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December 2015 Moms
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Kudos to Chuck E. Cheese...but not really

steffnstuffsteffnstuff member
in December 2015 Moms
Yesterday I decided to take my 3 year old to chuck e cheese just for a fun afternoon. When we got there, they stamped both our hands and explained that they won't allow children to leave unless their stamp matches the adult their leaving with. I was wearing LO so the guy gave me a paper that said "kid check" on it and told me this was for the baby. 

We had our fun, but then I got a call from the after school program telling me that my 11 year old was complaining of having a difficult time breathing (she doesn't have asthma or anything, and it wasn't serious enough for an ambulance or anything)  . Anyway, I of course said I'd be right there. So I got the 3 year old as quickly as possible and headed toward the door. The guy checked our stamps, but I couldn't find the paper he gave me for the baby. I told him it must've fallen out of the bag while we were playing games. It was the same guy who checked us in, and I never stopped wearing the baby so there was no way for him to think I was trying to steal someone's child. He was seriously not going to let me out!  I was furious!  I mean, I get it. He's doing his job and under any other circumstances I would say this system is a great thing to have in place. But at this moment , I don't have time for this! I need to get to my daughter!  Eventually I found the stupid paper, but I was frantic and irritated all at the same time. Thankfully, my 3 year old wasn't giving me a hard time about leaving or that would've been even more stressful.
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Re: Kudos to Chuck E. Cheese...but not really

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  • steffnstuffsteffnstuff member
    Like I said, I know the man was doing his job and I do think it's a good thing they're doing. I would certainly be glad of their efforts if someone actually were trying to take my child. I was just simply venting about how annoying the situation was at that time because I was trying to get to my daughter  (who is fine by the way). 
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  • scientificunicornsscientificunicorns member
    I'm glad to hear she's fine!
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  • groovylocksgroovylocks member
    Yeah me too! What was it? (I know it's not the point but I'm kind of a weird medical anomalies dork) 
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  • Gingermom15Gingermom15 member
    Very happy to hear that she was ok!
    At some point I'm sure most of us will likely find ourselves at a Chuck E Cheese, now we know how strict they are, which is pretty awesome. But I would probably lose that piece of paper as well. I think keeping a clip in the diaper bag for situations like these is something most of us should do, as a lot of places use this system. Museums do in my area as do arcades. as scatterbrained as I am sometimes we would be there all day and never find that paper. 
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  • steffnstuffsteffnstuff member
    edited March 2016
    @groovylocks  The doctor at the urgent care could not pin point an exact trigger but said her lungs sounded fine and she said she was feeling much better by then. It was sort of a windy day and the doctor said it could be that she is developing seasonal allergies that were aggravated by the wind. She has an appointment with her regular pedi coming up for a full physical. I'm just glad she's okay. It was a real scare.
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  • MomofEv+1MomofEv+1 member
    What would they have done if you couldn't have found the paper? Would they have called the police? I think the policy is great but I wonder how they enforce it. 
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  • theawc42theawc42 member
    Honestly i would have just left. He can't stop you. The only he can do is call the police. Then it would get delt with later. 
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  • theawc42theawc42 member
    LaceyH13 said:
    theawc42 said:
    Honestly i would have just left. He can't stop you. The only he can do is call the police. Then it would get delt with later. 
    This seems like a terrible idea. It's one thing to have Chuck E Cheese security involved. It's another to have to prove to the police that a baby is yours.
    Easy.... Birth certificate. And you did nothing wrong so they can't charge you. I'm LE I know .
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  • taysuntaysun member
    theawc42 said:
    LaceyH13 said:
    theawc42 said:
    Honestly i would have just left. He can't stop you. The only he can do is call the police. Then it would get delt with later. 
    This seems like a terrible idea. It's one thing to have Chuck E Cheese security involved. It's another to have to prove to the police that a baby is yours.
    Easy.... Birth certificate. And you did nothing wrong so they can't charge you. I'm LE I know .
    Honest question here, is a birth certificate really proof that a baby is yours? Like you could easily show someone a random baby with a birth certificate that's real. 
    Like if you have a baby but were trying to kidnap a baby who is similarly aged wouldn't it be easy to show them the birth certificate you have for your actual child and pass it off as belonging to the kidnapped child?
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  • theawc42theawc42 member
    taysun said:
    theawc42 said:
    LaceyH13 said:
    theawc42 said:
    Honestly i would have just left. He can't stop you. The only he can do is call the police. Then it would get delt with later. 
    This seems like a terrible idea. It's one thing to have Chuck E Cheese security involved. It's another to have to prove to the police that a baby is yours.
    Easy.... Birth certificate. And you did nothing wrong so they can't charge you. I'm LE I know .
    Honest question here, is a birth certificate really proof that a baby is yours? Like you could easily show someone a random baby with a birth certificate that's real. 
    Like if you have a baby but were trying to kidnap a baby who is similarly aged wouldn't it be easy to show them the birth certificate you have for your actual child and pass it off as belonging to the kidnapped child?
    That's always something that needs to be considered. But then the same thing could be said for getting a licenses or the requirements to bring a child under 16 into the country. That's a whole other topic, don't want to get into that. But say you explained to the chuck e cheese rent a cop the situation. Your obviously a mother in a panic. Need to leave immediately and he wants a piece of paper. He can either let it go or when you leave he calls the cops. Cops show up to your house because I'm assuming they traced you because of your license plate. At that point the officers would need to take in the totality of the situation and see there is no danger to the child. 
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  • LaceyH13LaceyH13 member
    Whether you did something wrong or not, seems like a much bigger hassle than just finding the paper Chuck E Cheese gave you in the first place, no?

