The Controversial Missing Children Milk Carton Program

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[@Wendigoon]

Use this link to save $5 at Magic Spoon today! magicspoon.com/wendigoon Thank you to Magic Spoon for sponsoring the video!

[@lastrhet6110]

This is what a addiction looks like. Also where do you get your shirts?

[@xxxnhlrunnerxxxlepage7476]

The most magical thing about magic spoon is the price of 60$US for 4 boxes

[@beccataylor1245]

*casually pulls out a gun* wait! *edits it out*

[@bustermcthundernut]

Funny ad

[@rockhead112]

Bro that was hands down one of the funniest ads I've seen lol almost as good an Internet Historian with more subtlety. I'm going to check them out because of it, job accomplished!

[@DolliMiu]

My mom went missing when she was 3 for two days. Everybody searched for her, my grandmother unable to eat or sleep because she was so panicked over her missing daughter. Turns out my mom was staying in an orange grove, eating oranges with a random stray dog to keep her company. She said the dog was so friendly that he let her use him as a pillow when she slept at night. She walked to the orange grove down the road while my grandmother was busy at the laundromat and decided she liked it so much she stayed there for awhile. Then when she was done, she walked back home (it was a couple of blocks away). The cops were talking to my grandmother in the house when they heard the back door open and saw my mom walking into the kitchen to ask for a drink.

[@_jax]

You probably dont know, but did the dog ever find a home?

[@DolliMiu]

@@_jax sadly, I don’t know the answer to that. I hope the dog found a home, though. My mom wanted him, but my grandmother refused to take him.

[@aureum.]

i'm sorry, that must have been really traumatizing for your grandma, but i can't stop laughing at this

[@DolliMiu]

@@aureum. it’s funny to me too, don’t feel bad. My grandmother was a shitty mother and was neglectful, but my mom actually enjoyed sleeping in the oranges with the dog.

[@Oriol-oo7jl]

@@DolliMiu i would have run all the necessary paperwork for the dog to become the legal guardian

[@TheTexorcist]

When I was a kid, my mom would just scar me with stories about women going missing in her hometown in Mexico. Then she would make it worse by pointing at a random person in public and would say “if you don’t behave, they’re gonna take you like they did them.” And it would scare the hell out of me. Thanks Mom.

[@milkman3214]

W mom

[@jinxedhound]

Lmao my mom would do the same. Always pointing at random ass people saying "Ese señor te va llevar"

[@slug-rt3302]

Jfc that's on way to give your kid paranoia... my grandma did similar stuff like tell me id get kidnapped and r***d and never be seen again if I walk too far from her

[@lykiaookami6070]

@@slug-rt3302 horrbile but tbh better than having your kid not aware and actually be r'ed, killed, tortured etc. etc.

[@pros_0143]

Minuscule amount of child abuse

[@ladysnark3396]

“Don’t talk to weird people…” I accidentally became the stranger in Stranger Danger scenarios. A kid in my neighborhood had a kitten. I love cats, so I struck up a conversation with her about her kitten. It was only when I saw the nervous look on the kid’s face that I realized, “Oh, crap!” and politely and slowly booked it back home.

[@rashmibhargav1343]

Yeaa man... Same thing happened to me... As soon as is saw the nervous look on kids face... I unzipped my pant and slowly walked away.. 😮😂😂

[@-psilo-9071]

​@@rashmibhargav1343WHAT????? 😢

[@yungcunt1717]

yea its quite easy to not talk to others children

[@Mr.Tw1sty]

​@@rashmibhargav1343🤨

[@afailureofaanimator6744]

@@rashmibhargav1343urinal conversations be crazy 😅

[@Thepathof77]

I found an abandoned house years ago in the middle of the woods somewhere in Pennsylvania that had hundreds of these milk cartons all over the house with all of the kids eyes poked out. Weirdest thing I’ve ever found

[@usuallyangry]

That sounds like it would've made a great photo for an album cover.

[@Meandyouregay]

Suicideboyz would steal that for their next album 100%

[@weirdgurl288]

Wtf

[@SlobberyPantsu]

Mt fight or flight would have kicked in if I saw some shit like that

[@PokeMario-pk4ot]

New horror game concept just dropped

[@Nirrrina]

I remember hearing about a little girl being kidnapped. These 12-14 year old boys decided to ride their bikes around their neighborhood. One actually found her & literally chased the car on his bike far enough they shoved her out to him. She wouldn't let go of the boy until her parents got there. He had to sit in the ambulance with her. The boys & especially that boy were true heroes that day.

[@glorioustigereye]

Coolest kid on the playground

[@____________838]

The Jocelyn Rojas case. Good kids.

[@numbertwo579]

They have main character syndrome

[@serenegenerally]

They dropped their crowns

[@tigerkite9520]

That is so amazing Holy fuck he was brave

[@Not_Soundwave]

I remember watching a video years ago that tested if missing kid posters did anything at all. They posted a picture of a girl in front of a mall with a big ol' "MISSING" on it, then put the girl on a bench in the busiest part of the mall. She sat there for a long time, all by herself. Nobody recognized her as the "missing" kid. Nobody really even paid attention to her.

[@lexidiusBS]

I'm not crying you're crying

[@LangkeeLongkee]

Tbh I would be no help. I have terrible facial blindness. I recognize people by features like their hair and body type. I still don't know most notable actors even though Ive seen them a bunch and I never know who is who when I'm watching a movie. I mostly watch cartoons partially for that reason, it both the main characters of a movie are white brunettes with a similar frame and basic fashion sense I promise you for 90% of the film I guessing who is who based on conversation and I'm still confused

[@xxhobocatxx2869]

Yeah unfortunately I'd probably do the same thing. I'm terrible at recognizing faces

[@urgae9125]

I have troubles with eye contact as an autistic person, so if there was a picture of her shoes I’d have a better time recognizing her. But yeah, it’s very sad no one cared enough to notice it, but I’d also want to see how in depth this study went. Like, how many flyers were posted, where, the location of the bench, etc.

[@brem-]

That's probably also because you wouldn't expect to see the missing kid in such a public area. Like when you hear or see "missing kid" you would think that they would be somewhere hidden or something, at least I have that, I imagine the missing kid either locked up or being dragged somewhere sneaky like. So to see that kid in the bussiest area of anything your mind wouldn't first go to "damn that's the missing kid" but probably something more along the lines of "hmmm that kid looks like that one missing kid, but it can't be because that kid is missing and wouldn't just sit here in the open, so it's probably a kid that looks like the missing one." Idk if my thoughts came across clearly, what I'm trying to say is that if you saw the missing kid out in the open your first thought probably wouldn't be that it was the missing kid.

[@gchicklet]

I was part of the "stranger danger" generation. We all lived under the impression that someday we were going to have to run from kidnappers. The crazy part is, we were still mostly unsupervised. Our parents had no clue where we were

[@sabrinashelton1997]

But you need to learn to operative outside of their supervision, too. The stranger danger thing worked for me. I kept my defenses up and looked for red flags, and I kept myself out of unsafe situations. Kids today wouldn't know how to do that because they never have that opportunity.

[@GeorgeFloydsFentanyl]

@@sabrinashelton1997don’t generalize an entires generation of children. You sound dense in the head

[@amagab2346]

John Mulaney covers this generational experience well in his Kid Gorgeous special.

[@neila128]

Man, this reminds me of those "it's 10PM, do you know where your children are?" announcements that keep popping up whenever I was allowed to stay up super late as a kid

[@AviaRayne2]

Also grew up in this time. Granted, it was more mid to late 90s for me, but I remember being taught in schools and by my parents not to even get rides from people we knew unless it was okay'd by mom and dad in the first place. Like, I wouldn't even let my friend's mom pick me up and take me back to their house (where friend and I were walking to!) But I definitely think, for as weird as it was, I came out better as an adult. A lot of my friends have kids now, and I feel like the "stranger danger" is more prominent now, for better or worse.

[@dezs.5202]

This reminded me of something from my childhood. My birth mother had a plan to kidnap me and my brother from school when we were kids. Our parents were divorced, we were super young, and she was our mom, so if the police hadn’t been called by our aunt, we definitely would have gotten in with her and rode across state lines. We have an older sister by the same mom who grew up with her as her primary parent. My sister and all of her friends were pimped out and strategically given drugs by our mom when they were only in high school. That was a pattern throughout her side of the family, bc if you’re a dealer, you can hook your kids at an early age and have built in clients. I am extraordinarily lucky, bc the court was really trying to give her custody since my dad wasn’t actually biologically related to me. He did get custody though, of all three of us. My sister is sober and a lot better mentally. She has kids of her own, and doesn’t plan on telling them until their late teens or adulthood that we have this secret first mother and entire family line that we were all rescued from.

[@redbasher636]

I'm so sorry for your mother being this monster. Hopefully she gets help, or gets taken down so as not to harm anyone else.

[@notaclass-d1822]

god the court system for child custody can be so fucked sometimes edit cos i realised this could be misunderstood: this is in response to the "the court was really trying to give my mom custody" thing

[@Robin_Glorb]

very minor detail, but what do you mean by saying your sister grew up as your birth mother's "primary parent"?

[@dezs.5202]

@@Robin_Glorb My bad, I might have been a little unclear and left it kinda vague. I meant that our birth mother was our sister’s main caregiver for most of her life. She didn’t know her dad (we all have different dads), and for a long time that was the only parental figure my sister knew, which was why she blindly trusted her for so long.

[@Robin_Glorb]

@@dezs.5202 ah, now I understand. From how you worded it, it seemed like you were saying your sister was the "primary parent" and I was confused.

[@austinorlando4326]

'The missing kid who ate breakfast with them every day' is a very powerful line.

[@wackydoggs]

i know right, i had chills go up my spine when i heard him say that

[@spaghetto9836]

I read this as he said it. Scary.

[@sy_an501]

Ok Mr passed his English exam

[@laurahenriksen19]

It's sad isn't it 😞

[@itzfrostytk]

walt jr

[@microsoftpain]

It's depressing that Jonny Gosch (the first child talked about here) went missing on the first day that he decided he didn't need his father to supervise him, as well as the Etan Patz abduction being on the first day he went to the bus stop alone.

[@sarasvensson6026]

It makes it seem as if somebody was already watching them and waiting for an opportunity.

[@conchadeconchos]

@@sarasvensson6026 agreed that is indeed the scariest part, every day he walked his son to school there was a person not too far away plotting evil intentions for his son the second he saw him without him. He may have even waved at him one day he was caught making eye contact towards your direction. Gave myself shivers 🫣

[@Jeffepstein21]

About a decade ago a watched a pretty in-depth tv show about missing people centered on Johnny if I remember correctly it was highly speculated by PI that Johnny was scouted out on his paper routes by a pedophile ring known as the rocking x.

[@rgkong8783]

Yeah and their parents were good too but they ignored their parents :(.

[@therealevilmudbug]

@@rgkong8783 Well yeah but at least patz had his parents permission ircc

[@Official_JakeClips]

As a CPS worker the runaway photos are still used and distributed and it’s exceptionally helpful because it convinces youth to return home. Runaway youth are very susceptible to sex/human/drug trafficking and getting them home is a big win in avoiding that. I had a youth run away from her grandmother and ended up with fake documents in Puerto Rico at 14

[@senorsnout4417]

Yes, get them home, so that CPS can continue to do fuck-all about the reasons why they ran away to begin with.

[@PieCakeandDonuts]

@JakeClipsESO fuck CPS In all honesty from a young age I learned don't trust you and that won't change

[@MARIMOsSTARS]

@@senorsnout4417CPS is a shitshow

[@skrtskrt22]

you should look up the story behind come back home by seo taeji and boys. it had a similar effect to kids in South Korea in the 90s

[@Sparklyboiii2009_2]

If a kid runs away, check the parents

[@kylieebrook]

As a child I was kidnapped and according to my dad (because was too young to remember), it was the neighbor who saw my missing child poster and called the police once they were certain it was me! Apparently the neighbor called a few times because the police were not taking it seriously but thankfully the neighbor was persistent.

