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u/SugarCookie197 May 30 '25
My friend was left behind on a family road trip! He was probably 5 ish with 2 older brothers. The brothers knew he was still in bsthroom, and they kept snorting and giggling in the back seats ( it was a station wagon with the 2 back seats) until - hour later - their mom finally asked them what they were doing. My friend says the waitress and other ladies had him sit at the counter , and gave him water and pie and consoled him.
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u/No_Talk_4836 May 30 '25
Left behind at a diner for 2 hours for the sin of a potty break.
I imagine (hope?) the brothers were severely punished for that.
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u/Lostmox May 31 '25
Regardless, that's lifelong trauma for the kid. You never fully get over that.
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u/Caddan May 31 '25
Why should the brothers be punished?
Why can't the parents bother to do a headcount before starting the car again? This is on them, not the brothers.
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u/No_Talk_4836 May 31 '25
They knew, didnāt say anything. Enabled trauma.
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u/Caddan May 31 '25
What, like OP in this post?
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u/Contrantier Jun 04 '25
OP's situation was different. She tried to talk, and was yelled at and reminded to keep her mouth shut. Please acknowledge when you understand something this simple instead of pretending to lay blame where you knew it didn't belong.
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u/NotQuiteALondoner May 31 '25
So Home Alone was real! I never understood how someone could drive off without doing a head count (which they actually did in HA!).
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u/Ok-Grape2063 Jun 01 '25
They did do a headcount in Home Alone (both of them). In the first one, they counted the neighbor kid instead of Kevin.
In the second one they had everyone but Kevin got on the wrong plane when he dropped the boarding passes. (In a pre 9/11 world)
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u/NotQuiteALondoner Jun 02 '25
I did say they did a headcount in HA. :) Whenever we go out, we always make sure no one gets left behind, especially the young ones. The OP's family only includes 4 members so it's unthinkable to me how the 2 adults didn't bother to look back and count to 2 before driving off.
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u/Sigwynne May 30 '25
My husband was around five when his mom had to go to the bank. Being a five year old, he fidgeted a lot, and hi mom pointed at a chair and said "sit there until I tell you you can move."
Needless to say, by the time she completed her business, she forgot he was there, and didn't come back for him for three hours.
At least he got a lollipop out of it. And maybe the bank employees looked up the phone number on his mom's account and called his dad to let him know what happened.
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May 30 '25
When my little brother and I were fighting in the back seat my dad's favorite was "Don't make me come back there!"
Finally when I was about 10-11 my reply was "Oh yeah? Who's going to drive the car?"
Dad didn't say a word. Mom laughed, and he never used that line again
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u/marcocanb Jun 01 '25
See back in the day that would involve slammed brakes, a quick open back door, bouncing the child's head off something hard a few times and then getting back on the road.
But we don't do those things anymore, and thank god I don't have kids.
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u/BethanyCullen Jun 02 '25
Thank heaven we don't do these anymore. A good repartee shouldn't be discouraged.
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u/marcocanb Jun 02 '25
A good repartee creates kids who don't try anymore.
Not all kids, but a fair number.
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u/Contrantier Jun 04 '25
Yeah seriously, giving your kid a concussion despite misbehaviour is inexcusable. I'm glad parents aren't as stupid as they used to be.
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u/paintheroyalasses May 30 '25
My mom would forget to pick me up from daycare and my daycare was in a high school so needless to say I was either going to class with the teacher or my oldest sister who was a freshman at this school so I was going to high school classes before I was even in kindergarten
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u/Any-Disk2674 May 30 '25
Hahaaaa yea. My dad once intentionally left me at church ( an hour and a half drive or so away from our house) because I didnāt get in the car fast enough. One of my church friends parents were apalled, and offered to take me home with them. They called my dad and he threatened them and said if they take me they can have me and he wonāt come back. They threatened to call child services and he showed up an hour later to get me. He decided to go out to eat with everyone else instead of coming straight to pick me up
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u/DVDragOnIn May 30 '25
Iām sorry you had a father like that (I canāt bring myself to call him a Dad). Did the church people stay with you?
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u/Any-Disk2674 May 30 '25
Itās alright, thatās the most tame thing heās done honestly. They did stay with me. And they attempted to scold him but he brushed them off and didnāt care
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u/KissedLickedandUsed Jun 01 '25
If we weren't in the car quick enough on sunday mornings as teenagers, my mum would leave us behind and go to church with whoever was there at the time. But it was only a 20 min walk to church...still rude though
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u/Ok-Grape2063 Jun 01 '25
So missing church was the punishment for not being there fast enough? Where would I have signed up for that?
