For the last several days the story of little Brittney Baxter has been all over the news. This is the story of a 7 year old little girl who was left playing in the toy section of Wal-mart and a strange man attempted to kidnap her. Surveillance video showed the child screaming and fighting off her assailant. This invariably saved this child's life. A recent program at her school taught the students to scream, and how to fight off someone trying to take them. I am so glad this child was able to escape. No child or family should ever have to go through the terrifying experience of a missing child.
Just the experience of an attempted kidnapping is traumatizing for a child. As children my sister and our friend were playing on the side walk and a car pulled up. A drunk man climbed out attempting to take both girls in the middle of the day surrounded by people! It took years for my sister, who was 8 at the time, to recover from this experience.
The news media has really gotten on my nerves with this particular story. They keep saying the mother was nearby. One report said the mother was shopping for fruit, another said she was shopping for food and a third interview said that she was buying strawberries. Anyone who has been to any Walmart can tell you, the grocery aisle and the toy aisle are not beside each other! Strawberries and fruit specifically are located at the front of the grocery section in the front of the store. Why do they want us to have the impression that this was a situation of someone trying to snatch a child with the parent right there? The mother herself has said in interviews that she did not hear her child screaming and she was shocked to learn the reason why her child was crying when she saw her.
This situation could have been much worse. Remember the case of Adam Walsh? His mother allowed him to stay in a video game section in 1981 while she went to check on a lamp only 75 feet away. She returned within 7 minutes and her child was no where to be found. Sadly we know that this family suffered one of the worst experiences any parent can go through. Ever since this happened the Walsh family has been strong advocates for missing children and preventing things like this from happening. They have encouraged parents to watch their children. They have used their experience to help other parents. Back in 1981 when this happened, it was something that was unheard of. Since then Mrs. Walsh has warned parents about this exact situation. Today we hear of child abductions on a regular basis.Thanks to the Walsh family there have been many laws and policies implemented to prevent things like this from happening.
I know that we can never completely protect our children from everything. There are crazy people who will stop at nothing to take a child. There have been attempts to snatch a child within 10 feet of a parent. Some people are as bold as to snatch a child who is holding the parents hand. We cannot prevent everything but we can take precautions.
So many parents look at the video game and toy sections of the store as babysitters while they shop in the rest of the store. First off, the toys in the toy aisle are not for playing with: it is merchandise on display to be purchased. Secondly, it is not the responsibility of store employees to keep an eye on your child. Even if someone does not try to kidnap the child, the child could get hurt, cause an accident or break something while unsupervised. Just a couple of weeks ago I had a child run into me in the toy section. There was no parent anywhere in sight and the child was running up and down the aisle playing. I barely had time to turn my body before he ran into me, preventing the child from plowing straight into my large, pregnant belly. A lot of parents do not think twice about this. They have developed a false since of security inside of a store and they do not consider other shoppers who have to deal with unsupervised children.
If this man had carefully planned how he was going to take a child and taken chloroform, even with her defense classes, he could have subdued little Brittney in a matter of seconds. After this he could have carried her out of the store as if she were his child who wasn't feeling well and had fallen asleep. Walmart has a wonderful program called Code Adam. During a Code Adam, the store is shut down and no one enters or exists until the child is found. Code Adam would not have helped in this situation because it would not have been activated until it was too late. The store can only activate Code Adam when they know there is a missing child, and this would not happen until the mother returned from her shopping and couldn't find her child. By this point the only hope would have been for the police to track the kidnapper through the surveillance video and pray they found him in time.
I do not want to bash the mother. She did experience something terrifying. She did something that too many parents are guilty of. It would be nice however, if she accepted responsibility for her part of this almost tragedy. She could simply step up and say to the world that she made a bad judgment call and that she almost learned a lesson the heard way. She could then urge other parents not to use the toy section as a babysitter while they do their shopping. Stop pretending that she did everything possible on her side to prevent this.
The media needs to quit trying to make us think the above sentiment. Instead, why don't they interview various stores and show parents how common a problem this is. Parents all over the country use the store to keep their kids out of their hair while they shop. Trust me, with four kids, I can completely understand the temptation to leave your kids in an area while you shop. It can help make the shopping trip quicker and less stressful, but it can also leave you with a regret that can never be undone.
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