[@nyancat8828]

That's so scary!! Glad you're alright. Your neighbor probably saw you more often than most which probably helped in recognizing you!

[@thesnailphilosopher]

The worst part about the Bonnie case is that it completely goes against the whole “stranger danger” aspect of the missing children. Bonnie wasn’t kidnapped by a stranger, but by her own mother. Not even the one milk carton success story lines up with the expectations set by it.

[@toomanymarys7355]

Strangers mostly sexually assault and then kill the kids. A "fun" product of the sexual revolution was a massive rise in attacks on children.

[@babygravey]

The wild part is her mother and stepfather or clearly bad people for taking her away from her father and out of the country but what if they did it because her real father was a nasty bastard and abuser the years later her mother is in jail and is returned to the father. All just far out speculation but its a possibility

[@angelicamichelle1646]

It got the father pice of mind my husband tried to run off with my child w brute force. In the 80s I'd never found her

[@Angel-lb3dw]

@@babygravey just stop. Don't even TRY to justify it. If the father was bad, they would have gone to the police or something, idiot. Court alredy favors mothers, wouldn't been hard. So just stop

[@babygravey]

@@Angel-lb3dw stop it I'm not trying to justify anything at all!! All I said was no one knows the reason the mother ran off with the child. Who knows. Maybe she split up with him because it was an abusive relationship and the only way to get away was to run away but I also said I have no idea at all it was just a theory. You have no clue either. If you think it's as easy as just going to the police in an abusive relationship you have no idea I am grown man now but have lived through domestic volince as a child saw my mum getting beat my sister get beat and myself from dad's step dad's and sisters boyfriends the police got called many times and it never stopped until I grew up and someone got stabbed. So be quiet because you have no clue what the hell you are talking about

[@PanteraFarBeyond]

I am currently 28 years old. When I was 6-8yrs old, a man I had never seen before approached me at a place I was familiar with and said my parents were looking for me. He offered to drive me back to my parents. Even being a child, I still said "no I'll ride my bike back home." After years(almost 10 yrs) of not thinking anything of that incident, I told my mother. She cried. Never would she ask for a stranger to pick me up. I think back to that moment often. I joke now, but I could've been another one of these children. Missing forever.

[@anglepsycho]

You were smart man. I had a neighbor at one point who was a registered child slave trader and my mom warned my dad and stepmom but they never told me and I even had a conversation of him but then heard dinner was ready and left. I had that as a 7 year old and was only told of that when I was 18 because my mom mentioned it as a recollection thing since she's a known stalker on Twitter and especially Facebook. I didn't even know, the guy didn't approach me physically but he sounded kind of drunk and I have always hated drunk people.

[@zanemob1429]

@@anglepsycho The most chaotically written comment I’ve ever seen.

[@ublade82]

@@anglepsychoThat's so brazen wow, you'd think the government would crack down on people who register as child slave traders.

[@BigfootUnibrowMan]

When I was around 4 or 5, I was playing in my front yard when a guy in a pickup truck pulled up. He asked me if I wanted a sticker, so I walked over and he handed me a sheriff's badge sticker out the window. He talked to me some more, but honestly I don't remember much of what he said. I just remember getting spooked and running back inside when he asked if my parents were hom. I watched from the window as he waited there in his truck for a little bit and drove off. I put the sheriff sticker on my shirt though haha. My mother asked me about it that night when she was getting me ready for bed, and when I told her she absolutely freaked out and emphasized stranger danger and not going to the front yard to play by myself anymore. Pretty creepy when I look back at the scenario.

[@DeciNate_]

@@anglepsycho Wait hol' up your mom is a known stalker?! I need more details on that one

[@lordfarquaad83]

This will definitely be buried, but my uncle was actually friends with Johnny Gosch. He said that seeing him on milk cartons was surreal but he didn't feel that it would really help anyone find him. He also said this Johnny's mom was definitely protective of him, but he didn't feel that she would make up a story about Johnny coming back to see her. Was also a bit weird because my uncle also worked as a paperboy for a short time and there really wasn't much of a response from their company about the kidnapping, operations just continued which definitely contributed to Eugene's kidnapping. This whole story is crazy to me, especially because of how close to home it is. I drive by the street where Johnny got taken every day and quite literally live less than a mile away from where it took place, so there's plenty of people in my community who were around and can tell me and have told me first hand how crazy this case was.

[@radrobd123]

I don't believe the mother's story that Johnny came back. Apparently her ex-husband didn't believe it either. They were married at the time Johnny disappeared and divorced after. They then moved out of the family house where Johnny had been living and the mother moved to an apartment by herself. So if Johnny came "home," wouldn't he return to his family's home, not his mother's new apartment?

[@NemesisOgreKing]

@@radrobd123 because he couldn't find out where she moved from the new owners?

[@radrobd123]

@@NemesisOgreKing How would the new owners know where she lived? and in the middle of the night?

[@kaned5543]

My aunt was abducted back in the late 60s by someone who was arrested years later for another crime. She was an adult, early 20s, but she was cognitively disabled and quite small, so she appeared as a pre-teen at best. She was kept for three days suffering some truly awful things until she was able to escape and walk and takes busses the 40 miles home. They obviously didn't find the guy at that time. Between the milk cartons and my mother's absolute fear of it happening to me, including telling me that story when I was like, 10 years old, I was so sure I'd be abducted as a kid. It was a weird upbringing.

[@sh4rkss]

did they ever catch the guy!! i'm so sorry that happened to her, i hope she's doing well now

[@esumoriS]

@@sh4rkss well yea, there's a part that says "by someone who was arrested years later for another crime" so yea he was caught

[@monokuro-hn9qk]

the most morbid thing ever, is that that the majority of the time when a family was looking at a missing child on their milk carton, they were looking at the face of a child that was already dead.

[@jimmybalzac6021]

edgy

[@rileyguy7168]

How original

[@Usugato]

@@jimmybalzac6021 ?

[@GarkKahn]

And killed by someone they knew in most cases

[@nataliee5236]

I don't think it's the majority of time, or i hope

[@termsofusepolice]

My parents used to tell me that if I didn't drink all my milk at breakfast I would be in greater danger of potential abduction. As a kid this sounded sort of crazy. But all these decades later, having always finished my glass of milk as a child, I can attest to the fact that I was never abducted. Thanks mom and dad for the sound advice. Sorry I doubted you.

[@joelglanton6531]

I used to be gay with your dad; he told me about this.

[@imnotbonnie]

Hahahahahah

[@bonniea.1941]

Clearly good advice! 😂😂

[@jackielegz8689]

r/neverbrokeabone

[@thenocturnenarrator]

Amazing advice! Gonna tell that to my kids!

[@abcdefg3315]

There’s a YA fiction book about a teen girl eating lunch at school, picking up the milk carton and realizing that the picture of the missing child is of her when she was very young. She then has to try and figure out the mystery of her disappearance and who her parents actually are. I believe it was called “the face on the milk carton” or something similar. I thought the concept was such a good one, I had no idea that it was loosely based on a real experience.

[@adhyayanchatterjee56789k]

How is the book series though?

[@riversong4997]

Those books scared the shit out of me as a kid. 🥺

[@mamaluigi0993]

@@adhyayanchatterjee56789kI read the books as a kid and I liked it, recently watched a review of it and heard it was meh without the nostalgia glasses

[@lich109]

​​@@adhyayanchatterjee56789kI'm 6 months late but I remember them being bad unless you are really, really into teen drama. The actual mystery is a background addition to a story about a teen going through school. She even gaslights herself into believing the memories she has of her original family are weird nightmares she has while she's still awake and her eventual boyfriend gets fed up with her over how she wants to talk about getting kidnapped, but doesn't seem to want to do anything about it. I didn't finish reading the sequel because it sucked, the general gist is the girl was taken away from the people who raised her (they had nothing to do with her kidnapping and didn't even know she was kidnapped, the female kidnapper dropped her off with the kidnapper's parents and lied, claiming that she was her biological daughter after having lived in a commune for a while), so most of that book is this family pretending to be confused why this girl (I think she was 15 or so) didn't want to live with them and still wanted to live with the people who'd raised her. The books are very slow and an extreme slog to get through.

[@gadiesandlentlemen]

i have to be honest, seeing the pictures of the missing kids broke my heart. they all look so young and cheerful. it's so awful what this world will do to its youngest inhabitants.

[@BonesCapone]

I'm young enough to have missed the milk carton era, but there was still heavy "stranger danger" messaging in school and at home. This backfired when my younger sister and I went "missing" for about an hour at a National Park, and refused to talk to the rangers because we didn't know them.

[@furja2009]

ranger danger

[@SilverDusk1]

I remember those PSA's as well. They would always have the strangers who were trying to kidnap a child act like a villain, so I thought a "stranger" would act that way while a normal person would act ordinary, and it wasn't until a couple years later when I would learn what stranger actually meant and mocked the idea of "stranger danger" since I wouldn't have had any friends since they all started as strangers at one point.

[@finch600]

My parents taught me about stranger danger right, so I was walking home from school one day and someone I didn't recognise offered me a ride home and said my parents asked him to pick me up. I said "no, sorry. I'm going to my friends house" and went into my mates front yard a few houses up. Nobody was home. I wait there for about 20 minutes before heading home and the man is actually inside with my parents and he was in fact asked to pick me up. He actually praised me when I said why I went to my mates. In retrospect, what the actual fuck were my parents thinking? That said he was a friend of my parents but my autistic face blind ass probably didnt recognise him. As an adult I have almost been abducted a couple of times. I should really stop walking at night.

[@placeholderdoe]

You really did well, also just making sure you’re actually autistic and not using it as an insult

[@finch600]

@@placeholderdoe Properly diagnosed, I never look at faces so it's prolly why I didnt recognise their friend

[@placeholderdoe]

@@finch600 I’m bad at eye contact too, it’s just hard sometimes

[@humbledaoist]

@@finch600 This is unrelated to your comment, but if you don't mind I wanted to ask if you can at all like, put a finger on the "feeling" or vibe or behaviour that makes it feel innately difficult to look at faces? I'm autistic too, but I don't have the kind of extreme aversion you're describing here. I will often have my eyes wander, usually because I like looking at my surroundings, I think?? I also like to use stuff around me to help give my head a break from examining someone's face to figure out how they feel. I still regularly look at people's faces, however, and quite like doing so. So I'm just genuinely really curious how it feels for you. Of course you dont need to answer me at all if you dont want to. Thanks for reading!!

[@kitdoesstufflmao]

I actually have a same experience but with my uncle. At the time I was undiagnosed but at least I remember my uncle's face now 😅

[@nomadicmaeve1905]

On the topic of "Stranger Danger": my mother never explained to me as a child that kids the same age as me, despite being strangers, were not the stangers to be afraid of. When we moved to a new town and i went to a new school, i was terrified of everyone, and it screwed me up socially pretty bad. By the time i learned differently, nobody wanted to be my friend anymore.

[@theasianjason]

imagine asking to put your missing dad on a milk carton after he said he’s going to get milk but never came back

[@greezchum76]

Lmao

[@7eis]

Mine went for cigarettes

[@XSlimSxadyX]

Imagine getting in your parka backwards for a school picture and your asshole friend puts your picture on the local milk company’s cartons labeled as a missing child, leading to you being identified by a couple with a facial deformity, and then having your parents tell them you’re actually not their kid, so they go to the milk company and have them do a search for missing children in their database with their disability, finding out there are no search results, giving up, and then by some miracle, the technician finds their child, and it turns out, his parents were missing, and the “missing” child was in fact rich and famous, and his name was Ben Affleck.

