Too many children - left three year old in corn maze

[Black Aliss]

. . .when you leave one of your kids somewhere and don't notice he's missing until the following day.

http://komonews.com/news/offbeat/3-year-old-left-in-corn-maze-overnight

[ILoveJellybeans]

How can someone not notice their child is missing overnight? Especially a three year old.

[Black Aliss]

32 minutes ago, ILoveJellybeans said:

How can someone not notice their child is missing overnight? Especially a three year old.

According to the sheriff, there  were "multiple families with multiple children" living in the same house. Lots of polygamist families in that part of the valley.

[JermajestyDuggar]

17 minutes ago, Black Aliss said:

According to the sheriff, there  were "multiple families with multiple children" living in the same house. Lots of polygamist families in that part of the valley.

This happened to me because there were multiple families driving in multiple cars. My parents and their siblings and children were all driving in 5 different vans/station wagons and left me without realizing it because they all thought I was in someone else's car. But you wouldthing polygamous families would be used to head counting every time they are out of the house. 

[Black Aliss]

1 minute ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

This happened to me because there were multiple families driving in multiple cars. My parents and their siblings and children were all driving in 5 different vans/station wagons and left me without realizing it because they all thought I was in someone else's car. But you wouldthing polygamous families would be used to head counting every time they are out of the house. 

But overnight? Wouldn't someone notice an empty bed or crib? 

I have encountered more than a few polygamist families on outings in that part of the Salt Lake Valley who appeared as though they might have trouble counting past 10.

[imokit]

I hope those parents get charged with child neglect. 

Forgetting a kid on a big day out could potentially be forgivable but someone should have noticed they couldn't find him by bedtime. 

Or do big fundy parents not tuck the kids into bed each night?

[JermajestyDuggar]

3 minutes ago, Black Aliss said:

But overnight? Wouldn't someone notice an empty bed or crib? 

I have encountered more than a few polygamist families on outings in that part of the Salt Lake Valley who appeared as though they might have trouble counting past 10.

Its definitely weird. They should have noticed by bed time. 

[Howl]

Bet a sister mom got into some trouble for this.  Wonder how old she is and how many littles she was responsible for...

[Georgiana]

I wonder if maybe this child shares a bed with a sibling?  My friend has daughters that share a bed.  Obviously they wont forever, but for right now it works better for them to have both girls in a queen size bed.  Maybe one bedmate was put in, asleep, and then when checking beds it appeared both kids were asleep?

That's the only thing I can think of.  Otherwise....how...?

[Lurky]

I can't EVEN!

[Anonymousguest]

Wouldn't it be even less likely he'd be missed if he shared a bed? Surely the sibling would tell someone his buddy was missing. 

I once left a child behind in a store because there were too many adults involved. I didn't see her and assumed she went out ahead with someone else. But I noticed as soon as I went out and met up with the rest of the group and she wasnt there!

[unholypoledancer]

I can't even with these families. No way should a sister-mom be responsible for this.  Major clue said families need to stop having children!

[Four is Enough]

Mr. Four is one of five children. His sister (aged about five) was once left on the top of the Empire State Building. I don't remember how long it was until they noticed her missing. I only know she will never go to New York again and she hates heights.

[Hane]

My mom had a friend with 12 kids. One Saturday when she took them out to run errands, she discovered that one was missing. She quickly figured out he'd been left at the library, and frantically called the librarian. The librarian told her not to worry--she had him at a table in the kids' section with a picture book to keep him busy. 

[PennySycamore]

@Hane, your story reminds me of one I read in The LLLove Story about the founding of La Leche League.  founding Mother Mary White only had about 7 children when this happened.  One afternoon, Mary needed to run some errands, so she gathered up the kids, grabbed enough tangerines for the kids and set off on her errands.  She was handing the tangerines over the back seat, saying the child's name as she doled out the tangerines.  She got to Katie   and Katie was NOT in the car.  Mary turned the car around and raced back home.  Katie was there, of course, hiding behind the draperies in the living room scared out other wits.

[elliha]

Not noticing a three year old is missing even at night? Wow!

My friend has a funny story of the time she forgot her eight year old at a shopping center. They were walking out and he got distracted by a book or a DVD or something and spotted his mom just as she was leaving the shopping center. He ran out after them but just as he got out of the door he saw his mom's car dart past him and first he thought she would just turn it around or something and go back but she just kept driving. He is really calm kid and just sat down on a bench and started eating the candy he had bought previously. She noticed he was gone after her daughter asked her where A was. She turned around and got back to the store finding him sitting there eating candy. He just commented that if she hadn't gotten back before he had run out of candy he would have alerted the staff that they needed to call her to come and get him. A three year old though is just scary and for a such a long time too. I have a five year old and a one year old and I cannot imagine not noticing them are gone more than a couple of minutes.

