have a car or booster seat–they would have to be put to bed–the presents they received would have to be situated somewhere. All opportunities to look around and wonder where your five-year-old is. Apparently the police feel the same way, because they’re still investigating and the child is still with CPS.
I am very grateful that this child was discovered by employees and the police were contacted before she was found or taken by someone else. Someone was definitely looking out for her that night.
Humans were not meant to breed litters of offspring. I don’t believe for one second that any person could be a responsible parent to 10 children.
“Humans were not meant to breed litters of offspring. I don’t believe for one second that any person could be a responsible parent to 10 children.”
Can’t follow the logic here.
How did humans evolve to have as many as 10-20 kids if we aren’t “supposed” to have that many?
Joan,
A litter is “a number of young brought forth by a multiparous animal at one birth.” Your comment is nonsensical, as this woman did not birth all 10 children at once.
Also, just because you feel incapable of caring for 10 children does not mean that everyone is. Please don’t project your own insecurities on everyone else.
I do agree that large families aren’t for everyone, but they can work quite well. My own parents only had three kids but because of my grandparents I have a lot of wonderful aunts and uncles and cousins that I wouldn’t trade for the world.
Joan,
At least we don’t eat our own young.
“
I’ve heard of a baby in a carrier being left on the roof of a car and the parent drove off. I believe another driver gesticulated wildly and they stopped.
Actually, we’re all meeting here because of forgotten babies, aren’t we? :(
Hans i heard that story too.
I didn’t listen to the news story, but can see how such a thing could happen. Most likely, everyone assumed that the kid was with someone else. Sometimes big families are transported in more than one vehicle. Sometimes a friend takes some of the kids. Sometimes kids don’t always sleep in the same location at night, for example, bed, couch, recliner, parents bed, etc.
I am fourth of five, and was left behind in an empty house of a relative when I was a toddler. The family got to their destination, realized I wasn’t there, and returned to find me sitting on the couch waiting.
What causes that kind of thing (other than being stoned) is a break from the routine, hurrying, distraction, illness, exhaustion, and lots of people running in different directions.
The answer is that Chuck E. Cheese is the Devil.
This explains the wild gesticulating. A conjuration!
We have 10 children & left on accidentally at a country fair we (my husband & I) drove home in separate cars (35 minutes away) I was home first, tucked the youngest couple into bed & was nearly in bed myself when we had a call from a friend to say one was still at the fair (my husband arrived home about then & I realized he was not with them we panicked & drove back but without the phone call I can see how we would not have missed him until morning (he was 5)
10 kids? What was the mother driving, a METRO bus? Traveling with that many kids, she should’ve done a head count. Next question, were the other siblings/kids mentally challenged? I don’t understand how the other kids didn’t mention the absence of their sister/brother. Were these foster kids? Whew, so many questions.
This woman is a BAD mother and should be charged, right along with the other adults assisting her with the party. Also, she lived in Pearland, TX which is a large suburban community, not inner-city poverty stricken, this is strange.
It’s got to be more to this story and police better verify all those kids are actually hers.
Once my sister & I went to a church together. We were both in the habit of counting children but we were in a hurry. I only had one child at the time & she had five. We took the kids to the nursery provided & sat down for a bible study. The very first scripture was Isaiah 49:15. “Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.” My sister turned to me & said, “I forgot the baby!” She rushed back & found him sound asleep in the bassinet! My own mother, who counted “noses” constantly, (as she would put it), forgot me at church once when I was five. She was not a negligent mom, in fact, usually over vigilant!