[@LunchBXcrue]

@@7eis put missing people on cig packs! That way we don't have to look at the stupid gross pictures they put on them. Here in Canada they literally can't make their packs look "appealing" which basically means every brand looks the same it's do dumb

[@fidelio9301]

Based

[@salemish]

My mom literally traumatized me due in part to this whole era. She once made me watch a documentary on stranger danger when I was about 5. She then put her finger to my head like a gun and asked me what I should do in that situation. I tried to answer, I think with running away, she just said, "bang, you're dead. You can't run from a gun." And I started crying. I wasn't even allowed to cross the street alone until I was about 13. Saying I was sheltered would be an understatement.

[@karlhans6678]

lmao thats funny, your mom was weird.

[@Kenfren]

That's literally child abuse. If there's nothing that can be done, don't trumatise a child with it.

[@salemish]

@@karlhans6678 if you find narcissistic abuse funny. 🤷

[@minupakumarasinghe3913]

@@karlhans6678 this lack of care kinda feels like something out of a Sigma sextillionaire grindset meme ngl

[@Dr.Mlieko]

but you didn't get kidnapped so it obviously worked

[@saltylemon137]

It’s absolutely terrifying how so many of these children were kidnapped so close to their homes during every day life.

[@vlo4829]

Wasn't it just the first two? And those were both in the same town, so there's a good chance it was the same guy. As stated in the video most of the kids were with the other parent in a divorce situation and in many cases it was known.

[@smolshay]

A lot of kids who are kidnapped like that aren't the victims of a random coincidence. Meaning a kidnapper didn't just see them and decide to take them. Unfortunately many of those kids were quietly watched/stalked for days, weeks, or even months as the kidnappers learnt everything about them. And then all it takes, sadly, is one deviation from the norm (such as the dad not being with the kid) for the kidnapper to strike. It's really upsetting.

[@Account_Not_Applicable]

I wasn't alive for it, but I remember someone talking about this old PSA where it would simply display the question, "It's 10pm. Do you know where your children are?" It apparently started in the late 60s into the 80s and was shown in more urban areas due to increased violence in urban cities during that time (the person who had brought up the PSA grew up in New York and New Jersey, so that tracks) as a means of telling parents to keep their kids safe inside at night. I think if the whole "Stranger Danger" programs and PSAs of the late 80s early 90s did any good, it was spreading awareness that small town communities aren't perfect safety zones for kids. That even if you live outside the "gritty and violent urban areas", bad things can and have happened to kids anywhere. There's no such thing as a 100% safe community.

[@camelliabell9046]

"The Face on the Milk Carton" is a really good series. It's about a highschool girl- close friends, happy family, big house- that steals her friends milk at lunch, and sees her own face on the milk carton from when she was three, and then realizes that her parents don't have her birth certificate or any pictures before she was three

[@samgrace6813]

So that's what it's called! I've seen that when I was a kid.

[@Tzreoaor]

Sounds like a show for unintelligent girls who wish they were a victim

[@murf493]

Holy shit that sounds rad

[@commodoreluigi1596]

It's more than one book?

[@jeremiah4979]

I forgot I read this!

[@011mph]

Can't imagine how heartbreaking it must have been for that father to have his son go missing the very first day he didn't watch his son deliver the papers 🥺

[@MatthewNY94]

All the more reason that it had to be someone local. It's too much of a coincidence that he disappears the first day he's alone; someone was stalking that poor boy.

[@darsch853]

@@MatthewNY94 same with the 6y.o walking to the bus

[@JeromeProductions]

sad indeed

[@pacrat6271]

@@MatthewNY94 agreed Unless it’s a random person kidnapping Usually they’ll watch someone and find out their schedule before they make a move to get them That’s why u should change your routine sometimes It’s so sad people have to live like this

[@mightytaiger3000]

If you look at what the father’s connections were and how he has behaved through the years, it’s obvious he had something to do with it.

[@timeforproblems]

i went to one of those places where you get your driver’s license the other day, and on the tv they were showing missing children. one of them had been missing since 1980 and would be about 50 by now. it was really depressing, knowing that someone could be gone that long and never found.

[@maryellenblount6376]

I remember the PSA at night on TV "its 10:0 clock, do you know where your kids are"? Creepy.

[@panqueque445]

22:00 That was always my issue with this. If a kid was legitimately kidnapped, by the time the face makes it onto the milk cartons, that kid is almost surely dead. It is very rare for a child to be kidnapped by a stranger (so not just a divorced parent taking the kid) to be found alive. As depressing as it is, almost always, the kid is already dead before the week is over.

[@airplanes_aren.t_real]

Ok but why do they kill the kid?

[@notamoonraker]

​@@airplanes_aren.t_real Paedophilia maybe

[@namkwal4605]

@@airplanes_aren.t_real why do child murders happen?

[@EagleBoxx]

@@airplanes_aren.t_real Because they don't want the victim to be able to describe them to the police. They are less likely to get caught if there is no one to tell what happened.

[@flyingstonemon3564]

@@airplanes_aren.t_real Probably because they're murderers too, idk

[@mintyhobbit]

Something that’s really important to remember - kids who are “runaways” are still in a lot of danger! These kids are highly at risk for exploitation and trafficking. Often they’re running away with someone, or to someone, who isn’t safe. Labeling a child as a “runaway” also causes the public to moralize the child’s actions and see less urgency in bringing them home. We’ve had teens in our area where I live who “ran off” with much older men who meant them harm, even intending to take them out of state to legally marry them. Please don’t spread the message that “runaways” aren’t real cases of kids in danger!

[@thesleepydot]

It might be a case by case issue. sometimes they're just partying teens, sometimes groomed individuals who think they know more than they do, other times it could be an abused child who finally escaped their abuser/s. I think it's tragic that one group alone can shape the way in which all of these complex and different cases are treated altogether...

[@verminscum]

yeah, the majority of runaways ive seen growing up were teenage girls running off to be with their much older, groomer boyfriend that their parents forbid them from seeing.

[@verminscum]

she didnt eat plastic lmao, she was lying from the start. the blonde girl tried a frozen one with plastic and it not crunch like that.

[@jhoughjr1]

My mom being a whore, ran off with many men before she ran off with my dad.

[@summer-fy1rb]

thank you for this, i was thinking the exact same thing

[@RayvenLunaNite]

I was forced to runaway with an abusive ex at 16. It was hell. Runaways are not safer just because they "chose" to runaway. (Chose in quotes because its either groomed or forced on the victim.)

[@lyokianhitchhiker]

Are runaways who genuinely did so out of choice even a thing IRL?

[@spiritsys]

​@@lyokianhitchhikeryes. But it's very rare, and usually still influenced by outside sources (such as a shitty home situation)

[@lyokianhitchhiker]

@@spiritsys I was referring to cases where neither grooming nor it being forced on them was involved

[@spiritsys]

@@lyokianhitchhiker I know

[@emilybarclay8831]

@@lyokianhitchhikerwell when I was about 8 after getting shouted at by my dad, I decided to run away. I packed a bag with a bag of oranges, my stuffed toy, and some kids scissors for protection. I made it about five minutes down the road before I remembered that I lived in Brunei where there were snakes and spiders that could bite, and I remembered that I quite liked my bed and my family, so I took my ass back home quite quickly

[@sagesauvage3579]

The stranger danger campaign is commonly referred to its rise in the 80’s but it had a lasting effect for YEARS honestly still seem to this day. I was born in the early 2000’s and my parents and grandma would intensely lecture me about never talking to strangers, as far as to not even go to the end of the driveway where strangers cars could pull up close to you. This was heightened by both my parents being cops as well but I was effectively taught to never talk to ANYONE who was not my family or an immediate known person such as a friend or neighbor they knew. After the Casey Anthony case happened a bit later, distrust for anybody became a heavily enforced idea by my family. After growing up with this ideology it impacted my ability to not be suspicious of everybody which was both good and bad. In the current day, you honestly still see the effects of this. People will see a broken down car on the side of the highway and ignore it for a majority of different reasons, but including the fear of what if it’s a trap. Almost all of my friends I’ve known since childhood grew up with their parents running the equivalent of entire background checks on the parents of a new friend they made at school. It’s insane. On one hand, bringing the fact that there are dangerous people out there to light was a good thing, but on the other hand, it’s severely impacted the main focus of participating in society being “ Help others around you to build a stronger community” to “ keep your head down, and trust nobody”. Again, there’s positives and negatives to this intense campaign, but similar to Casey Anthony, with how many crimes that are committed by family members or someone close to the family, the strong cry of it’s always going to be a stranger who will do something terrible to you severely impacted the judgement of many, who to this day still think the creepy man who would kidnap your child will be a stranger in a white van, and never someone like your trustworthy uncle.

[@AviaRayne2]

I see a lot of my friends with children raising their kids this way. I think some of it might be media prevalence? Like we see so many stories NOW about missing kids, so it feels so much more likely to happen. Definitely not saying that parents shouldn't be aware of who their kids are talking to. Just saw a little 11 year old girl from Texas was supposed to be taken to her bus stop by her parents' friend only for him to abduct and kill her. It's so sad. But there is a healthy level of being suspicious vs being entirely paranoid that you will be a statistic :c

[@Muirmaiden]

It should be noted that in some cases (and probably more commonly), children were abducted and/or harmed by people they knew rather than by strangers. Some kids were victims of domestic homicides that were covered up.

[@sweetloutstea1688]

So many kids in my old area go “missing” because of a relative or a person they are contacting picks them up either the kid was being abused in the current home or just ignored by a parent for that to happen

[@rasmusirlind8829]

indeed. stranger homicides are way more publicized and considered ''sensational'' by most news media, so we get the impression that those are more likely to happen, than the often more occuring murders that are usually committed by the parents themselves

[@Louberries]

And knowing that, the fact that the "stranger danger" culture completely shattered any sense of community and mutual trust meant that children suffering domestic abuse were isolated with their abusers and had nobody to reach out to for help :(

[@derflerp538]

I know all too well that it's the people you spend the most time around, the people you trust the most as a kid who end up doing something. I won't go into my life story, but it's a lot easier for someone in charge of you to get you alone, and a lot harder to remember something someone you love did to you.

[@devildowndevildown6261]

Can any of you show data of your claims?

[@futureghost77]

I was a child of the 80s. I remember being uneasy seeing the photos of missing kids on milk and orange juice cartons. I would lose my appetite seeing the kids faces on a pizza box. It was a macabre practice indeed. My worst memory from that era though, is seeing my classmates’ picture on an orange juice carton a few days before they found his body in a deep ditch. He was found next to his mangled bicycle, apparently killed by a hit and run.

[@agentepolaris4914]

While I understand why someone would be creeped out by it, I don't see how it was a "macabre practice"

[@NeverComplyEver]

@@agentepolaris4914 hes soy. Thats why.

[@agentepolaris4914]

@@NeverComplyEver indeed

[@FishbedMyBeloved]

@@agentepolaris4914 putting the faces of kids who could very well be dead (in the mind of whoever is buying milk) on packaging is macabre. It's a reminder that people can be lost at any moment.

[@FishbedMyBeloved]

@@NeverComplyEver not necessarily soy to be scared when you're a small child looking at pictures of potentsly dead children

[@peppern9076]

When I was a little little kid Adam Walsh was kidnapped. One of the fallouts from this was a massive push to have all kids fingerprinted so their bodies could be returned to their parents one day if the worst happened. We were living at Fort Bragg at the time and I remember the announcement going around that the army would fingerprint all the base's kids for free on the weekend. My mom took her 3 almost toddlers and we were fingerprinted in a parking lot set up with dozens and dozens of picnic tables filled with young soldiers, pads of prints cards and ink pads, and she still has them to this day (and I'm pushin 50). I don't remember any kid developing paranoia and "trauma" so that kinda reminds me of the doctor who wrote the anti-comic book manifesto diatribe Seduction of the Innocent. And it only became a joke when the millenials who hadn't lived it thought parents getting scared for their kids was lame. PS, the code word thing also started in the mid-ish 80s, around the same time as when Gremlins came out, because the cops were complaining EVERYBODY used "Gizmo" lol

[@video-luver769]

Adam Walsh is sadly the poster child for a stranger abduction. Separated from his mom at the mall for only a few minutes, then snatched and murdered. It's rare, but definitely has happened.

