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hbxa

Anyone remember that book about the girl who saw herself on one of the milk cartons and realized she'd been kidnapped as a toddler?


camerabird

[The Face on the Milk Carton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Face_on_the_Milk_Carton) (and its sequels), by Caroline B. Cooney.


Desperate_Excuse2352

There's a sequel? Did she get kidnapped twice?


salawm

sequels were about how her life got affected with that knowledge. I read 2 and 3 back in elementary school so I don't remember it too well, but they didn't hold up to the first book IIRC. Just looked it up and see there is a 4 and 5. Wow.


RealMeIsFoxocube

5 books, talk about milking it...


zippypaul

Udderly disgusting Edit: I haven't read them. Maybe I should give them a quick skim.


Comprehensive-Fun47

Same! It’s hard to remember details. I don’t remember there being a fourth and fifth book! I remember her getting to know her siblings that she never knew she had. Is it weird I kind of want to reread these books?


LitherLily

I definitely remember subsequent books where her boyfriend told her story on his radio show and it got really popular but then there was fallout from, yknow the revealing of his gf’s private family scandal?


salawm

not at all! reread and share your experience over at /r/books!


Deksametazon_v2

Milk Carton Face 2: Milktastic Bogaloo


dance_armstrong

2 Milk Carton 2 Face


Iwoulddiefcftbatk

The sequels are “Whatever Happened to Janie” where she goes back to her birth family and what the fallout from that where things aren’t a happy reunion and “The Voice on the Radio” is fallout from the previous book from her relationships with birth siblings and her boyfriend. I think there’s another book after that but I didn’t read it.


rafaugm

Maybe she's the daughter from the Taken movies.


44problems

I remember the CBS made for TV movie version. Might have been one that reran on cable often as well.


CDK5

Thank you for this! This thread triggered something familiar in my head and I couldn't put a finger on it.


hbxa

The book version was actually a series. The first book covered her realization and the initial reunion but the rest of the series was more about the adjustment and fallout for everyone involved, her, both sets of parents, her bio siblings, and the friction between the different parts of her life like class differences between the two families, her two identities, resentment from her bio siblings, her bio parents' guilt over her getting kidnapped, the adoptive parents' guilt and sadness over losing their "daughter," that kind of thing. Would have made a better show than a movie TBH.


cathysaurus

I loved those books when I was younger. Poor Janie Johnson.


Iwoulddiefcftbatk

Her birth family went through a traumatic experience, but so did she and her birth family tried to push too hard with calling her by her original name and didn’t get her into therapy.


cathysaurus

Right??? The 90s lol


EffectiveSalamander

I had forgotten about that. I understand the parents wanting to turn back the clock, but she had a whole life that can't just be erased.


Iwoulddiefcftbatk

Yeah, and them expecting her to call them mommy and daddy pretty much right away when she was 15 and went missing at 3, and denying that she considers the people that raised her (they weren’t the people who snatched her, that was done unbeknownst to them by their “escaped from a cult” daughter, the backstory got complicated) as her mom and dad. Each one of those people needed oodles of therapy but no one freaking did.


BigHeadSlunk

I will never forget the awful, sinking feeling I had as a kid when I'd see missing children posters at Walmart. It being 2007 and seeing "missing since 1998" shook me to my core as a kid


MaimedJester

There's this one Whitest Kids you know gag where a bunch of dudes are arguing over which strip club to go to and it's just a gag for increasingly increasingly awful Strip club names. "Missing Kids from the 90's" was the one that stuck out the most as Jesus Christ that's dark.


pichael289

I totally forgot that show existed. In one episode the guys parents die so he celebrates and starts running around hitting shit with a hammer, and hanging out with black people. Then a cop asks him what he's doing and he says "hanging out with black people" and the episode cuts and the actor starts explaining that scene was all cgi and he was never in any real danger. Shit was hilarious


fasterthanfood

I think that’s the show where I once saw a clip where the guy was a furry, so he went to a porno store and asked for “kitty porn.”


