Lose Your Luggage, Not Your Kids!

Its so strange to me that we put ID on our luggage, but not our kids. How easy would it be to pull someone’s bag off the airport carousel, learn about that person from their underwear and other personal effects…and then see their address clearly labeled on the bag so you could go there to find more interesting goodies? Meanwhile, we don’t put a single form of ID on our kids who are much more likely to wander off than any piece of luggage I’ve encountered.

In today’s world, we hesitate to do this as we think someone is going to find our child and …bring them back home. Hmmm…is that a bad thing. Well, it can be if we are looking for your toddler in the mall having lost them and some stranger takes them back to your house. However, rather than put an address, how about putting a cell phone number only? The best scenarios is a stranger calls you to tell you to pick up your lost child quickly wherever they are. The worst case is the number is lost or taken and subsequently, you get a lot of unwanted calls on your cell phone. Lost child versus calls I can screen out…why are we so ID-ignorant?

People get freaked out about putting ID on their kids because they are told not to broadcast a child’s name to a potential predator. If you ever talked with a police officer at length, you know a predator doesn’t need the child’s name to harm them. That also goes for ID with the child’s address. Not only doesn’t a child predator typically care where that child lives, but there are much easier ways to find that out. When was the last time you looked in your rear-view mirror to see if anyone tailed you from the supermarket. I doubt it…I doubt you do that and I doubt it happens…but it could. Its like putting extra locks on your doors only to have a thief break a window to get in. Another false sense of security…if they want your child, they will get to them, ID or not.

However, if you child is accidentally lost and needs some help, having a cell phone number on them is hugely beneficial. Your child can then ask for help and get it, without being moved or touched.

Pets can wander off and don’t have the ability to find their way home…so we put ID on them. You probably carry ID when you go out and even our electronic gadgets usually have information that will assist someone else returning lost items back to me safely. However, the most precious thing - our kids - also need ID when we go out away from home. In case they get lost, I want them to have the best chances of being found quickly and safely.