[@SaltpeterJohn]

I'm in the same age group and I remember "fingerprint day" very clearly. It was in our lunchroom and during the school day. I'm not sure I understood why they were doing it. They may not have told us. Can confirm "Gizmo" as the universal code word lol (PS Seduction of the Innocent is bonkers)

[@bostonrailfan2427]

my sisters have their IDs and fingerprints from that drive still, it was still ongoing in the early 90s before municipalities lost interest

[@user-lh7mt7zo7l]

I mean that's the excuse they give "think of the kids" but in reality it's just so the government can put you into a database and find you more easily when you commit a crime.

[@AviaRayne2]

Definitely millennial here, but mom took my brother and I one year in like 92? I think? to the county fair where we got fingerprinted by the state police. I was like 4, so I don't remember the actual event, but apparently I also wandered off with my 3 year old friend looking at chickens in the livestock section. Fortunately for us, there was an older lady keeping an eye on us and she stayed with us looking at the animals until mom and her friend (friend's mom) found us. I do remember mom in later years telling me how she was so thankful she had me fingerprinted just before that happened, but also that we never had to use them xD

[@TheUncleRuckus]

As someone who grew up in the 80s I remember this quite well and it was depressing AF seeing all these kids faces on Milk cartons. I think the most ironic about the whole "stranger danger" scare of the 80s is that most kidnappings are perpetuated by ppl who know the child.

[@mattiemathis9549]

I remember a news program years ago where they had kids handing out missing children flyers at a grocery store. The child on the flyer was actually the kid handing them out. Only one person noticed.

[@Gfysimpletons]

😀

[@snook.1]

I mean... that's a pretty stupid experiment.

[@kimosterhout3242]

@@snook.1 It probably should have been conducted differently, but interesting results all the same…

[@snook.1]

@@kimosterhout3242 Yeah, I guess. I think that the example of a missing kid sitting inside of a mall with flyers everywhere and still not getting spotted says more about it. You simply wouldn't assume that a kid handing out a flyer of themselves is the actual kid despite them looking alike (I think, anyways).

[@kimosterhout3242]

@@snook.1 Fair point.

[@pioson1646]

Whenever I raised the idea of "Stranger Danger" to my mother, she would tell me that "No one would try to kidnap you" because I was built like a Brick Shithouse. Good times

[@lykiaookami6070]

I was always told I was too annoying and kidnappers would be scared of me because of how weird I was lol

[@integrak5609]

Hahahahahah I'm that mother. I told my daughter if someone kidnapped you, they would've return you within an hour cos you talk so much, no one can handle it! 😂

[@davideventili2881]

@@integrak5609 great parenting

[@integrak5609]

@@davideventili2881 yup

[@basedcrocodile3477]

@@lykiaookami6070 pfp checks out

[@lemonbee6778]

I feel like the stranger danger stuff of the 80s and 90s contributed to how parents who grew up in those decades parented their kids. A lot of kids and teens today weren't allowed to play outside on their own because they were told it was dangerous. Then they would also hear stories about how their parents used to play outside from dawn til dusk. Then there was a whole initiative to get kids outside to play more since kids weren't as active as they used to be. And as far as I can tell, it didn't really do much. To a kid, why would they go out and play where something bad could happen to them when staying inside and playing video games was safer and didn't require mom or dad to take time to watch them? I just think this is kind of an interesting subject since older generations like to almost boast about how they played outside all the time as kids, while younger generations didn't get to experience that because they were told that it wasn't safe to play outside without an adult supervising.

[@eye_parasite]

​@@meemp.2826 uh have you been around a neighborhood? kids still play outside to this day

[@vlo4829]

I don't think "stranger danger" is why kids play video games more than they play outside. Kids LIKE video games more than they like playing outside and a lot of kids are being given access to ipads at such young ages that they crave the ipads and have a hard time engaging with anything in the "real world".

[@desuretard8654]

​@@vlo4829 your quotations on the phrase 'real world' is quite telling. You ok?

[@vlo4829]

@@desuretard8654 I'm good, but go off with your conspiracy theory based on two words.

[@desuretard8654]

@@vlo4829 what kind of skitzoid shit are you rambling my nigga?

[@CATDABOSS]

A very good friend of mine was about 8 years old when he walked away from his mom in a grocery store to look at legos. A creepy guy named Gary came up and atarted talking to him and aid something to the degree of "I'll buy you whichever one you want and you can come over to my house and build it." My friend agreed, chose what he remembers to be an expensive set ($100+ in the early 2000s) As he was leaving the store he saw his mom frantically searching for him in the parking lot, looked up at Gary and "theres my mom I'll go with her." Took the legos from Gary and ran over to his mom before telling her where he got the legos, while pointing at Gary. Apparently his mom sobbed, called the police and Gary drove off never to be seen again. He said he was 18 he packed up the lego set before moving to college and the memories flooded back to him about it.

[@alicethemad1613]

The real problem with the whole stranger danger panic is that it’s completely untrue. Absolutely, don’t get into cars with strangers, but a vast majority of the bad things that happen to kids happen in the home. The vast majority of people who hurt kids are people the kids know, or even relatives like parents, uncles, siblings, etc. A lot of stranger danger rhetoric focused on very rare instances and told kids that the people they knew were safe, to go to your priest, parents, teachers, etc for safety any time you need. Those people were the ones most likely to take advantage of kids, in reality. Also that most missing childrens cases are unresolved custody disputes or runaways that show up within a week or so.

[@dddgaming885]

almost everytime an amber alert pops up on my phone and I look into it for a bit more detail...it's some sort of parent or close relative who's running off with the child so yeah, i agree with u

[@NyahBlu]

I'm a criminal justice student and this is usually referred to as "the three Ls" - children are most often abused by folks they: like, love, or live with

[@MrJest2]

Agreed - we've created a couple of generations of paranoiacs. The destruction of basic childhood free play, which is critical to a person's mental development, has crippled whole generations. It is stupid and infuriating.

[@MrJest2]

@@dddgaming885 Usually it's related to a custody dispute, and the kid is with one of their parents and is in no danger whatsoever.

[@hailee1001]

exactly!! not only should you be teaching stranger danger but you should also be teaching them what weird/predatory behaviour is

[@sterlingwilkes3240]

I remember being told “you wanna end up on a milk carton?” As a kid and not really understanding what that meant. Now we just post them on the wall at walmart. Keep up the great work brother.

[@haroldthaf]

Putting someone inside a milk carton is one hell of a threat... Sinister on many levels.

[@LilleviathanYT]

@@haroldthaf inside a carton...fate worse than death

[@chrismeister2554]

You know I have a feeling that Walmart wall has the same kinda thing going on as the milk carton with the tax break 😂

[@GrandDawggy]

"You wanna end up on a wall at Walmart, kid?" Nope, does not feel right lol

[@Air_Serpent]

@@GrandDawggy damn my mom did that to me but on the wall of Sam's.

[@forloveofthepage2361]

I was a prisoner in my home as a child because of this. My mom was so afraid I was going to get kidnapped I was rarely even allowed to go down the street 6 houses to my friends house. The fear was real.

[@Starmadien2019]

A lot of child abductions are by people who know the kid. If the person knows the kid, there's an increased chance of them being alive. Because the person "loves" that child and are less likely to bring them permanent harm. Not completely unlikely, but the stats are there. Stranger kidnappings are vastly more likely to end in death, or the child will be sold within 48 hours.

[@thatvalensteingirl]

.... you're ignoring the parental abductions that end up in murder/suicide, aren't you?

[@Starmadien2019]

@thatvalensteingirl I didn't say all family abductions end with the child alive. I said many keep the kid alive.

[@tidlywank]

Depressing fun fact: Amber alerts can sometimes cause the kidnapper to panic and murder the victim even sooner.

[@ijoinedthedarkside333]

There is nothing fun in that. Unless thats what you're into.

[@Krumbenet]

Do you have an example of that happening?

[@purpleemerald5299]

You uh… *…you have any past experience with that?*

[@foxybohv7732]

​@@KrumbenetI did it once

[@cutiepookiedookie]

Fun fact? Do you have experience..?

[@keard558]

My sister was trafficked in the early 90s. The few times she was left alone in public and tried to get help from strangers no one believed her. Being dismissed by normal people which allowed her to fall back in the hands of monsters was the most traumatic thing because the other abuse she can just block out.

[@0heda734]

thats horrible. No child should go through that, is she still alive?

[@stevescott3735]

This guy seems to think it’s a joke. Strange angle he’s taking

[@keard558]

@@0heda734 Yes she is! She struggled with addiction for a few years but now is married with kids.

[@keard558]

@@stevescott3735 I've never watched this channel before and its sad how he keeps focusing on how it wasn't effective. In today's world where everyone has seen to catch a predator people will still ignore uncomfortable things such as this, even mandated reporters. Having those milk cartons at least put the potential in the minds of the public.

[@FernandoTorrera]

So true I was at Barnes and noble said as a teen a man was agressively trying to get me to leave with him and passer bys did nothing.

[@adamwoolston253]

I will say that the whole stranger danger initiative, while perhaps overblown, instilled some good habits. For instance, it’s common knowledge among kids that you don’t get into cars with strangers and they’re able to recognize luring attempts (“I have some candy in my van” or “wanna come see my puppy?”). That said, the overwhelming majority of cases where a child is abducted or harmed isn’t that weird dude at the park. It’s usually someone the child knows and trusts. Like a custody dispute, or a teacher, uncle or aunt, grandparent, sibling, etc. We put a lot into stranger danger, but too often the dangerous ones aren’t the strangers

[@jaywaverly1]

Yes

[@KyrieFortune]

There are actual statistics that show that the vast majority of crimes against children are committed by family or people the family knows and trust, and the more heinous the crimes the more likely the criminal is close to them. Stranger danger is real, but it's peanuts compared to Family Felony

[@Chinothebad]

Stranger danger or or danger coming from someone one a child thought they knew, it's all just so vile people would do a horrid thing to a child.

[@jmurray1110]

Even worse is in cases were the police can just do fuck all and let the kids get murdered

[@Obama8mycatHQ.]

True but there really isn't much you can teach your kids against that kind of kidnapping lol. "Remember if you seeing mommy acting frantic and telling you to get in the car kick that bitch and run" 😂😂

[@KakuroKing3407]

there's a fascinating book series starting with "The Face On The Milk Carton" about a girl that is certain she sees an older version of herself on a milk carton and navigating questions about her memories. I've only read the first book but it's pretty dang good

[@rainbow.4976]

oooo that sounds really interesting!!! :0

[@agustingabe]

I think the desensitization of the milk carton kids is how most feel on amber alerts

[@darkninjafirefox]

There's a book called "the face on the milk carton" where the main character sees her face on a carton while at school. It's a good read

[@pebbledelor]

Thanks for the recommendation!

[@RealBradMiller]

That has happened a few times irl with posters and milk cartons, the one that comes to mind is Bonnie Lohman. Thanks for the rec.

[@caesarazealad]

That was required reading for me as a kid and I don't know if it was just me being a weird pre-teen and not understanding the words on the page, but it seemed a bit strangely written and the plot was (If I'm remembering correctly) a bit inconsistent.

[@senniie3372]

You just brought back a core memory haha. I remember in the book she saw herself on the milk cartoon then was able to dig up the exact dress and I believe hair bow (?) she had on when that picture was taken in her attic. Didn’t her “parents” steal her from her real parents or something?? The cover art of the shadow against the milk cartoon on a black background creeped me out so much lmao

[@Brighteyes42]

Yes! I remember loving that series as a kid and oddly is what sparked my study into cults. It’s wild to think that the core idea of the story (which does go off the rails a bit lol) might have sprung from that real life example.

