Mother Does School Run And Realizes She Forgot Her Kids At Home

Mar 01, 2020 by apost team

Parenting can be exhausting, and many parents wander around in a sleep-deprived haze. Which explains their occasional moments of odd behavior, like leaving babies in cars or forgetting to pick up their kids at the daycare after work.

One unknown mom on set off to school to drop her kids off for the day, and when she was halfway there, she suddenly realized the kids weren't in the car. She was so surprised that she had to post a video explaining her misadventure which has since gotten a lot of attention.

Her children were probably mystified when she drove off without them. The mom filmed her hilarious reaction to discovering there were no kids in the car.

Laughing loudly, she scanned the empty seats and said: "I'm driving to school without my kids. I'm taking the kids to school and I don't even have them in the car. I have to go back and pick them up. I can't believe I left my kids."

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When she got home, her two teenage sons were standing outside the house, wondering where she was. One of them asked her if she had made it all the way to school before noticing they weren't in the car. This triggered fresh hilarity in all members of the family as the kids themselves were filming her on their phones.

The video went viral on Twitter. Parents appreciated a real-life example of what many of them went through on a regular day.

One commented on how parents often say things like "I'm leaving in five minutes with or without you," in order to encourage their children to get ready faster, but they almost never actually leave without the child. Another commented about the hazards of doing things on autopilot because your brain doesn't notice any details about anything, you just go through the moves.

Most of the misadventures of parenting that involve forgetting your kids end in laughter, not tears, but we've all heard of the cases where parents forget their kids are in the car; those episodes can end in tears and heartbreak instead.

The experts explain there are two types of memory: the first is autopilot, where people engage in a habitual behavior that they do every day. Everyone who commutes to work has experienced autopilot.

How many times have you arrived at work and realized you don't really remember anything about the trip or even anything about your morning rituals preparing you to go to work? That's autopilot.

The other type is prospective memory, where you plan to complete a task that isn't part of your habitual routine.

Sometimes, prospective memory fails. Many a person has planned to run an errand on the way to or from work, and autopilot took over. They end up at their destination and suddenly realize they skipped the errand. That is the exact same phenomenon that leads to parents forgetting their children. Prospective memory fails and autopilot kicks in.

Being tired or sleep-deprived makes it very difficult for prospective memory to function and makes it far easier to slip into autopilot mode.

Are you a parent who has forgotten your child somewhere? Why not discuss this story with your friends and see if they have similar tales to tell.