Parents Realize Next Day They Left Son At Chuck E. Cheese

I can see how that could happen. Have you ever been to Chuck E. Cheese? It's like a casino in its ability to disorient adults and children alike.

It is pretty alarming, though, that the Birthday Boy got left behind. You'd think someone would make sure the child they are celebrating is around.

Yeah, especially the part about everyone thinking he was with someone else. That exact thing happened to one of our neighbors recently. We were outside and our neighbor (also 6) came over, sobbing and incoherent for a while, it was established that nobody was home and she didn't know where they were. She had been with a friend and was dropped off at home. We (sozlet and I) hung out with her and made a sign to put on their door to let them know where the girl was, and then her mom's car came tearing up like a bat out of hell and her mom jumped out and sprinted to their front door -- we all ran over and got her attention and much hugging and "I'm so sorry!"ing commenced.

As far as I can tell (I never completely pieced it together), the girl's friend's mom dropped her off at the girl's house while her own mom thought she would be dropped off some other place. I think that maybe the mom made some last-minute changes or something though because she was definitely taking responsibility for it.

Anyway, ended fine. I can't imagine the girl being taken into state custody because of it. It was only a matter of about 20 minutes as opposed to all night, but still...

Why didn't the kid know his own phone number? I don't really get why there couldn't have been some contact to the parents right off, rather that the state getting involved. Maybe the kid was having too much fun and didn't want to go home yet...

The fact that the boy was abandoned for, apparently, a sufficiently long period of time that the staff were closing the store accounts for this. What were the staff supposed to do? Calling the police is the sensible thing to do in such a situation, and the police are naturally going to put them with the state child welfare agency.

I once worked in a family shelter. I went to one of our client's apartments and found an 11 year old girl babysitting four siblings. I asked where her mother was--she said she had gone to the store. I asked when she had gone to the store--she said "this morning." It was by then early afternoon--i had no choice. To have ignored it could have meant my job, and possibly prosecution for child endangerment. I called the police, and they came and got the children. The denouement was that the police found the mother in a bar at one a.m. the following (Monday) morning, and only because the man she was with had started an altercation.

I realize that such an extreme description does not apply to this situation. However, the staff at the facility did the best thing, both from a practical point of view, and from a legal point of view.

It is the whole "didn't know he was missing till the next day" thing that gives me pause.

Even if they thought he was in a different car it seems like they would want to know which car and where he was when he didn't show up.

I found a little girl at the beach once upon a time. Her father had gone for a walk and hadn't come back for a "long" time. I took her with me to find a park ranger who suggested she "just hang out with me until her father shows back up". He did, about 5 hours later.

I was dumbfounded that the park ranger didn't even take my name until I insisted that they know how to locate me if the father turned up there first.

There's plenty of pause, but the whole



thing strikes me as extreme, from the limited info we have. He's in state custody -- he MIGHT be able to live temporarily with a relative -- this isn't disruptive for the kid?

"Each relative thought the child was with another family member," makes too much sense to me -- not perfect by a long shot, but loss-of-custody (even if temporary) severity?

I agree. The kid should surely be returned to his family. But I understand that there needs to be an investigation and chances are they can't return him until the investigation is completed. Better with a family member than in foster care.

Sure. Yeah, I understand about once the cogs are in motion it's hard to stop. That's part of why I wish they would've just called the parents directly. They leave at 7, the kid says "uh my parents aren't here" at 7:30, they ask his phone number, he gives it, they call his parents, they say "WHAT I thought he was with Uncle Charlie?!! We'll be right there!", end of story.

The whole thing could go several directions with further info though, who knows.

I'll bet they start teaching that kid a few ways to identify his family.

I've been working on teaching Mo Mr. B's cell phone number since it seems to be some kind of Borgian implant and we can call him from the home phone for practice.

He also knows our real names beyond "Mom and Dad", our city, state and street name but I'm having a hard time getting him to remember our address.

Yeah, that's one of the things missing from the article that could go a few ways -- DID he know how to identify his family? From what's there, it's possible that he did -- name, phone number, whole thing. Or maybe just his name and they could've looked it up. Etc.

Address is our achilles heel too, she's got spelling of last name and phone number though so hopefully those are the most important things.

Found more info here.

So it looks like he couldn't provide enough info to the restaurant workers.

I think there's a similar episode in Gilbreth's "Cheaper by the Dozen". It has an added twist though: the nice family café the family (minus one 8 year old boy) had left at 5pm turned into a strip club in the evening, before the family came back to get him.

Unless there's something else, this episode looks non-threatening to me, and I don't understand what the police is doing in this picture.

Have you tried a neckpouch with a piece of paper in it? That's what my parents gave me. Come to think of it, why not print her a few business cards? They're dirt cheap these days.

Sometimes dumb things like this just happens.

Hate to bring up race but I wonder if Lacquetta Monroe would have custody of her son if she were a white woman? I know that's speculation but I'd bet my pinkie toe on it.

Next hearing is June 21. It's a damn shame to keep that little boy away from his mother for this amount of time over something like this.

I was definitely thinking the same thing, eoe. Saw the names and went "Oh...!" Backtracked though, impossible to say I guess.

June 21st. Poor kid.

Given the information I've seen in this thread, it seems to be the most plausible explanation so far.

I was going to say, wouldn't they have noticed at bed time that he wasn't there? But in a big extended family, I don't know, maybe there was talk about spending the night with Uncle Charlie, but then Uncle Charlie didn't see him so assumed he went home with mom. It just seems like an obvious accident.

There was a story in DC several years ago about a man who had driven to work with his baby daughter in the car, forgot she was there (probably asleep), parked in the garage at work and went to work. Around 2:00 a garage attendent heard her crying. He was beside himself. It turns out that the drop off schedule had gotten turned around. During the summer he would drop the baby off first. When school started, he dropped the older kids off first. As a creature of habit, when he dropped off the last older kid, he just drove to work. It's scary to think of the effect of such faulty human brains, but it happens and it's so understandable. There was a case that didn't turn out so well some time after that, where a guy with 7 kids left the baby in the car in the driveway and, thinking the oldest daughter would get her, went inside and took a nap. The baby died from the heat.