[@cj-bi7hz]

There was this case where a highschooler was drinking milk and saw her face on the cart from when she was very young. Turns out, her "mom" stole her, gave her to her grandma and dipped

[@angelinacamacho8575]

Reminds me of a lifetime movie I saw that was based on a book I think it was called "the girl on the milk carton" her family kidnapped her and raised her as their own...they weren't creepy or anything like that and she actually had a nice upbringing but one day finds her face on a school milk carton.

[@EssexAggiegrad2011]

@@angelinacamacho8575 That book and movie (which is on KZbin) are based on that story cj mentioned

[@KebaRPG]

That is a plot of a novel where the mom was a cult member and pretended to drop a kid she abducted for the cult. She changed her mind and dropped the kid of at her mother's house instead.

[@KebaRPG]

@@angelinacamacho8575 The novel had it the Family the kid lived with were adoptive grandparent who did not realize their daughter who joined a cult had kidnapped the kid when she dropped the kid of at their house.

[@DrSpaceman69]

That’s bananas!

[@MaiaPalazzo]

Teaching children to not talk to strangers IS important! Even more nowadays when parents gives their children tablets with unlimited access to the internet (and to strangers), and don't even care to see with whom their children are interacting.

[@castielnovak2900]

I think it makes sense that its not longer "stranger danger" and instead "tricky people". Children are much more likely to be victimized by someone they know than a stranger. And stranger danger can stop children from seeking help when they need it.

[@MaiaPalazzo]

@@castielnovak2900 I get this in real life but on the INTERNET they're not interacting with know people only. Most kids already interact with strangers on online games, discord, facebook etc... Last month in my country, Brasil, cases of pedophilia, torture and humiliation of girls as young as 10yo perpetrated by organized groups of male teenagers and adults broke out.

[@MarvinHartmann452]

Most of the kidnapping are done by someone the kids already know. It's good not to talk to strangers, but the "stranger danger" is one of the failed campaing from the FBI.

[@Rayn7734]

It's a balance. Of course teach them, but make sure they aren't terrified of talking to anyone or taking a step outside.

[@timhorton8085]

Im sure agoraphobia, childhood obesity, and stranger danger are totally unrelated. Im sure being afraid to talk to people has never had any effects on society. Im sure rampant tribalism in the united states has nothing to do with fear mongering towards children causing deep seated anxieties towards interacting with """"strangers"""". Remember, if someone dies its probably the spouse. If a child dies its probably a family member

[@AlexisR1999]

I’ve never seen a video on KZbin mention Molly Bish while talking about missing children. Thank you for also bringing attention to her as well, even if it was just to mention she was the last to be placed on a milk carton. Her going missing is still a major part of the culture surrounding the town, and is a topic of discussion quite frequently. It’s nice to hear our little town isn’t forgotten in these tragedies. ❤

[@lookatthesparks]

When I was about 16-17, I briefly worked in a used bookstore in my small town. One day, this girl, who was about 11, and her brother, who was probably 5 or 6, came in by themselves to look at books, which was strange in and of itself. The reason why these particular kids stood out to me, beyond the fact that they were in there alone, was the conversation I had with the girl about birds (she was obsessed with them, and wanted to look at books about them; I was hand-raising a baby bird at the time so I was telling her about that). One of the senior staff thought the whole situation was weird, so she was asking them questions to try and suss out what their story was; they were in town for a few days visiting their Dad after their parents separated, apparently. Cut to less than a week later, and the girl was on the news as a missing person. I knew for sure it was her even though I didn't know her name at the time because she had a few unique features that made her stand out. I made my Mum sit in on call to Crimestoppers (it's an Australian thing, I'm not sure of the international alternatives) with me because I was absolutely terrified to do it by myself. I'm pretty sure I was on the phone with them for at least an hour answering questions. They ended up finding her a few days later, thankfully, and I never found out for sure if my tip helped at all, but it was one of the most bizarre and tense things I have ever experienced, constantly on the edge of my seat waiting for a phone call or a visit from the police.

[@Ami-jc2oo]

The only time I had a personal experience with police is when I was 10, during the day. We were visiting a friend's house that was 1 or 2 blocks down I saw a dude covered from head to toe in black, even in a Hoodia. The person, probably a male, was walking left across their lawn carrying something with him. Not that big. (their lawn extended into a playground for neighborhood kids) and I remember him glancing back. Fast forward to night when we started to leave a couple police cars arrived. This scared me of course because cops = danger. A cop came up to me and asked if I had seen someone in all black. At the time I forgot about the man and said no. But after we passed him I remembered. I didn't tell him because I was scared. So I lead my brother back home. Still don't know what happened.

[@TheShadowcreator]

I bet you saved that girl's life. It's likely that your tip narrowed down their search area.

[@DistendedPerinium]

Crime stoppers is kind of a thing in the US as well (at least here in Oregon). However, I have no idea if the two organizations are linked in a way.

[@yuruyukii]

have you ever figured out the reason as to how she managed to go missing and why she was there with another kid?

[@lookatthesparks]

@@TheShadowcreator I often think about that. I hope I helped in some way

[@SamiDC]

Here's a funny childhood story my dad likes to remind me of every now and again. When I was little, "stranger danger" was implemented far too heavy-handedly in my schools. So much so that one day, at the store to get groceries, I apparently asked this random lady outright 'Are you a good stranger or a bad stranger?' The funny part is that after she laughed and told me she was a good stranger, I started spouting all the personal info I knew at age 4! 🤣

[@douggaudiosi14]

Hilarious thanks so much for this enlightening story. It changed my life

[@amberhernandez]

I can just imagine it now: "And and and I think Daddy keeps his credi-di-det card in his top lef--" "Ooooookay, kid; time to get you home!"

[@jamstarr]

imagine if she jokingly told you she was a bad stranger and you would’ve told your dad and she would’ve had to register as a sex offender or something lol

[@SamiDC]

@@amberhernandez lol! All I know is that my dad likes to reenact what I did. Like I was super excited and was just like 'Hello! My name is _____ and I live with my mommy and daddy at ____! Would you like to come over and play?!' I don't really remember it well, but I may have started a conversation with the lady, decided I liked her and wanted her to be my friend. So, if that's the case, knowing how naive my ass was at the time, I probably thought to ask her that... just to be on the safe side. XD

[@joekopsick1540]

Strangers aren't even the #1 perpetrator of kidnappings, it's someone you already know

[@janaiolson2948]

There's a very good book (fiction) called "whatever happened to janie" all about a missing child being found the same way as Bonnie where she saw herself on a milk carton. Great read!

[@raphaeldagamer]

I believe the mentality of "never talk to strangers" is a bit extreme, but I also believe that a certain level of diligence is more than acceptable and should be encouraged. I'm going to tell a bit of a story here, so be ready. I am an adult who just graduated high school and I currently work at a children's indoor amusement center. My mother has a friend who has two daughters and sometimes we will invite the three of them over so that the parents can talk while the kids play. For one particular instance on a day that I was not working, we were going to have them over but the oldest of the two girls, age 7, was going to be at a friend's birthday party which happened to be at my workplace, and the parents were preoccupied somewhere else, so I was tasked with driving over to pick her up and bring her over to our house so that she wouldn't be left waiting alone. I know everyone who works there and they all know me because we're all high school kids and coworkers, but leading up to this, a thought crossed my mind, a concern that had never quite occurred to me before, what if someone were to see me, a 5'8" male with a mustache that resembled '80s porn star more than it did Dale Earnhardt, entering a children's play center alone, greeting a seemingly unaccompanied 7-year-old girl who is half my size and doesn't look particularly related to me, and immediately beckoning her to my unremarkable hatchback to drive away and thought to themselves that I was a kidnapper? I believe that was a valid concern because no matter how many people may recognize me and be able to come to my defense, any rational human being would prioritize ensuring the safety of a child in a situation that may be risky before more thoroughly measuring the risk of the situation, as they should. I would not blame anyone for accosting me in that situation. Luckily that did not occur, because I walked in and was immediately greeted by my coworkers who reasonably asked why I was there since I wasn't on the schedule to work that day. I responded by saying that I was actually there to pick a kid up from a birthday party, told them the name of the kids the party was for, and my coworker who was hosting the party walked me over to the party room, where in a passing interaction the party parent asked "You're (my mom)'s kid?" and I responded "Yep." No issue. It almost concerned me how easy it seemed, but I am sure there was more to the process than I was able to see. My mother and her friend are both pragmatic and diligent individuals, so there is no doubt in my mind that the party parent was informed beforehand, especially since she verified who I was. I'm sure my status as a fellow employee played a role as well, there was enough familiarity and trust because I was known. The key to ensuring safety isn't quite to trust nobody, it's to place the right amount of trust in the right people. There's also more to it than trust, there are also safety nets, like ensuring that the party parent knew that I was going to be there and why, ensuring that I not only knew the name of who I was picking up, but had it written down along with the name associated with the party so that there would be as little chance of me making a mistake as possible, and even that brief verification of who I am. I'm proud to know that I had that level of trust placed in me and that I was able to live up to that trust, and I am glad that the requisite failsafe measures were in place to protect as many people as possible.

[@thelastmotel]

Paragraphs exist, bro

[@anintellectualcarrot]

I'm a child of the '80s, so I remember that era of fear. I grew up in Chicago and had a couple of paper routes in the late '80s through the early '90s. I started just before a turned 8 years old and my mother never let me deliver them alone until I got a little older. Even then, I was allowed to carry my buck knife with me, and on a couple of occasions I had creepy guys try to call me over to their cars. Each time I told them to f*ck off, but one was very insistent, so I brandished my knife and told him not to f*cking try me and he peeled out.

[@3dfrenzyfreak658]

Props to your mom for letting have a knife, and you for letting how to use it.

[@jeremiahfink6330]

That's some real 'dont be a menace in south central while drinking your juice in the hood' shenanigans right there

[@TooCooFoYou]

@@jeremiahfink6330 Do. We. Have. A. Problem?

[@Thor-Orion]

Hell yeah little kids with buckknifes are the answer we've been looking for.

[@lucidlullaby894]

I remember when I had a route, I had to deliver at night sometimes when the days got shorter and a car pulled up and the dude asked for a paper. Being as stupid as I was I went “what house do you live at I might’ve already delivered”, and after a bit of repeating the dude got frustrated and fucked off. I only realized a couple years later if I had handed him that paper I could’ve been dead I was literally so stupid it saved my life

[@eyrenoctis]

I remember feeling bad whenever I saw the missing kids and my mom grew extremely paranoid of strangers. I was the type of kid that ran off in the store a lot and you better believe I got chewed out by my mom a lot. She always told me that there were bad people who pretended to be nice, so I had to stay by her side at all times. I remember being too anxious to play outside because our house was by a busy street. And now I'm a grown adult with moderate social anxiety. I was one of those kids that as I grew older, the anxiety around stranger danger grew more. I always did wonder what happened to the milk carton missing children ads, so I'm glad you got my back, Wendigoon. lol

[@droolpuddle]

I can relate to this! my mom was always so overly paranoid concerning mine & my brother's safety. she took precautions w/ anything that could be potentially harmful (including strangers.. I remember her taking us to self defense classes, having a 'password', etc.) all of this has had a lasting, negative impact on my psyche as an adult. I find myself being equally as cautious at times and overthinking EVERYTHING, which holds me back from doing very simple things in life. I know she was just trying to protect us and she is still an amazing mom but I can't help but see how her paranoia rubbed off on me!

[@Goku_Kiyosaki]

son husband ?

[@incineroar9933]

My mom wasn't. I was nearly abducted and got called a liar and told to stop pretending like I was scared. Some dude tried to lure me over to his car to "help him read a map", I was outside the store holding our little dog's leash while mom bought milk.

[@sexygirlmax2019]

@@Goku_Kiyosaki what

[@_gorillazfreakinc._2]

Do you mean you're socially anxious, or you have social anxiety disorder? As someone diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, it's frustrating to hear people say "I have social anxiety". Because misconception tends to lead most people to believe that social anxiousness and social anxiety disorder are the same thing, or mistake them for one another. So then they tend to mean that they are socially anxious, not that they have social anxiety disorder, which in turn makes it borderline self-diagnosis for them to say "I have social anxiety". It's also frustrating in the sense that I barely have anyone to relate to, considering that social anxiety disorder is a lot more rare than most people tend to believe. And the misconception certainly doesn't help.