    And if you are law enforcement, surely you agree that the police have better things to do than deal with a mom who lost a piece of paper at a kiddie restaurant.
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  • theawc42theawc42 member
    LaceyH13 said:
    Whether you did something wrong or not, seems like a much bigger hassle than just finding the paper Chuck E Cheese gave you in the first place, no?

    And if you are law enforcement, surely you agree that the police have better things to do than deal with a mom who lost a piece of paper at a kiddie restaurant.
    If you can't find it and you have a child that has an emergency , I guess that's your choice to sit around and wait. And the police may have better things to do but you wouldnt have been the one who called. 
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  • groovylocksgroovylocks member
    taysun said:
    theawc42 said:
    LaceyH13 said:
    theawc42 said:
    Honestly i would have just left. He can't stop you. The only he can do is call the police. Then it would get delt with later. 
    This seems like a terrible idea. It's one thing to have Chuck E Cheese security involved. It's another to have to prove to the police that a baby is yours.
    Easy.... Birth certificate. And you did nothing wrong so they can't charge you. I'm LE I know .
    Honest question here, is a birth certificate really proof that a baby is yours? Like you could easily show someone a random baby with a birth certificate that's real. 
    Like if you have a baby but were trying to kidnap a baby who is similarly aged wouldn't it be easy to show them the birth certificate you have for your actual child and pass it off as belonging to the kidnapped child?
    This right here is why parents should get thier child a passport. Olive has hers mostly because we go to canada so frequently. Babies can travel to canada on just a birth certificate if both parents hold a passport and are present. But having one, a photo ID for my baby, is really reassuring. Because stuff like this DOES happen. 
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  • theawc42theawc42 member
    groovylocks said:
    taysun said:
    theawc42 said:
    LaceyH13 said:
    theawc42 said:
    Honestly i would have just left. He can't stop you. The only he can do is call the police. Then it would get delt with later. 
    This seems like a terrible idea. It's one thing to have Chuck E Cheese security involved. It's another to have to prove to the police that a baby is yours.
    Easy.... Birth certificate. And you did nothing wrong so they can't charge you. I'm LE I know .
    Honest question here, is a birth certificate really proof that a baby is yours? Like you could easily show someone a random baby with a birth certificate that's real. 
    Like if you have a baby but were trying to kidnap a baby who is similarly aged wouldn't it be easy to show them the birth certificate you have for your actual child and pass it off as belonging to the kidnapped child?
    This right here is why parents should get thier child a passport. Olive has hers mostly because we go to canada so frequently. Babies can travel to canada on just a birth certificate if both parents hold a passport and are present. But having one, a photo ID for my baby, is really reassuring. Because stuff like this DOES happen. 
    Exactly and on the southern border they don't even require children under 16 to have even a photo ID. All they need is a birth certificate unfortunately 
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  • BrookeBrown2015BrookeBrown2015 member
    I am surprised they gave you a paper. I don't see why they couldn't have still stamped your baby's hand while you were wearing him or her. Maybe next time you could ask them to do that?
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  • blended10blended10 member
    I recently took my kids to chuck e cheese & was wearing my lo - they put a sticker on my carrier w/ the invisible ink number. So fwiw I think not all cec give you a piece of paper 
    when we go to indoor playplaces they have actually put the number on her 
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  • steffnstuffsteffnstuff member
    edited March 2016
    I thought about all of the issues you ladies have mentioned after the fact. I even thought about showing him pictures in my phone to prove she was mine, but it was at that point that it also crossed my mind what a pp said about how one is to know that even though it is that child I'm showing, that the child wasn't still previously kidnapped.