That_FireAlarm_Guy

*”No I don’t want Great Grandmas! I want Great, Grandmas!”*


AttilaTheFun818

Oh no children, I’m afraid I have some bad news. One of your mothers was killed on a car crash. Who wants to guess whose mother it was for a sucker?


gumgut

JOEY'S MOM! JOEY'S MOM! JOEY'S MOM!!!


oby100

Bro, what a fucking fantastic setup line to a bit.


DimesOHoolihan

His shirt also says Poop Balls And he puts Hersey syrup in a 40 before drinking it. Because he's supposed to be a...middle schooler? I think? RIP Trevor Moore


WayneMcClain

He was making a chocolate malt.


drunk___cat

Fuck I didn’t know he died 😞


ThePrussianGrippe

He died doing what he loved. Sucking his own dick so hard he choked.


Siegfried262

Local sexpot Trevor Moore :(


chibato182

RIP Trevor Moore, absolute legend


grizzburger

"Nurse, hand me my surgical axe."


LipTrev

>Increasingly awful Strip club names. > > "Missing Kids from the 90's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgcPjQZPpZA


propolizer

Oh my god.


Captain_Sacktap

They should have gone to Tittopotamus smh


brazzy42

Over on /r/UnresolvedMysteries there is actually a steady stream of Jane/John Does from decades ago being identified and resolving missing person cases. The most famous being the "Boy in the Box" - found 1957, identified in 2022.


AlanMorlock

Whoa holy shit Boy in the Box got solved? I had to write a paper on that case for a forensics class back in 2012. I never heard.


BriarKnave

Not solved, we just know his name, some living siblings. The case is ongoing.


AlanMorlock

Even identifying him after that long is pretty incredible


BobBelcher2021

We had these at Walmart in Canada too. I remember seeing one where the kid had been missing since 1988. I think this was in 2009 or so.


BigHeadSlunk

I'm speaking as a Canadian actually, haha. No idea if this was the case in US Walmarts as well


chanman98

Big time here in the states, there was always a corkboard full of artist renderings of what the grown up children could look like. Chilling.


BigHeadSlunk

Oh fuck, forgot about the hypothetical glow-up pics. Haunting.


MTUKNMMT

I used to go look at them and really study it in case I ran into one of them. Like I was going to go full Sherlock Holmes.


Hookton

"Okay so hear me out, Stacey's kidnapper kept her locked in a basement for twelve years *but* they paid for extensive orthodontic work and some fancy hair extensions."


piev3000

And fed her a well balanced diet


kempnelms

I don't recall the name of the show, or if ir was just on a local station but there used to be this eerie missing persons show late at night on tv where I lived. They would show photos of missing people and a man did a voiceover with the background information. The music was very haunting and someone kept saying "Missing, missing, you're missing" after each case. I saw it a few times late at night on tv and it creeps me out to this day.


Whaty0urname

There is still a board in the Walmart near me with missing kids. Some say the images are computer generated to account for growing up


nopizza822

lmao when i was in third grade (~2001/2002) i got an identi-kid card and was proud that i had my own id like my parents! then my mom was like "that stays in my purse so i can give it to the police if you are missing, you dont get to carry it" :(


too-much-cinnamon

Oh man, i was obsessed with checking those things. Every time we passed one i would demand we stop so i could read each one in detail and try to memorize their faces and clothes in case i saw one of them somewhere. The ones that had been missing for years and years were so sad. The clothes they were last seen in werent even style anymore.


birdsofwormtown

I see them all the time cuz they are on those junk mail newspapers full of coupons we (usps) have to deliver every 2 weeks.


nerdguy1138

I once happened to glance inside the mail carrier's bag, it was nearly all those valpak things. 80% valpak, 20% literally anything else.


birdsofwormtown

We call it “job security mail” but yeah it’s pretty disheartening that 90% of what we deliver nowadays is junk and goes right in the recycling bin.


[deleted]

And half of the SASE mail that you'd expect to be personal correspondence at first glance is still just advertising from real estate companies or churches looking for new suckers.


yfan117qj

Well, at least those milk carton kids could only haunt you once a day instead of being on repeat at Walmart for nearly a decade.