[@lostinabookstore8039]

My mother grew up in this era and safe to say, she became absolutely paranoid. I mean, she completely went nuts. I wasn't allowed to go to family without her being there. I wasn't allowed to see friends (that she knew well) without her being there. I wasn't allowed to do sports, clubs, or do anything extra curricular without her there. When I was really young, she would do "kidnapping drills" where she would sneak up on me and "pretend" to kidnap me and would beat me if I didn't respond the right way. She would do this in public out on walks, at home, at stores, EVERYWHERE. What I remember distinctly was how she would contort her face to look scary and unfamiliar and keep it on if I "failed" her test. When my parents divorced, she absolutely lost it. She wouldn't let me call my dad without her listening, let my sister out of my sight for fear of her being kidnapped, and had to call her damn near every hour. Listen, I understand being concerned for your children. But being a helicopter parent to the point of her breathing over my shoulder all the time. I eventually ran away. Went to live with my dad. Overbearing parents who are scared of child kidnapping often end up loosing their kids - not because of kidnappers but because of their own precautions.

[@HellsFurby]

My family knocked stranger danger into me so hard I still have these fears as an adult. As an adult woman I’m all too aware of what dangers could be out there where something easily could happen to me (I take all measures to prevent this from my stranger danger anxiety and general distrust of others from trauma) but it’s definitely manifested in a larger less healthy fear and anxiety of others out there. I’m glad I know how to keep myself safe, but the hyper vigilance to avoid getting out of my car if it doesn’t feel like the area I’m in is the safest even if there’s not a real danger present that anyone is aware of aisles in stores and who is walking them, sometimes completely avoiding them. I’m not saying keeping kids from strangers is bad, it should be taught, just maybe not to the degree of my raising where even aside from that topic I’m just extremely anxious person and I feel like some aspects wouldn’t have been so bad on me mentally causing so much fear (I don’t believe this was their intention and do see how it affects my anxiety levels even now). All that adhd rambling just to say theres a big difference between a healthy fear of something as opposed to an unhealthy one that makes you struggle in adulthood. Not here to bash anyones parenting either, this is just like the first time I've watched something and be able to share one of my more obscure characteristics as not everyday i talk about milk carton missing kids or stranger danger. 😅😅

[@spinshocker]

One of the most insidious aspects of “Stranger Danger,” in my opinion, is how it inadvertently made it easier for abusive parents/family members to isolate children from adults that might be able to help them. It’s important to remember that most cases of child murder and CSA are committed by someone within the child’s family or within the family’s social circle.

[@exist4046]

That still doesn't mean that it's useless for kids to be taught not to trust a rando telling them to come see something they have or some shit. In this comment section alone I've seen like 100 comments about how they've had run-ins like this that the stranger danger thing helped them with. What needs to not be taught is that parents are ALWAYS too be trusted, or that every stranger ever is dangerous and can't be trusted. But a person telling a kid to help them find their dog or something is still a huge fucking danger.

[@AlexK-sk4qb]

The campaign was specifically about distrusting adults that randomly come up to you, not about distrusting all adults. I don't think it had this effect at all.

[@jaredemry170]

Yeah, but Gosch was held at a house where the FBI found fingerclaw marks and initials in the crawlspace. All linked to Larry King.

[@chestnut4860]

That's in my opinion, really stupid. The person taught about in stranger danger, showing up to offer you candy on the street isn't the one likely to be rescuing abused children. And that's not counting how the lack of strangers harming might be due to the fact that kids have been taught to be aware, you cant really avoid your parents as a child.

[@SioxerNikita]

@@AlexK-sk4qb The problem is that it does have the effect of distrusting strangers overall.

[@kristinbooshay5003]

Missing kids on milk cartons are one of those things I’ve never seen in person but saw it a lot on movies. I love this

[@davidarundel6187]

I saw the milk cartons with pictures of missing kids , n the last qauter of last century , though I think it started earlier . I'm not from the USA . Edit ; this was typed , while the sponsor was being advised .

[@MikeOcksmallClips]

You love abducted children? Hell yeah dude .

[@kristinbooshay5003]

@@MikeOcksmallClips you’re right. maybe not the best wording. What I meant was, I love videos that go into history like this. Obviously not the abducted children

[@leonkjoy]

It’s so tragic that the girl didn’t understand the meaning behind seeing her face on the milk carton and just thinking it’s a bit odd.

[@otherworldytoast6275]

When I was growing up we didn’t really see children’s faces on milk cartons, but I do remember this board outside the exit of our town’s local Walmart that was dedicated to kids that went missing, either inside the store itself or somewhere near it (since it was such a small town this was one of the biggest places there, and your best chance if you needed to put up a missing poster). I remember seeing it every time me and my mom left the store. Didn’t understand at the time why she would tell my sister and I to keep one hand on the cart while we were shopping and never to run ahead. She would hold my hand as we walked by those missing kid flyers and her grip would tighten, but she never really said much about it, just looked at the board for a second or two with a sad look in her eyes and then walked past. Every week when we went by it there were new faces. I think I asked about it once or twice, about where they went and ‘were their mommies and daddies okay?’ She would answer quickly about it but didn’t go in depth. And of course we had the Stranger Danger rule, though we were lucky to never be in a situation where a stranger tried to talk to me or my sister. Looking back I’m so grateful for my mom. She didn’t try to scare us into not talking to strangers, it was just more of a “If you don’t know them, just don’t talk to them.” Our rule was that if we were ever in that situation, “Ask them if they know Mommy and Daddy, and if they don’t, then don’t tell them your name”. If they grabbed us, scream at the top of our lungs until someone came, either an employee, a well-meaning shopper, or one of our parents. Though that was just a backup since we were taught to never leave Mom’s side in the store. Even now shopping at Walmart, a stranger I don’t know will stand next to me to pick out something on the shelf, and I scoot away from them as a subconscious movement. And I’ll still hold onto the cart or my mom’s hand, just in case. And that missing child board is still at the exit of the store. I look at it each time I’m there. More new faces and names each time.

[@LaffeeTaffeeGG]

I'm a 90s kid and I think the whole Stranger Danger fear was extremely useful back then, not so much now. I played in empty fields with my friends, rode my bike to school, went to the grocery store on my own, etc. No cell phones and no internet, so communication was done with a post-it note on the fridge. As a kid before the 2000s, you were almost always on your own, especially if both your parents worked. Having a healthy paranoia of strangers was a lifesaver when it came to being a kid. I think now it's not as useful since that paranoia has kinda transferred over to parents and adults who won't even let their kids play in the front yard, and are convinced the kid will be murdered if they're allowed to walk to school on their own.

[@stevesether]

It's true. A few years ago, before the pandemic, my 80 year old mom fell down in her house. I drove over, but couldn't lift her alone. She said a next door neighbor and his 20 something son had helped her in the past, so I rang the doorbell. A 6 foot tall burly 20 something answered the door, but he was clearly afraid of me, the middle aged, weak looking stranger. It was like pulling teeth to get him to help. Eventually I convinced him, and I'm honestly quite grateful, but it was still odd seeing this strong 20 something kid, in a nice safe suburb, afraid of someone ringing his doorbell at 1pm on a nice fall Saturday. Just this fall I sold a dolly on craiglist. I gave the guy my address, he says he's coming over. I wait... see someone that might be him playing around with his phone from across the street, but not coming up to my door to ring it. He walks over the the neighbors house, continues playing with his phone. No doorbell ring, just a guy hanging out outside. Weird. Eventually the guy works up the courage to call me (I gave me my number if he got lost or had to cancel), and makes sure he's at the right place. I sell him the dolly. Later on I check my email. He'd emailed me that he was here! So instead of... ringing the doorbell... he send an email. I'm not very outgoing myself, and don't find it easy talking to people I don't know. But these days? I'm a huge extrovert compared to some of these 20 somethings today who are intimated to talk to someone on the phone they don't know, or ring a doorbell!

[@Ouchthathurt843]

It is still very useful, most people let their kids play in a fenced in backyard unsupervised, or sometimes even a whole neighborhood now that there are phones but it’s too dangerous to let your kids play outside at night or if you live somewhere that’s not safe. In Japan, kids as little as 4 go to school by themselves in busy cities, that’s because Japan is a lot safer than the U.S. We’re no 3rd world country, but It would be hard to say that children are safe here. I honestly don’t believe children are safe anywhere, not even from those that should protect them. More than half of children experience some sort of abuse at home, school or church. Back then, most of the world didn’t have the internet or an abundance of media to show them the reality of the world at your fingertips. Things were simpler because we lived in ignorance, and children were taught to always trust adults, but that led to countless children being kidnapped, abused and ignored. The world has always been cruel, our perception of it was just different. Now we see the world for what as it is.

[@_gorillazfreakinc._2]

It's always been useful, because children have always rapidly gone missing and still do now.

[@aoifecaetan9832]

I think you might be missing the point that no matter the decade or the technology, almost all child disappearances are perpetrated by people close to the child. A focus on stranger danger makes you blind to the threats closer to you.

[@therealmegore]

My kid is not allowed in the yard to play bc ... Changelings

[@ubahfly5409]

As an old 80's kid, I can confirm. We were simultaneously panicked over & left completely unattended 🤣

[@rmf176]

Nailed it lol

[@hammerofscience534]

Exactly I was out with friends or by myself until dark each night. Be home by dark was the standard saying in my house.

[@shanibloome]

💯

[@erikaarnold4780]

FACTS! (born in 1980)

[@danielflanard8274]

The 80s was the decade that ushered in the age of paranoia right? Must have been a strange time to be young.

[@Ficus1493]

Extremely late comment to a year old video, but that bit about "Stranger Danger" videos hit hard. When I was in kindergarten, the police came in and showed us a video about stranger danger and how you should never get in the car of someone you don't know. Not even a week later, I was walking alone back from a house that I sometimes frequented and a car pulled up beside me. The window rolled down and a man I didn't know asked me if I wanted a ride and that we could get McDonalds. After seeing the video, I panicked. I said the first thing that came to mind ("I have to go to school!") and then RAN all the way back to my house which was in eyesight of the car. When I got back, my panicked, five year old mind couldn't properly communicate what had happened to my parents and so they didn't understand and didn't know. I slept with the blinds closed in my bedroom for months after that, kicking myself for running straight home because a man who had tried to kidnap me now knew where I lived. Of course, as an adult, I know that running straight home was the right option, but I was terrified for a very long time. It's no exaggeration to say that that stupid Stranger Danger video they showed to a bunch of five year olds probably saved my life. Most kidnappings are by people the child knows. But not all of them. The incident still haunts me.

[@graymonk5972]

i’m sure i scared the hell out of my mom so often as a kid. i didn’t have a natural sense of stranger danger (most kiddos develop it around 18 months old. it’s why strangers have to do something to get on a kid’s good side to get them to come with. like candy or saying they’re looking for a lost dog.) so my mom had to purposefully drill it into me with stranger danger PSAs until i was terrified of other people. as much as it fucked me up, i understand to an extent that i’m sure having a kid with no sense of fear is one of a parents worst nightmares. didn’t help that even afterwards i was just a wanderer and pretty quiet so it was hard to immediately notice i walked away for a minute.

[@MarvinHartmann452]

Some moms are quite overbearing from what I read here.

[@memeriel]

I grew up in the 2000s and I remember going to Walmart with my mom and being immensely creeped out by the wall of photos of missing children, all in high contrast, usually black and white images. It's honestly one of the first times I recall being disturbed. I never even imagined what it would be like to visit that feeling every morning over breakfast...

[@jacquesshaw9952]

That feeling: " oh hey, good morning" You:"yea it was, wasn't it?"

[@Supermatty90]

Oh god, you too?