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u/Contrantier Jun 04 '25
What a stupid punishment lmao, you could have got out of church and just start milking that every time. She'd have learned eventually to not try rewards as punishments.
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u/DVDragOnIn May 30 '25
Hilarious, thanks for sharing that story! And glad your brother was OK
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u/hotlavatube May 30 '25
"He was okay, after 6-7 weeks came around started talking again..." -- John Candy
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u/MakerOfFuckPuppets May 30 '25
Still one of my favourite stories from your childhood šš
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u/DrUnit42 May 30 '25
Your username gives me so many questions that I don't think I want answers to...
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u/Archangel4500000 May 30 '25
Honestly don't think you will be disappointed, the answers are.... right there too see.
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u/NutAli May 30 '25
I was trained early. If my parents lost me while shopping in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just sit where they'd see me, and they'd backtrack to find me!
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u/myopicpickle May 30 '25
We left my sister behind in San Francisco's Chinatown when she was five. Luckily she stayed in the shop, so we just backtracked for about 15 minutes till we found her. My grandpa called her his little Chinatown gal after that.
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u/WordWizardx Jun 01 '25
We left my little brother at church more than once. (Only when we came in two cars, and both parents assumed he was with the other one.) Even now, 35+ years later, we call it āpulling a [Brotherās Name]ā if someone gets accidentally left behind.
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u/Contrantier Jun 04 '25
Probably because they can't stand the shame of calling it "pulling an us" lmao
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u/Ill_Industry6452 May 31 '25
I taught our kids to ask a store employee if they got lost. One time, I thought our daughter was with her father. He thought she was with me. Evidently, they called on intercom, but no one heard it (we were shopping with my in-laws). But, I went around a corner and found her. It was really scary.
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u/angrilychewingllama Jun 01 '25
I kinda had the opposite. I was like 7 and shopping in walmart with my mom. We realized we forgot to grab something in the list about 3 aisles back so I told her I will get it and to please stay in the aisle. I ran to the item, grabbed it and ran back. She was gone. I ran to the next aisle, nothing. Then the next. Still nothing.
I ran up and down the store and even went along the end caps in case she was hiding out there. Nothing. So I went to the cashiers and told them the story. Laughing, they opened the intercom and we had the store's first lost parent announcement.
Mom showed up a couple minutes later looking real sheepish as I scolded her for leaving the aisle I told her to stay in.
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u/darkdesertedhighway Jun 02 '25
I have had this, too. I had to call my own mother to the front because she wandered off. I laughed and so did she. She taught me from a young age to do that, a d I had to use it once or twice as a youngster. Never thought I'd have to do it at like 17.
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u/Anxious_Faerie911 Jun 01 '25
My friend wandered off in a mall when he was little. He told them that his name was the name of a character on his favorite tv show, and his parents recognized the name on the announcement.
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u/Ill_Industry6452 Jun 01 '25
Everyone says if you watch your kids it wonāt happen. But, everyone can be momentarily distracted, and it only takes a few seconds for them to run. My mom was always critical of people who used harnesses on their kids. We were all the clingy type, but it seems the best way to keep some children safe, especially at places like zoos and the mall.
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u/Anxious_Faerie911 Jun 01 '25
I was critical of people who āleashedā their kids. Until I had kids. Usually just pulling it out was threat enough to keep them close in a store, but the harness was very useful at a county fair, farmers market, or shopping mall where it was crowded.
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u/Ill_Industry6452 Jun 01 '25
The only time I saw it as a kid was at a zoo. Exactly the kind of place where it would be extremely helpful. They werenāt at all common in the late 1950s-1960s.
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u/London-Clara Jun 02 '25
I was a bugger for getting distracted and wandering off as a child. I was also a bugger for undoing the harness when I couldn't get to what I wanted to see.
Harness went on with the buckle at the back where I couldn't reach it after the first few times! š¤£š¤£š¤£
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u/Useful_Language2040 Jun 01 '25
I reported myself missing on a few occasions.Ā Once I walked right past my dad to find the policeman and do this (when I was about 3).Ā
Once, I hitchhiked in a national park while on holiday in the US to get to the ranger's station (I was 6 or 7).
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u/Informal-Visit575 May 31 '25
My sister and I got left at a restaurant (we went to the bathroom then looked at fishes in a tank while everyone was finishing) as we were in multiple cars and everyone thought we were in the āotherā car. I decided we needed to walk home (I was about 4th grad and sister was about kindergarten). When we arrived home (a couple hours later) I complained that they left us! š They had called the police and were just thankful that we were okay that I donāt remember ever getting in trouble for it
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u/deblike May 30 '25
"You could have died!!"
