Blind Panic

[FastFreddy2]

Went shopping to Brent Cross [North London shopping mall] this evening.

I've mentioned before, this is a very mixed race venue, with English being in the minority. I'm happy to wear heels there, as it's a busy place. Mindful the cultural background of the shoppers I do get to see things that surprise me, and once in a blue moon, something that shocks.

Tonight was a blue moon night.

At one shop called Next that sells both clothes and housewares, I saw what must have been a year old child running around in the housewares section completely unsupervised. There were 5 women in the group who could have been supervising, including his mother. Not until they were ready to leave, did they realise the baby was nowhere to be seen. It would be true to say we English are paranoid about child abduction, because around once a year, something pretty bad is reported in the media. [Madeleine McCann being a very well know example.] There was never any obvious danger of this tonight, but housewares is a dangerous place for an unsupervised 1 year old....

He was quickly found, [at the far end of the store] and was unharmed. My thoughts about this, can not be published here.

Later, I was in another shop, called River Island, which is fundamentally a girls fashion shop. They had a shoe sale, so I was rummaging. The place was heaving with customers, the new sale of summer clothes drawing them in.

After a few minutes, to one side of me some 15 paces away, I thought I heard something that sounded like a cross between a cough and a bark. [Might have been "Rah!"] I thought someone was going to be ill. I heard it again, and couldn't see where it was coming from, though it sounded like it came from the till area. It went off again, I still couldn't see where the sound came from, but everyone in the shop started looking towards the tills too.

Suddenly, a mother came running past shouting the name. Several more shouts/barks, as she passed me on the way to the shop front. More shouts, and she came back into the store, running past. The store music was on still, but no-one was doing anything other than watch the horror that was unfolding..... The mother had lost her child.

A couple more shouts, and a noise could be heard from far back inside the store. Staff had found the child somewhere, possibly far enough away from the mothers call, for her sound to be drowned by the loud music. The mother was relieved, but still in shock. Several people came forward to comfort her.

I'm not young, and have the benefit of experience. I'm fairly easy going when it comes to child supervision, but there is never a time a child in my care is somewhere I can't see them. Never. We all know, we know, it's a moments lapse that puts a child off the path and onto the road. It's a momentary lapse that finds a child in the river. It's a momentary lapse that has a child in a strangers arms, and gone forever.

Tonight I saw in the eyes of a mother, the look I work hard to ensure, is never seen in my eyes. The blind panic of realising a child is missing.... A look I (obviously) work harder at, than two mothers I saw tonight.

Thankfully, happy endings to both reports.

......

[shyguy]

It happens a lot, thankfully abductions are much rarer than many of us fear them to be. As a parent of 4 daughters it's always been a worry when they are young and get out of sight for a moment but they were always taught what to do if they became separated, i.e. go to the tills and only speak to somebody there. It happened only once, and only a little panic before we found our daughter at the tills with a store worker about to put the call out.

[FastFreddy2]

It happens a lot, thankfully abductions are much rarer than many of us fear them to be. As a parent of 4 daughters it's always been a worry when they are young and get out of sight for a moment but they were always taught what to do if they became separated, i.e. go to the tills and only speak to somebody there. It happened only once, and only a little panic before we found our daughter at the tills with a store worker about to put the call out.

Agreed.

I'm not advocating children being chained to parents.

We have the same arrangement with the grandson. Get lost, find a shop and get them to call the police. [Even us adults, if we lose each other, go back to where you last saw each other, or at least stand still. It's harder to find someone who is moving around.]

But there is a world apart from being kept close, to being so wrapped up in what you're doing that a child has time enough to be a long way off. I doubt a (very) young child of yours, was ever allowed enough time [10+ minutes] to have completely removed themselves from the shop they were in? If either of these two had gone in the opposite direction to the one they did, neither would have been found anything like as quickly.

While there are doubtless predators out there, I suspect there are significantly more opportunists. The idea is you don't provide opportunities, to opportunists....

The first child was barely walking age, and mooching about unsupervised the whole time I was in Next. If he had fallen against some shelving, or pulled something off a shelf, going home would have been via the local A+E unit. The 5 women [not girls] were completely oblivious to where the child was.

The second child was older, but none of the three people with him had any idea where he was. The mother left the shop to look for him. Once out there, he could have been taken by anyone. As luck would have it, he was deep inside the shop, but still outside hearing distance from his frightened mother.

How easily do bad things happen?

Once in London [oddly, close to where the Freddies eat out], I was there with family as a young boy. My younger brother needed the loo, and popped down into the public toilet close to where we stood.

He was a little while and came out crying. It was some minutes before we found out why. A man inside had touched him. My father ran down the steps immediately he realised what had gone on, but the place was now empty.

In many ways there is no comparison. But the lesson learned by me at least, is if you give bad people the opportunity to do bad things, sometimes they will. Ian Huntley, for example.

Maybe I labour the point. But I still feel there's a world of difference from the momentary lapse [which itself can be fateful/dangerous] to the outright cavalier 'couldn't be bothered' attitude I witnessed.

.....

Edited July 13, 2012 by FastFreddy2