Boldin began calling the child care center about 4:05 p.m. to tell them she was running late. She said she called five times but never got an answer.
What Boldin saw when she arrived at the center at 4:30 p.m. is high on the list of a mother’s worst nightmares.
“Everything was dark and locked, and I said, Oh my God, where is my child? she said. “I was panicking, calling everyone I knew who could have picked him up.”
Boldin ran to a nursery window, where she saw her son’s blanket in a crib and his diaper bag in a cabinet.
Still thinking Collin wasn’t inside, Boldin found a security guard to let her in so she could get her baby’s things.
As she was picking up the diaper bag, the guard lifted the blanket off the bed and discovered the baby underneath.
“He looked like he had been crying,” Boldin said of her son. “I was so relieved, but at the same time I was so upset that they had left him there.”
By the time Boldin had her baby in her arms, it was 5 p.m. Boldin said a sign-out sheet showed that the last day care worker left at 4:15 p.m.
Hey, it’s “Day Care,” not “Happy Hour Care.”
Having kids in day care sucks. Ours are only part time now, and we still hate it. Every day that I go to pick up my daughter, she’s playing all by herself. It breaks my heart.
This story scares me to death.
How horrifying! Absolutely horrifying!
And you wonder why I suffer from Mommy guilt and then do grand gestures to compensate. Exhibit A.
For the record, we have a fabulous day care where the girls learn spanish, yoga, music, etc. and yet this story still makes my stomach hurt.
And, I thought it was bad enough to send kids to a central “mom and dad didn’t show up at closing time center” like the after school programs in my local school district do.
It is one of those cases that leaves you wondering what the most appropriate public response is. No one was actually seriously harmed, and it isn’t manifestly clear that throwing someone in jail or screwing up a couple dozen parents day care arrangements would make the world better off, but simply acting like nothing happened would also be very bad.