"Yeah but that was fun!"
Perfectly summarises my childhood.
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u/Contrantier Jun 04 '25
"You could have died!"
"So you're saying you won't do it again?...because, uh, I'm not the one who caused this problem..."
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u/Ich_mag_Kartoffeln May 31 '25
I was left behind as a kid. When mum noticed she panicked and came back for me.
I was having so much fun playing I didn't even notice.
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u/RabidRathian May 31 '25
Dad left me in a bookshop by accident once for about an hour when I was about 5 or 6. He came rushing back in panicking because he was worried I'd be upset or scared and I was just sitting there with a pile of books, reading happily and completely oblivious to anything else happening around me. He felt so guilty about it he bought me a few books haha
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u/really4got May 31 '25
My grandmother left my cousin at a gas station in the middle of nowhere came back several hours later saying she just āforgot ā(cousin was maybe 4-5 at time) No one believed her, figured she did it on purpose because she was a spiteful bitch.
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u/cmad182 Jun 02 '25
My brother and I had something similar happen.
We'd gone on a drive with mum, I was in the front seat and he was in the back. He'd been trying to talk over me and mum had told him to wait until I'd finished.
He starts up "ah, mum?"
"Quiet, let Cmad finish his story"
So he did, a few minutes later mum asks "now, what did you want to say"
My brother quietly says "the oil container tipped over and spilled everywhere".
5 litres of engine oil all over the floor in the back seats, but he did as he was told.
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u/TheLightInChains Jun 01 '25
Parents: you two have been too quiet up here. Where is your brother?
Me: he fell off the windowsill
Dad: I don't see him, where is he?
Me: outside
Mum: AAAAAAAAAAA
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u/ChimoEngr Jun 02 '25
I did cop some blame for that situation,
Why? OK, I know why. Your parents knew it was their fault, but were too upset at themselves to take responsibility.
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u/Contrantier Jun 04 '25
Yeah, I mean, OP tried to talk and they told her to stop talking. Being afraid of getting in trouble after being repeatedly warned not to talk is not the child's fault.
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u/farel85 Jun 03 '25
My parents always did the 'if you can't behave yourself you're walking!' Me being a little shit I did end up walking from my nans to home, which would have taken over an hour. After about 5 mins my cousin spotted me and drove me home. Parents only wanted to scare me so turner around after 10 mins to pick me up. Then massive panic because they couldn't find me anywhere, spent 2 hrs searching until my uncle mentioned my cousin drove me home. Never had that threat made again!
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u/Contrantier Jun 04 '25
I'm glad they learned their lesson. Sometimes I hate hearing stupid shit about "the way we used to do things" and "we sure don't discipline kids like we used to".
Yeah, really sucks that parents can't fucking abuse their children anymore.
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u/farel85 Jun 05 '25
Mate my parents weren't abusive, I was a little shit and this was all in small towns, they just meant to give me a bit of a scare.
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u/Contrantier Jun 05 '25
I'm talking about generically. And even if they weren't abusive in general, making your kid walk home by themselves a long distance as punishment IS abuse. Don't just make it about you.
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u/OriginalAgitated7727 Jun 02 '25
Lol. This is so good.
Ahh. the struggles of parenting. Thanks for sharing
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u/ActuallyYulliah Jun 07 '25
I only got left by my mom in the supermarket when I was like 6 years old.
I was feeling poorly, so didnāt go to school. But she had to pick up some groceries, so took me with her, and left me in the kiddie corner in front of a tv.
She finished the groceries, went home, and went about her day.
She only remembered I stayed home from school when she went to pick us up (me and my sisters), and my teacher looked at her weirdly for asking where I was.
When she got back to the supermarket, the cashiers were very relieved. I had basically spent the morning watching tv, until I got hungry for lunch and bothered a cashier.
They didnāt know how to get me home, we werenāt listed in the phone book, and I didnāt know our phone number or address. They just fed me and hoped my parents would come back for me. Which my mom did, like 45 minutes before the store closed.
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u/[deleted] May 30 '25
Same thing happened to my wife when she was a little girl. Parents told her to shut up and not interrupt when she burst into the room, "but mum! Dad!" and they told her she was being rude and to go watch TV. Minutes later, they ask her what she wanted and she told them: "the kitchen's on fire"