Camerons leave daughter in pub

We had a large family holiday in Majorca, and passports were handed to one person as we disembarked in Palma, with the intention of us all going through together. One 7 year old managed to go through customs without anyone's knowledge or his passport, and the airport people were driving up and down, frantically trying to locate him on the wrong side. He was eventually found on the Spanish side, unaware of the panic. Easily done!

I thought it a bit of a cheek when Downing Street announced that no-one was going to be punished for it. I should think not, it`s the parents job to make sure that all their children are present and correct. Having said that, I left our eldest son, aged about 1 week, in his pram outside the corner shop, about 2 minutes hurried walk from home. I`d been back about 10 minutes before I realised what I`d done! We also lost vour 3rd daughter on Blackpool Pleasure Beach, when she was 3, we each thought she was with the other. After much frantic searching, we found her with a foreign couple, tucking into a hot dog whilst they took her round looking for us.

There was a case where an Israeli family with lots of kids managed to board an airliner without one of theirs news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7540112.stm
I can imagine the Cameron scenario but perhaps not this one.

Funnily enough we have been watching * Home Alone * yesterday

oh puh-leeze - what a lot of hysteria - the child is eight years old and probably would have been able to tell someone in the pub she'd been forgotten. As for a kidnapping nutter - anyone would think kids are kidnapped right left and centre, thats the sort of 'danger' the likes of The Mail and the Sun like to scare everyone with. There were several cars and everyone thought she'd gone with someone - what was she doing anyway, didn't she see everyone leave? Was she in the loo? I can't stand the man, be happy to see him go but this doesn't make the Camerons bad parents, just distracted parents, it happens get over it, the kid is fine.

It's one thing to be a distracted parent from having a lot of things to think of at once. But not simply because you've been out to lunch with a bunch of mates, and are too busy enjoying yourselves.

Nice to know they really are a normal family who make mistakes. I never actually forgot and went without a child, but came periously close on the odd occasion - and I was a childminder!

(Bet the daughter will pay attention now when threatened "if you don't come right now, we'll go without you"!)

I've gone away to put dinner in the oven still thinking about this subject. It's this sort of over-reaction that makes parents of this generation feel either inadequate or that unless they and their children are perfect all is lost. Parents make mistakes. I don't mean the sort of mistakes that can harm a child physically or mentally. Just silly mistkes. When I left my son as said earlier and related this to friends and family - most laughed it off, some said that they had done something similar - no one made me feel like a terrible parent. We expected to make the odd error, we didn't expect to be perfect.

How normal can it be to leave your kid behind? By mistake??!!!

Are we the only family to always ask "have we got everybody?" or, "everybody in?" before driving off?

dorset I don't think we are indulging in hysteria on this thread are we? I think it is mildly amusing, personally. Perils of high office and all that.
I felt very very sorry of the Blair teenagers when he was PM. Normal parents are enough of an embarrassment when you are in your teens - But to have PM Tony and Cherie as parents must have been excruciating! There was a rumour that he stepped down earlier because of the effect it was having on them.

I agree dorset.

I worked for the Automobile Association many years ago. My place of employment was in a static caravan on a service area on the M1 motorway.
Beleive you me children being left behind, people catching the wrong bus, people crossing over to the other side of the motorway causing them to loose any sense of direction, it all happened regularly. I remember distinctly those children and people I looked after until their relatives turned up to collect them.

I had a baby in a car seat for over two hours once as her poor parents were frantically trying to get back to her. They were good folk who made a silly error, albeit a big one. Nobody does it on purpose although it was strange given how many people were involved, beyond embarrassing I'm sure. I lost my daughter in a shop once and I remember feeling physically sick I'm sure they did too.

Hang on a minute Grans! Is this becoming a bit of a witchhunt? I read the story of how this happened and it sounds very much like a bit of human misunderstanding. Ok, it was potentially dangerous but have any of us ever had to travel home from the pub in a group of separate cars, one with bodyguards? He thought the child was with her mother; the mother thought that she had gone with her father and the bodyguards. They must feel terrible and even more so in their position. Give them a break.

I doubt if they know or care what we think tbh.

I think most of us have agreed with your take on this, specki!

Oh yes Anagram - I see - I just read Page 2!

So many of us appear to have left our babies in prams outside shops. Don't think mums nowadays leave buggies with babies as the buggies are smaller compared to the large prams from the 70's.

It is interesting that this all happened a couple of years ago, so it isn't really news at all. Incidentally, apparently Nancy was in the loo which explains a lot.

I don't agree with specki's take on it. Our politicians do enough witch hunting themselves so why shouldn't they be on the receiving end for once? Yay!!

So, are parents not supposed to notice when their eight year old daughter vanishes into a pub loo on her own? Just to make sure she comes out in a reasonable amount of time?

absent where did you see that it happened 2 years ago? I thought it was last weekend.

No. I got the idea that it had been 'dug up'. Didn't realise it was that old though!

According to the Independent it happened in the last three months.

I thought it happened quite recently and it was a case of each one thought the other had her. I bet there were a few accusations and a bit of a "domestic" behind closed doors.

I left my new baby in his pram outside a shop and only remembered him when I was halfway home. In my defence, 40 years ago you weren't allowed to take prams or pushchairs into shops so you had the choice of carrying (possibly waking) the baby into the shop or leaving him in the street. I don't think we worried about stranger danger and the only bad experience I ever heard of was when a friend's unweaned baby was given a sweet by a misguided shopper. The baby was perfectly fine, luckily. Thinking of the other restrictions on activity then, do you remember the nightmare of folding the pushchair - buggies only just invented - then getting it one-handed onto the bus or train while carrying the baby and shepherding the toddler? Then heaving it onto the luggage rack or getting it into the luggage bay. No reserved areas for people with pushchairs and children. And children were regularly left outside pubs, sometimes for hours, with a packet of crisps and a drink! But I can perfectly understand how the Camerons came to leave their daughter behind; she went to the loo, there were a lot of adults and children in the party. Not very traumatic or a big deal.