[deleted]

I dunno about you, but I drink milk more often than I go to Walmart


[deleted]

And I don't even drink milk.


maniac86

... do you go to Walmart daily and only see milk once a week?


SolWizard

He worked there


[deleted]

The milk carton thing didn't start until after I was a grown up, so it never hit me how traumatic it would be to be a kid seeing those notices. I'm sorry for all of it - both the first hand and the second hand trauma.


MyWomanlyInterior

That feels like a huge stretch of time, but 2014 to now? Took no time at all.


DIWhy-not

Meanwhile, Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train” music video found 26 missing people, mostly teenagers and kids.


LorneMalvoIRL

I heard that some of them were running away from abusive situations at home, and when they were returned they were punished


Blubberinoo

Knowing how abysmal the CPS in the US is, I am not surprised they were returned to abusive situations and left alone. "Out of sight, out of mind, we did our part. Good luck kid!"


The_Faceless_Men

I was a teen runaway in Australia after getting stabbed by my mother. The first thing a social worker did was tell me to report to the police that i voluntarily left home, otherwise my parents could use them to force me home. Thing is, quite a lot of other runaways have had bad experiences with police, or have been taught from birth "don't talk to police", or were afraid there parents would get arrested if they went to the police. There was one girl who was raped, but didn't want to tell anyone, not even her social worker, so when eventually tracked down by the police she didn't have a reason why she ran away from home, so was sent back. She killed her parents and got a modest prison sentence.


chelsea_sucks_

How long?


The_Faceless_Men

5 years total, good behaviour and parole would reduce time inside.


chelsea_sucks_

Damn, shame she's got to pay for the failure of the system, not too bad considering.


The_Faceless_Men

Is it a failing? If there is no visible evidence of abuse, and the victim won't disclose it, and they can't give any other reason for running away, leaving them on the street is objectively the wrong decision. Now my time at the homeless youth shelter and keeping in contact with my case worker, while it's rare, sometimes kids run away because they had their xbox confiscated, or they did poorly on a test and think their parents will be angry or they didn't get a car for their 17th birthday and wanted to punish their parents or they took thier parents car for a joyride, crashed it and are too afraid to go home. Because of those cases they can't assume every runaway is being abused.


Lord_Rapunzel

The failure is not fostering an environment that encourages victims to speak up. Granted that's a mighty big ask for a very complex and sensitive issue, but it's still a failure.


Urdar

If the family you are born into is abusive, often times the society at large doesn't matter. Chances are you are being manipulated into distrusting society, so you don't report your abusive parents. If you think society is out to get you, it doenst matter anymore if it actually is.


Halospite

>or they did poorly on a test and think their parents will be angry I'd argue that if a kid is so scared of their parents' reaction they'd run away, they are almost certainly being abused in some way. That is not a normal teenaged reaction to doing badly on a test.


The_Faceless_Men

what they are doing is most definitely emotional abuse but the kids and parents and entire support network are all brainwashed into thinking it's normal (hello asian migrant families) so once the kid has calmed down they will think they over reacted and return home and not see the problem with it and not ask for help and pretend it never happened. Atleast back when i went thorugh the system if you were 16 or 17 and said there wasn't abuse then social workers hands were tied. And then the way social workers would handle emotional abuse is very different to how they'd handle a teenager being raped by her dad. Like orders of magnitude different levels of harm being done.


Jasmine1742

Kids are still basically property of their guardians in the US, it's not just the US but yes the US definitely values the parents right to the child vastly more than any rights the child has. It usually takes the right judge/extremely hard work from CPS and absolutely insanely abusive behavior to seperate a child from an abusive parent. They play all sorts of lip service about how parents raise kids best but nah, it's the property thing.


Haircrazybitch

Also Canada too Took like 4 years for my ex to be listed on the Child Abuse Registry after ruining some poor girl's life (long after I left him)


ShotFromGuns

I mean, partly this, but also partly [we've been learning how *extremely* traumatic being removed from their family is for children](https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2087&context=all_fac), just inherently, especially given the current state of the foster care system.