    I wouldn't have minded a stamp on the baby, but I can see where some mom's might have an issue with that if their baby had sensitive skin or something. A sticker sounds like a great idea. @blended10 maybe you're right. Maybe not all of them do stickers. 
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  • beccabeeeebeccabeeee member
    @steffnstuff just adding to your last post, I think it would probably be much simpler to do a stamp or even a pin of some sort to stick to your bag. I know here they do stickers, usually on the car seat... Which from what I've seen personally also kind of sucks because the stickers just get stuck all over the car seat handles. But a paper can be easily lost, they should probably put a better plan in place for issues like this
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  • Ancheta3Ancheta3 member
    Next time just stick the paper in your wallet with your ID. That's what I do with parking garage tickets. 
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  • Mother0fDragonsMother0fDragons member
    theawc42 said:
    LaceyH13 said:
    theawc42 said:
    Honestly i would have just left. He can't stop you. The only he can do is call the police. Then it would get delt with later. 
    This seems like a terrible idea. It's one thing to have Chuck E Cheese security involved. It's another to have to prove to the police that a baby is yours.
    Easy.... Birth certificate. And you did nothing wrong so they can't charge you. I'm LE I know .
    Who carries their children's birth certificate with them at all times? If it's an emergency situation, who would have the time to go home and get it? Also like @taysun said, is a birth certificate really going to prove that the baby is yours and that you didn't kidnapp the baby?
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  • theawc42theawc42 member
    Mother0fDragons said:
    theawc42 said:
    LaceyH13 said:
    theawc42 said:
    Honestly i would have just left. He can't stop you. The only he can do is call the police. Then it would get delt with later. 
    This seems like a terrible idea. It's one thing to have Chuck E Cheese security involved. It's another to have to prove to the police that a baby is yours.
    Easy.... Birth certificate. And you did nothing wrong so they can't charge you. I'm LE I know .
    Who carries their children's birth certificate with them at all times? If it's an emergency situation, who would have the time to go home and get it? Also like @taysun said, is a birth certificate really going to prove that the baby is yours and that you didn't kidnapp the baby?
    Like I said earlier it's your decision to sit around and wait when you have another child that has an emergency . It's my decision to leave and figure it out later when I have time knowing I won't be charged with anything . And unfortunetly a birth certificate is what this country has deemed necessary to prove birth. No one said anything about carrying it around with you all the time. 
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  • taysuntaysun member
    theawc42 said:
    Mother0fDragons said:
    theawc42 said:
    LaceyH13 said:
    theawc42 said:
    Honestly i would have just left. He can't stop you. The only he can do is call the police. Then it would get delt with later. 
    This seems like a terrible idea. It's one thing to have Chuck E Cheese security involved. It's another to have to prove to the police that a baby is yours.
    Easy.... Birth certificate. And you did nothing wrong so they can't charge you. I'm LE I know .
    Who carries their children's birth certificate with them at all times? If it's an emergency situation, who would have the time to go home and get it? Also like @taysun said, is a birth certificate really going to prove that the baby is yours and that you didn't kidnapp the baby?
    Like I said earlier it's your decision to sit around and wait when you have another child that has an emergency . It's my decision to leave and figure it out later when I have time knowing I won't be charged with anything . And unfortunetly a birth certificate is what this country has deemed necessary to prove birth. No one said anything about carrying it around with you all the time. 
    Yeah but proving birth has nothing to do with proving a child is yours. When a child goes missing and is then recovered after a long time the police don't go "oh okay you have a birth certificate I guess this kid is yours". They test DNA. I'm not saying it isn't possible they'd accept a birth certificate but who knows if you'd end up having to get DNA tested? I'm just playing devils advocate here. 
    For those reasons we will have a set of fingerprints and a dna sample for DD in our safe. My parents have those things for me and themselves. I don't mess around with that sort of thing. 
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  • theawc42theawc42 member
    That would be up to the cop to decide if getting dna samples is necssacery . A child wasn't reported missing. A child hasn't been kidnapped. Before you leave u could say to the employee listen I can't find your stupid piece of paper. I'm leaving I have another child with an emergency. Heres my info here's where I'll be .call the cops I don't care but I'm leaving . Cop shows up looks at cameras , gets all the info from you. Should be cut and dry. Any one who does their job right should know that theirs no kidnapping situation 
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