[JermajestyDuggar]

My husband once forgot me. I was sitting g in the back with our infant as we were getting ready to leave and told him I had to grab something from the house. I ran up to the house and realized I needed my house key. I ran back to the car, grabbed my purse out of the backseat, shut the door and went up to the house. As I was unlocking the front door, my husband pulled away. He thought I had gotten in he backseat when I was just grabbing my key. I yelled but he didn't hear me. I just waited for a few minutes until he realized I was being rather quiet in the back seat. We had a good laugh. I talk too much to be missed for long....

[caitiedid313]

It just reminds me of Gus Polinski in Home Alone. “I did leave one [of my kids] at a funeral parlor once. Yeah, it was terrible too. I was all distraught and everything. The wife and I, we left the little tyke there in the funeral parlor all day. All day. You know, we went back at night, when we came to our senses, there he was. Apparently he was there all day with a corpse. Now, he was okay. You know, after six, seven weeks, he came around and started talking again. But he's okay. They get over it. Kids are resilient like that.”

[Jigsaw3]

Back in 2012, the then-Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron, went to Sunday lunch at a pub with his wife Samantha and their three children and a couple of other families.  After lunch, in the confusion of multiple cars and so on, the parents left with their two youngest while their 8-year-old daughter was in the washroom. It took them about ten minutes to get home and figure out they'd left her behind. So not only did he forget his child, he got excoriated in the national press. The pub staff looked after her, but apparently they were pretty confused, because, "It's not like you can look up David Cameron in the phone book and then ring to say, 'You've left your daughter behind'."

(For context: the PM has bodyguards, but his family doesn't necessarily have the same sort of multi-team protection that the US president's family does; for a casual Sunday family lunch at the local the PM's protection officers and drivers were probably considered  enough security for everyone.)

[Anonymousguest]

Ii read somewhere, but now can't find is that some of the children went with an aunt. Parents thought the Aunt had him, Aunt thought parents did.

[HarryPotterFan]

Family left 3-year-old in corn maze, didn't notice until next day

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/11/boy-lost-corn-maze-family-didnt-notice/755374001/

A family left a 3-year-old in a corn maze and didn't notice he was missing until the next day. Another guest found him, and police searched for the family at the field but didn't find them (since they went home without him). The Division of Child and Family Services kept him overnight. When his useless mom finally noticed he was missing, she came to the police station with 10 other children, not sure if all are hers. She's being investigated before the boy is returned to her custody. Story in the spoiler box.

Spoiler

Pro-tip for families planning to visit a corn maze this fall: It doesn't count as solving the maze if your children don't make it out with you. 

One family failed to heed that advice and left a 3-year-old boy behind at the Crazy Corn Maze in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan, Utah, Monday night. The mother failed to notice her son was missing until the next morning. 

An unrelated guest found the boy near the maze entrance at about 7:30 p.m. MT. 

"He was crying and upset and obviously scared," Kendall Schmidt, who runs the maze, told The Washington Post.

"We couldn’t get him to give us his name," Schmidt added. "He could say his brother’s name and his cat’s name, but not his own name."

An off-duty police officer let the boy watch a movie on a laptop in her patrol car while staff members walked through the maze with a bullhorn trying to find the parents. When they couldn't find his family, they waited for someone to return for the boy. 

Closing time came and went, but no one ever arrived. The Utah Division of Child and Family Services kept the boy overnight. 

The child's mother woke up Tuesday morning and finally noticed he was missing. 

"She realized she may have left him at the corn maze and called us," West Jordan police Sgt. Joe Monson told The Salt Lake Tribune. The Division of Child and Familly Services told police the mother would be subject to questioning before the boy could be returned to her custody. 

Monson said the mother arrived at the police station with about 10 children, according to the Associated Press. 

"This was a case of multiple families with multiple children living in the same home," Monson told the Tribune, adding that the DCFS was investigating the incident. 

Poor baby. I'm glad he's okay, but he must be so traumatized.

[CancerBomb]

How in the hell do you lose a kid for that long? I once turned to look at something for a second and my little brother darted off and I started freaking out. While the Duggar buddy system places childcare burden on the older ones, at least it prevents things like freaking losing a kid. 

[keen23]

My first thought was that many kids, and in Utah- Polygamists.

[TXGirlInAMaterialWorld]

It's a stretch, but I could see possibly getting to the car (err-15 passenger van or bus) and not realizing that 3 year old was there.  But how could you not notice an empty car seat?  Surely a three year old should still be in some sort of safety seat or did they have 11+ people crammed into a minivan?   How could the mother not notice the child was missing at dinner time or bedtime, etc.?  There would have to be an amazing amount of dysfunction going on in that household for a three year old child to be missing and go unnoticed for that long.  The sad part is that I would bet that within the family some of the blame may be placed on one of the older children.  

[dawbs]

I wonder if there's a buddy in deeeeep trouble.

I was thinking the same thing about 'don't you notice the empty car seat?', but, an astoundingly high number of people function w/o their kids in adequate car seats.