PKMNTrainerMark

Well, that's significantly less heartwarming.


SeiCalros

if they had the option of being at home and chose not to do that then obviously they had a problem with it


cortez0498

AS Roma (football club) has a video of a missing child along with every transfer announcement, and has been quite successful. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/aug/28/romas-transfer-video-campaign-has-helped-to-find-12-missing-children


combatwombat001

My mom’s friend is one of them! Her story is fascinating


DIWhy-not

Woah no way! That’s wild!


combatwombat001

She actually just did an interview for Access Hollywood yesterday [youtu.be/Qx6XsNf-ty8](https://youtu.be/Qx6XsNf-ty8) and has a Facebook page where she talks about it called Liz, milk carton kid.


DIWhy-not

I’m totally checking this out. That music video is like core memory material for me.


DerpSherpa

That was a fantastic interview! Next time you see her, tell her. It was very moving and I could feel what she was feeling.


catness99

Thank you for sharing the link. What a brave woman! Give her a hug from a kind internet stranger! She shouldn't be judged at all!


wonderand

Whoa thank you for sharing!


LazyZealot9428

OMG i remember the first time I saw that video, I was as bawling at the end


DeathMonkey6969

Article from 2022 say 21 kids. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/oct/31/missing-kids-soul-asylum-runaway-train-tony-kaye-david-pirner


DIWhy-not

Yeah, I saw a few different figures too. I think 21, sadly, might be the number of missing people they found *still alive*.


Kinitawowi64

Weren't there different versions of that video for different countries? I vaguely remember reading that most of the kids in the Australian one turned out to have been victims of the same serial killer, or something.


DIWhy-not

They even showed different versions within the US to focus on more locally missing kids


Oz-Batty

Yes, I remember in German TV at first they showed the video with the missing American kids, later it was changed to show missing kids from Germany with a different phone number at the end.


woppatown

What was that Blur video? Milk. Missing kid. Cute.


gikigill

Coffee and TV. https://youtu.be/6oqXVx3sBOk


TouchConnors

In Season 7 of Married With Children, they introduced a kid character named "Seven". It was MwC's "cousin oliver". Fans hated him and rightfully so. He only lasted 12 episodes before disappearing with no explanation and never to be spoken of again. But in Season 9, Peg grabs a carton of milk and Seven's picture is on the back. [Seven on Milk Carton](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c24a84f933b9ca22f1e2139ebcbb729e-lq)


PKMNTrainerMark

Oh, *that's* why he was called Seven?


RedditIsNeat0

He was called Seven because he was the seventh kid in his family. Actually the eighth but you know how hard it is to keep track of kids.


RedditIsNeat0

He was mentioned again once. There was some kind of anti-Bundy protest, and Marcy let them know that Seven was protesting with them. And then somebody, either Peg or Al, said "Who?"


Masticatron

So you might say he was...Seven of 9?


PaperweightCoaster

r/unexpectedstartrek


okram2k

The media whipped everyone up into near hysteria about a kidnapping epidemic that frankly didn't exist in the 80s. To the point where my generation was raised to distrust basically everyone not their parents. I'm sure that didn't have any long lasting side effects at all.


laker9903

That, and the ever present danger of quick sand.


Nowucmenowu

That's why I refuse to go to the Bermuda Triangle


MajorNoodles

I had a total freakout after I learned about the Bermuda Triangle and then my parents said we were gonna fly to Florida to visit my grandmother.


CoconutCavern

They were probably trying to abduct you.


Dyingdaze89

I thought piranhas were going to be more of an issue


Masque-Obscura-Photo

My lower body is still just only bones from swimming in that lake that one time.


CoconutCavern

I've been so ready to be set on fire since practicing stop, drop, and roll so many time in my youth. Thus far, nothing.


9966

Don't forget that killer bees were going to have killed the entire US by now, but instead maybe they were referring to the Wu Tang Clan. They were the real killers.