[@followerofeir]

Same dude.. same

[@ThatGirlJD]

I remember when they finally started paying a little extra for colored ink, and started using colored poster.

[@torihawthorne6732]

Me too

[@TheDankCat127]

Growing up as a millennial, my mom was always terrified of me being randomly kidnapped and constantly gave me speeches about it. Now I understand.

[@gristen]

my mom was the same and i lived in a small town with less than 2,000 people lol. it got kind of ridiculous at times

[@xylophone_8888]

my mom read a lot of true crime stories about our country's most famous murderers such as Slivko or Chikatilo when i was a kid and always almost recapped the stories to me so that i won't ever be a victim she never allowed me to help any grandmas (one of the murderers worked in pair with his grandma and lured helpful kids in his house to eat them) or to go at my friends houses (because you never know if their parents are normal and if you can even trust anyone there) or go out alone (obvious reasons) i thought she was overprotective but now i understand too

[@xylophone_8888]

@@screwstatists7324 oh my god, my mom told me the same about Romani people "they're looking for a slav kid so that slav people will give them more money"

[@gristen]

@@screwstatists7324 god its awful when paranoia starts mixing with racism. thats how cults and neo nazis recruit people, they find the most vulnerable people with anxiety or other mental illnesses and they give them a target that they can push all their paranoia on to. its really sad...

[@markcarpenter6020]

Ironically you were (literally) more likely to be struck by lightning then abducted by a stranger. The people your mom needed to worry about were the people you knew. Over 90% of child abductions are done by family members and most of the rest are done by people known to the child (family friends, teachers, coaches, etc.)

[@GloryTheBiscuit]

My grandma was raising her kids in the years of the “stranger danger” mania, and she still lives in so much fear because of that. She’s constantly reminding my siblings and I that “there are evil people out there that want to take you away! You cant trust anyone! There are human traffickers everywhere! You’re not safe!” It caused a lot of severe anxiety in me when it came to interacting with others, but I understand it was coming from a place of genuine fear and concern. The inflated missing childrens numbers and widespread panic traumatized a generation.

[@smolshay]

I saw a recent Amber Alert situation where someone literally took a photo of the car WHILE IT WAS UNDERNEATH the highway board showing the Amber Alert. They, infuriatingly, didnt call it in because the car was one brand but the Amber Alert said another. Turns out the two models of car are very similar and commonly mistaken for each other. The person who took the photo didnt understand that there is only ONE license plate that will match an Amber Alert. So a missing kid was quite literally right there, in front of them, and they lacked the common sense to think "Hey the entire description and license plate match other than the brand of car. It cant be that kid."

[@HyperionFTW]

Hearing about missing kids always terrified me. Especially cases where there were no clues or evidence. They just disappeared and were never seen or heard from again.

[@valentine.58]

missing people in general are just so unsettling to think about, but missing children are a special kind of sadness and disturbing

[@awtumn]

Agreed. It's so scary to think that one minute you could be in one place and next you've seemingly vanished into thin air.

[@HyperionFTW]

@@valentine.58 exactly. Especially before security cameras and ring doorbells became so common. A kid would walk just down the street and nobody would ever see or hear from them again. It’s horrific.

[@no_peace]

I was around the same age as Polly Klaas, who was kidnapped from her room during a sleepover. We even kind of look alike. I lived in a violent neighborhood with the side of our house on a busy street, and there was a bus stop nearby so people were always walking by my bedroom window being loud at night. It would have been easy to get in my room or some other part of the house. Nothing about my house was very secure. I don't know why it wasn't a priority to my parents. It's strange because they were worried about burglaries and stuff. We didn't even have a deadbolt. My mom joked that the doorknob on the front door was a bathroom doorknob. And the door had a slot in it so anyone could look in. Anyway people would always tell me things i was scared of weren't real or whatever but Polly really got kidnapped from her bedroom, just like I was scared of. I don't mean to make it about me I'm just saying her kidnapping had a big effect on a lot of people. We thought she might be alive. It's terrible

[@vshcvsh98]

@@no_peace that’s horrifying omg…

[@animeking1357]

Geez it seems like for some of these kids they had people targeting them for some time as they literally disappear the first time they do something on their own.

[@troodon1096]

Sometimes it might be incredible coincidence, but yes it suggests they were specifically targeted by someone who was watching them to see when they'd be alone.

[@midnightgod123]

Usually it is exactly that. Predators and traffickers Usually pick a kid out and watch them for weeks. Is this kid often by themselves? How close is their house to their school? Do they have friends? And so on.

[@suezuccati304]

@@midnightgod123 ... More like a lot of these people pick children they already know rather than stranger children.

[@evil2theend]

most of the time people preplan stuff when they are going to do something against the law so they would be watching them for some time. But we also don't know if the parents aren't telling the truth like they sometimes walk them to the bus stop in an attempt to make themselves look like better parents which doesn't help but people do it...

[@pietrayday9915]

Not just "these days" (and keep in mind that these Milk Carton Kid cases were news about 50 years ago!) - it's always been the case, since the dawn of time: fairy tales are full of warnings about the "werewolves", "ogres", "witches", and "fairies" that wait in the wilderness to carry children off without a trace, and literature is full of references to children "running off" to join circuses, pirate and bandit troupes, and the like - it's all just a "kid friendly" way of telling the story, with the implicit menace of the situation only thinly veiled in these devices The world has always been a harsh place for people in general, and children in particular. I wouldn't want to generalize too much on whether "most" kids are indeed being watched for weeks before their disappearance: I suspect this will mostly be true in much the same way that it's mostly true that most child abductions and assaults are committed by someone close to - or within - the child's own family, a family friend, someone working at the child's school or church, or someone in the child's own family... that is, in many cases, someone close to the child was planning something for some time before taking the child. There are, however, many cases as well that look just as much like crimes of opportunity: lots of kids have been endangered while parents are stopped at gas stations, or when they become separated at shopping malls, or while on vacation or elsewhere under situations similar to those in which vacationers are targeted by pickpockets or for assaults on women committed after their drinks are drugged at clubs and so on: a lot of predators have familiar "territory" that they stalk around in, looking for unplanned opportunities to present themselves. Others find ways to thrive on the unplanned chaos of just being in the right place at the right time.... In the case of kids on bikes disappearing, you might have a neighborhood creep who just rolls through the neighborhood the same time every day, and just "settles" for staring from a safe distance at the local paperboy as he makes his rounds while accompanied by a parent... the one day that the parent isn't there is an unplanned surprise, but the predator strikes. It might be someone who regularly creeps through the neighborhood by night or day, looking for victims, and that morning, the paperboy just happened to be convenient and vulnerable, while the predator was ready to strike. It might have happened while the father was following behind in his car on any other day, and it might have been stopped if it had happened any other morning, but by coincidence.... Or, it might as easily be an unfortunate case of the kid's own father fantasizing and planning something for days and weeks, before finally acting out on his imagination. Not saying this happened - I don't know anything about the kids involved or their fathers, but a lot of these sorts of crimes are committed by people well-known to the family, and in at least one case, disaster struck only after the father explicitly changed a pattern, and even if it didn't happen in any of these cases, I'm sure it's happened before to other kids.... Or, it might have been a drifter who happened to be driving through an unfamiliar neighborhood, and the kid just happened to be following his paper routine at the wrong place and time that morning. Experience predators might have planned things more carefully under more controlled conditions of a familiar neighborhood with a familiar and planned routine, but this predator might not have planned anything, but, seeing a tempting prize right that moment, and unable to believe his "luck", he might have acted out ad-hoc, making things up as he went along: many first-time predators, it seems, find themselves in this sort of situation, and - acting completely on impulse - they strike, making more or less of a mess of the situation in the process, making mistakes and almost getting caught, or almost letting the victim escape, or leaving evidence, or getting hurt when the victim fights back, letting the whole crime be committed too quickly to remember clearly or "enjoy" in any way.... It's these early experiences that often drive predators to develop a more controlled and planned routine later on. Or, it might be any of a number of other possibilities, somewhere in between any of the above, or completely different from all of them. I don't think the world has necessarily grown any more dangerous for children, at least in general: it's always been dangerous, and - except for a few exceptional circumstances of the post-modern world - it's not a lot more or less dangerous today than it was in the dark ages or in prehistory, as far as human predators are concerned. The exceptions including the increased anonymity and mobility of urban post-modernity, and the fractured families that leave it more difficult for single mothers, for example, to adequately watch over their children in neighborhoods full of strangers raised with broken family backgrounds and misery they'd love to share with the company of a captive audience - a lot of predators being, it seems, products of broken homes and tragic histories of abuse and neglect themselves.... These exceptions would, perhaps, be at least partly offset by technological advances in forensic science, communications and coordination between local police departments and organizations like the FBI, and so on that make it easier to detect, track down, and stop predators. It would, it would seem, in many ways be a lot safer for kids today than it might have been centuries ago, when there were no proper police, the neighborhood watch was made up of volunteers who couldn't get a job any other way and were barely better than criminal gangs themselves, and bandits and "werewolves" and other monsters from across the countryside might live undetected all around isolated farms just waiting for an opportunity to strike from out of nowhere and disappear back into trackless forests, even as other aspects of urban post-modernity have made things more dangerous.... Whatever the case, I think it's always been a world where even the best of parents can turn their backs for just the briefest of moments, and never see their children again, leaving small communities in isolation to explain what happened to themselves the best they can with the only tools they have to work with to cope with the unknown and make sense of it: their imaginations about all the endless horrors of an endlessly dangerous and hostile universe that lurk just beyond the glow of their campfires.... Our ancestors understood that their children were in constant danger of being snatched up by creatures of the night, monsters in human form, who would snatch away and devour innocent lives. - maybe the biggest difference between us and them is that we've managed to convince ourselves, beyond reason, than it should still be happening, not here i our neighborhoods, not today in the modern world, not with civilized and modern people, and with modern governments and police!

[@someone-ww4jk]

24:55 did the cashier not recognize the kid probably got desensitized towards them after so many of milk cartens

[@shortking-vp9vv]

My parents are Gen X, born in 73 and 74, so I definitely got the “helicopter parent scared of their own shadow” upbringing, at least by my mom. Granted, she was assaulted by a stranger growing up and had abusive parents, so to her, the world really was a scary place where no one could be trusted. It fucked me up, though. I’m only just now, at 28, realizing how much of my social life is ruled by fear and suspicion. I really do not trust anyone lol I’ve always had this underlying belief that anybody can turn at the drop of a hat, and everyone has ulterior motives.

[@shelby5809]

i mean they do though

[@nadiastar6264]

Yes they do. They won't kidnap you but they will pretend to be your friend then lie to your face, spread rumors about you, sleep with your man, etc.

[@Hambo325]

The little details like "exactly which kid was first on a milk carton" make me really appreciate how in depth your research is. It would be way too easy to say "no one really knows for sure" or "it's up for debate".

[@ceasarsalazar5940]

To be fair, sometimes no one really does know.

[@Hambo325]

@Dman (Formerly Roman Bellic) thanks, it me!

[@girl05628]

This epidemic of fear still has lasting effects on parents and kids today. Ironically, when i was younger, i would go out with my friends to go downtown at worryingly young ages due to my parents being too strict. Strict parents raise sneaky kids

[@LexYeen]

Said it better than I could. I was a sneaky kid.

[@kitkatboard]

That's something my mom brings out pretty often. When she was a kid in the late 60s, she'd just go to her friends' houses after school, go out to play in the woods without telling her parents. Nowadays, you have to ask your parents to go to your best friend's house, ask their parents, sometimes days in advance.

[@Xsiondu]

I've been saying it forever. I was a free range kid. Be gone from 8 am till 8 at night and nobody thought it was strange. Edit to add this was from 87 on when I was 6.

[@quantumleap1491]

Honestly it’s scarier now more than it was years ago, mostly because of the internet, parents today don’t give a shit and let kids do whatever they want, honestly I feel it was because parents now grew up in that era and didn’t want to shelter their own children and now they don’t shelter enough, it’s sad really, I was a kid in the 2000s and I was watched over but I was allowed to do certain things my friends weren’t.

[@elrusito5034]

Sneaky kids or fearful kids(me) I'm not even from the stanger danger era, but my parents raised me on fear of the outside, that someone would kidnap me and shit. On top of that I got bullied a lot by a teacher, then my classmates. By my teens they complained I never went outside with friends.

[@startofanage_]

I asked my Dad if he lived with the milk cartons, as he was a kid in the 80’s - 90’s, and he said, “They need to make some for liquor so my friends will know if I’m missing or not.”

[@longbottomleaf6918]

DUDE I know I am late to this video, but when I was 15-16 and basically homeless, I was often listed as missing because I had to walk for 45 minutes (both ways) to a community center to speak with a social worker twice a week. I eventually just stopped because it was pointless, they have my number and new where I was staying, I kept them updated via phone and email, AND YET I was listed missing about 13 times in a year. Everytime I didn't show for a meeting, the worker HAD to list me as missing with the police, it was so stupid and wasted so many resources. Again they literally knew where I was, the worker even picked me up a couple times. I totally relate to this video.

[@literallygrass1328]

Why be homeless? Just get a home

[@longbottomleaf6918]

@@literallygrass1328 because some people have an emotionally, mentally, physically, and sexually abusive parent who's favorite punishments are throwing a 5 year old child down the stairs by their hair and locking them in an empty room for days at a time without food or water.

[@ArtistJane]

As a 43 year old, between the missing children on milk cartons, the satanic panic of the 80’s, and the challenger exploding on tv while we all watched in classrooms across America in ‘86, we 80’s kids are truly warped a bit.

[@somethingwithbungalows]

How did your class react to the challenger exploding? (If you saw it all go down in class?)

[@flappy5291]

I now realize that we're just becoming Gen X sequel. We're living in one of worst times of the world and we've got to see it happen since we were little. Especially with how our famous authority figures that we're supposed to respect have all been humiliated in these recent times (recent Controversies featuring the president of the USA, recent controversies involving the topic of Police Officers, and the very loud and public message of our lack of care for the environment barely phasing government organizations). I'm starting to feel that the cynicism and rebellious nature of Gen Z that all older generations have come to know us for seems to come from a similar root that of Gen X. Now this doesn't mean that "we're all gonna die" or "everybody can be a jerk and nihilistic because it's not our fault" but it adds a lot of perspective.

[@VancePantss]

90s babies were also, between most of us seeing 9/11 happen on tv while we were at school, the wild west of early unfiltered internet taking you to dark scary places, the sudden awareness of school violence after columbine, and the scare tactics and horror stories used in schools when it came to drugs/stds/kidnapping/etc. Millennials were pretty traumatized.

[@edie4321]

When I was a child, we had the Vietnam War on our TV daily. Every generation has their own mind/society control coming at them from the television. Why do you think Bush demanded digital television? Why? Because it's a much better mind control device that way. This is why there is a television in every home. It was not this way before the "scientists" came over after WWII. We did not win that war, they did, and that is why we're all prisoners now. Infiltration over invasion.

[@jxchamb]

Reading about a missing kid your own age while eating breakfast was a great way to start the day. But at least it made me afraid of strangers and now I'm overprotective of my own kids.

[@jackdawjohnson7436]

23:44 This actually the norm. Most children who are abducted are abducted by family, usually in relation to custody issues.

[@undeadreader23]

I went missing for a day or so like three houses down from where I lived. The kids that lived in that house had one of those raised cubby houses in the backyard, with latticework blocking out the lower portion from view. They filled it with spare toys (their dad worked at a carnival and got all the spare prize toys for them). I was an annoying kid, so they told me to play 'hide and seek' in the toy pen, so they let me in there to play, and just... Left me there. They were there for the weekend visiting their grandfather, who was deaf af, so when their mum picked them up, they forgot I was in there. Cue later that night, my mother is in a panic trying to find me, knocking on doors etc, and I didn't hear a word as I was sound asleep in a pile of toys. The next day, I tried to get out and couldn't and started to scream, and was found by my dad.

[@thetwelfth9987]

The saddest stories are the ones where rebellious kids disobey their parents thinking they’re gonna be okay despite having ignored the warnings, only for the worst possible scenario to happen to them shortly afterwards. Like imagine being in their shoes, you just want to discover yourself and try to be a little more independent and you’re punished for it, you find out the warnings made sense but you’re not going to live to learn. These stories sound like fabricated cautionary tales for how quickly things go wrong.

[@myirlname]

If they're kidnapped by traffickers, they were probably already a target. The kidnappers were waiting for the right moment to snatch them, then doing so as soon as they're alone. But that's just my theory

[@mrlaz9011]

most kidnappers choose and study a victim before they make their move.

[@ubahfly5409]

That's an interesting observation 🤔 So true 👍🏾

[@aphrabehn8646]

As a kid the local Walmart had the entire wall by the entrance to store covered with GIANT posters of missing kids. It freaked me out every single time we went in there. They have a smaller wall now that's for missing people in general.

[@BababooeyGooey]

I was too young to remember, but my parents told me a story of how I went "missing" in a Walmart. They alerted the front and then alarms went off and all the exits were locked until I was found. Turns out I had just wandered off on my own to gaze at the toy section lmao.

[@runningbetweenspaces]

@@BababooeyGooey ah a code A****. Yeah those are taken REALLY seriously even they have a code we don't tell anyone about

[@vglycorpse]

Oh God I think I remember those too. There's occasional newspapers that get thrown in my neighborhood, and as a kid I'd see the back of it with missing kids and the words "HAVE YOU SEEN ME?" and the photos would be age-processed, kinda leaning into uncanny valley a bit? They used to scare me, still make me anxious today honestly.

[@bltn7469]

@@runningbetweenspaces Angel

[@Poodle666]

@@bltn7469 No its Adam LUL

[@Blunt_Man]

I grew up towards the end of the "stranger danger" era and my mom used to tell me a story where we were shopping and in the check out line, an older couple who were just very friendly asked me my name. Apparently I loudly said something like- "I'm not allowed to talk to strangers!" when I was literally either in the cart or right next to my mom. I don't remember details but I guess I made a bit of a scene and everyone got a good laugh from it as my mom apologized for me basically embarrassing everybody. It's funny cuz society had all that fear in the late 90s yet the only time I was actually at risk was when I was like 15-16 and hitchhiking, long story short I had to jump out of the passengers side of a moving truck as it slowed down to turn onto another street. Everybody had known it was risky to take rides from strangers by then for decades, I knew it but didn't always make the best choices around that time...

[@Shiirow]

nothing says good morning like pouring yourself a tall cool glass of milk from a carton covered in images of missing and possibly dead/abused children.

[@teraphIl1000]

This video is very informative! Being from Europe, I only knew of the pictures on milk cartons through TV and movies, so I learned a lot.

[@themaskedhobo]

My brother and I were reported missing when we were children... I was hiding under the end table in the living room, and my brother was under the coffee table.

[@emiemiemi4769]

i remember going to walmart and seeing “have you seen me?” posters, with lots of kids on them. some of them had been missing for a very long time, and they used some software to approximate what they would look like in the present day and put that next to the photo of them from when they went missing. it was very disturbing

[@rioforce]

That’s still at every Walmart now

[@markcarpenter6020]

I had several people I knew run away in high school and more than once I discovered they had run away by seeing their pic on that wall in Walmart. To this day (nearly 30 years later) I will still stop and look over all the pics on that wall half expecting to see someone I know.

[@SeviathTheHumanDrago]

Yeah same. I'm thinking like: "It's sad but we know the statistics by now...They're not coming home anymore." And some of those pictures I've seen at my local Walmart have been up for years while the child has been missing for years as well so.

[@allisonr6263]

somehow the "aging-up" editing always creeped me out more, especially when they kids weren't kids anymore and they were just straight up 20

[@SeviathTheHumanDrago]

@@allisonr6263 Right? Like I might actually know this person but actually putting 2+2 together in this age of fast paced information is a mess to say the least. By the time the full details of one story come out another just as gruesome story pops up somewhere else.

[@mqfii8992]

I love how chaotic Wendigoon's video's subjects are. One week Is about Frankenstein. Now it's kids on a milk carton. One Is about the FNAF timeline. And finally about the possible Totalitarian Femboy Empire.

[@Someone-wj1lf]

The possible what..?

[@DarlingMissDarling]

Wtf is a "totalitarian femboy empire"? lol

[@dividewalker5673]

It's from the conspiracy theory iceberg, as part of the soy conspiracies. Basically, government-sanctioned weaponised femboys. Yeah.

[@mqfii8992]

@@DarlingMissDarling In his video about the Conspiracy Theory tier list, he jokingly explained that the objective of the "Soy In our foods Is turning men gay" conspiracy would be to establish a "Totalitarian Femboy Empire".

[@Dead_guy138]

@@mqfii8992 Government Sanctioned Weaponized Femboys

[@merchantfan]

The problem with "stranger danger" could be its own episode. A big problem is that a lot of child abuse happens from people that the child already knows, either their own family (or friends of the family) or people that went into positions of authority so they could have access to kids and who often were protected by whatever organization that authority belonged to. How confusing must it have been to hear all the stranger danger stuff in the 80s when you were being abused by your priest, coach, or uncle? Would it even sound like the same thing? It certainly wouldn't explain what to do next if your parent didn't listen. They recently found out what happened with a missing child case from the 70s that I'd never heard about- it happened right near where I grew up around a beautiful church we passed all the time. A girl was walking to summer bible camp which was only a few blocks away and disappeared. Eventually people who had been children in that church started to come forward to say that the youth counselor from that church had had a habit of giving girls a 'ride' but taking them to the woods instead and abusing them. The little girl had caught a ride with him and when she fought him he killed her. That girl would have probably been safer if she'd caught a ride with a total stranger instead of that guy who she "knew"

[@StopXPlease]

One of my best friends went missing for a day, and what had happened was his foster family had moved a few cities over and he was devastated. He loved the city we lived in and ran away to go back. He had only made it a few miles away but it was terrifying for all parties. He did it again the next year, was found after a day, and I haven't heard anything since.

[@hSquaredSunshine]

The one thing it did do is discourage some teenagers (like me) from running away because ending up on a milk carton would've been the most embarrassing thing ever.

[@snook.1]

Leave a note saying "Mom I'm running away, please don't put me on a fucking milk carton". Problem solved.

[@baggergurl16]

😂😂😂😂

[@hSquaredSunshine]

@@snook.1 I was raised in an era where people - even minors - were expected to have dignity and self-control. Behaving like an emotionally incontinent brat was considered foolish & unproductive.

[@snook.1]

@@hSquaredSunshine Too bad you didn't teach the next generation to behave the same then I guess. Was this before the invention of jokes as well?

[@hSquaredSunshine]

@@snook.1 I'm used to jokes being funny. 😁 Actually, I probably was a little hard on you. There are so many irritating pricks on YT, but I shouldn't immediately assume everyone is. Btw... I did pass on good things to the next generation - but I only had 2 kids (and took in 2 more) so my impact was kinda limited. 😆

[@bcollins3811]

I read a book in school called "the face on the milk carton" that followed the premise of a girl who had been kidnapped as a toddler and found a picture of herself on a milk carton years later. I don't remember the book being very good but I think a lot about the strange uncanny valley nature of the faces on the milk cartons. the thought of thousands upon thousands of kids going missing every day has our minds racing when in reality it's probably just divorce disputes. great video!!!

[@sammiesauls8365]

It's a real story

[@Dark-Fenrir_65]

Didn't he mention that girl in the video?

[@karakreativevlog]

I know that book! It's by Caroline B. Cooney. It's about a red headed girl that had trouble going back to her biological family. I read one of the books from the series called "The Voice on the Radio" about her boyfriend getting famous with her story.

[@spiderham5514]

@@karakreativevlog is the book good?