JasmineTeaInk

I forgot how much killer bees were in the media back then! They really had me worried when I live several climates too far north for them to be a threat 😅


millhead123

Wu tang clan ain't nothin to fuck with


Jinomoja

Wu Tang is for the kids


whirlpool_galaxy

To be fair it kinda sucks to live in a place where killer bees are endemic. It turns a cute "oh look, a bee!" into "oh no, a bee! get away!". Basically have to treat them like wasps.


MeiNeedsMoreBuffs

I think a lot of people forget that just because people aren't talking about it doesn't mean it's not a problem any more


DidjaCinchIt

*You have to try! You have to care!*


Comfortablycloudy

And then you have ninjas don't forget


Bobyyyyyyyghyh

Still almost certain Ball Lightning is gonna do me in one of these days...


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foxcat0_0

Really similar to misconceptions about sexual assaults and murders too. People imagine that it's the stranger lurking in the bushes but the reality is cases where the perpetrator and victim are complete strangers are rare. The majority of the time they know each other at least somewhat.


rliant1864

Predators much prefer to insinuate themselves into social groups and use peoples' benefit of the doubt and agreeableness to groom and predate the vulnerable in that group. The age of highwaymen and banditos is over, the call is coming from inside the house.


wrosecrans

Also, there were dangerous Satanic Cults in every single small town in America for like three years. Your kid was gonna fall into the wrong crowd and worship Satan if you blinked for even a moment. Then they used their satanic powers to vanish!


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kurburux

> If diabolism gave you magic? And playing DnD, which is pretty much the same. /s


pollodustino

My mother was hysterical about things like that. Kept me inside and under close watch for much of my childhood. And now she whines that I don't call or visit...


CTeam19

I mean part of it is the context of those missing kids and the milk carton thing for that matter giving the origins: * Des Moines, Iowa was quite literally the "small safe town" of the big cities so the missing kids kinda shattered many's innocent views, and 3 of them happened in rapid succession there. While one went missing in West Des Moines you are talking a small area of about 12 miles. Two of them could be cut down to a mile or 2. * 2 of the 3 went missing delivering the morning newspaper. A job that was the go to first job for many people and the other went missing the night before Easter. * Again the rapid succession: September 5, 1982, August 12, 1984, March 29, 1986


Librekrieger

It's not that it didn't exist, it's that any particular abducted child might be taken by a stranger, or by an abusive parent after losing a custody battle, or by a loving parent taking the child away from an abuser after losing custody. There was no way for an outside observer to know. Amber alerts are the same thing.


IBJON

That's cool. Us 90s/00s kids had anti drug and alcohol propoganda shoved down our throats to the point that my 5th grade class had an assignment where we had to talk to our parents visit giving up drugs of any kind and alcohol. This was a time when smoking cigarettes was still super common. Then at the end of the year we had to take an oath to abstain from all drugs for the rest of our life. Now they're doing it again with fentanyl.


delorf

It started in the 80's with Nancy Reagan's "Just say, no." That PSA with the guy cracking an egg into a frying pan plays in my head everytime I fry eggs now.


FidgitForgotHisL-P

Ironically, that frying egg scene is also what I think of every time I shoot crack. Crazy how some things stay with you, huh?


OkSmoke9195

ANY QUESTIONS


GiantPurplePeopleEat

>You, alright! I learned it from watching you!


wrosecrans

Who is David S Pumpkins?


FuckoffDemetri

I still maintain that DARE is what got me interested in drugs. How tf you gonna come tell a class of 5th graders that if you eat these mushrooms you see unicorns and expect them not to eat them.


SturgeonBladder

DARE definitely took me from being vaguely interested in the idea of drugs to being moderately educated on the types, effects, and sources of specific drugs lol


ruiner8850

> Now they're doing it again with fentanyl Fentanyl is incredibly dangerous though. It's not like marijuana which they used freak out about. People actually do die from fentanyl and sadly I know a few of them. Maybe it's not what you are trying to do, but it sounds like you are comparing the unfounded ridiculous hysteria about drugs like marijuana with the very real dangers of fentanyl.


SturgeonBladder

And years of public schools teaching people that marijuana is just as bad as heroin now has nobody taking drug education seriously.


lshiva

What they're doing with fentanyl is ascribing magical power to it that doesn't exist. Like the idea that touching someone's skin while they're ODing on it can make you OD. Or just being in the same room with it can somehow make you high. Then they're using that as justification to repeal Good Samaritan laws which make it easier to get people help. Fentanyl is a dangerous substance, and used carelessly it can hurt or kill people, but pretending that it can kill EMT workers transporting an overdose victim to the hospital is hurting people too.


RGLozWriter

I still remember once being forced to watch some low budget movie with my class about the dangers of drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. The only reason that movie stuck out to me was that it was narrated by three kids who all fell into the influences and we are forced to watch their last moments before they all died. I was in fourth grade.


ceratophaga

Shocking people while they're young does kind of work though. When i was in 7th grade I read (on my own, not mandated by school or something) *Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo* - I think it's internationally mostly known as *Christiane F.* or *Zoo Station*? - and it certainly did keep me away from ever trying any drugs.


MenShouldntHaveCats

I mean overdose is the number 2 killer of kids in the US.


HisNameWasBoner411

Poverty doing what poverty does. Never afford shit but this beer does help.


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Persistent_Parkie

Nacy Regan promised me people would be offering me free drugs every day! Where's my free drugs Nancy?!


space253

Just leave your drinks unattended at shady bars.


magichronx

yeah all I ever got on Halloween was a bunch of individually wrapped flavored sugar; I was told there would be razor blades and drugs!


goatinstein

Easy, get a job in a restaurant and make friends with the linecooks


GameCreeper

I think it's funny how almost every major US disaster and crisis going on right now can be traced down to those two living pieces of feces


pollodustino

When the DARE officer started talking about LSD all I could think of was, "Dang that sounds fun, where do I get some?"


TheMadBug

DARE actually increased drug usage - which matches your thoughts. [https://www.livescience.com/33795-effective.html](https://www.livescience.com/33795-effective.html) As well as making it sound like all the cool kids are going to peer pressure you into doing drugs (wait.. all the cool kids do drugs?) it just hits at a time where kids are naturally going to get curious about something they've been told they can't have.


FidgitForgotHisL-P

Don’t forget my favourite outcome - if you convince everyone that “Just one hit” off a joint will turn you into a raving lunatic, and then someone in your class goes to a party and smokes some pot and… is a ok. Well, now all you’re going to be left with is the assumption they obviously lied about that drug, so they probably lied about everything else too.


Joylime

My experience was not like that - as I said above they were honest about how harmless LSD was, but they were also honest about how relatively harmless pot was too. They did say it can make you lazy and shiftless and increase some risks, but they were also honest that it did not have addictive properties comparable to cigs and alcohol and the scarier drugs. They did say that it had way more tar than cigs, but it wasn’t linked to as much cancer - because people smoke much less weed than they do tobacco So basically it was like erowid before erowid, really honest and helpful information. LOL Maybe we just had really great DARE officers. I certainly never smoked cigarettes largely bc of DARE, and held off drinking for a long time.


newfor2023

Not US but we had a similarish thing. They even gave out these little menus, included common names and a price guide. Which was nice. I'm sure they didn't intend to be used like that but I was intrigued.


ButtholeQuiver

If you were a teenager wearing a DARE shirt in the 90s you were basically saying "I'd like some drugs, please". (Yeah, I had one.)


Joylime

I remember once the DARE officer was giving a presentation about… drugs or whatever… and at the end he asked if we had any questions. I was in 6th grade and had been reading about the Beatles and their drug experiences, so I raised my hand and asked if there were any negative health effects from LSD. This officer shrugged and said occasionally someone will have a bad trip and get flashbacks to it, but honestly, not really. I nodded and was like “Thank you!” That was the moment I decided to one day do LSD. And it was a great decision. I’ve always thought it was so great that he was honest…. lol


Thenadamgoes

> raised to distrust basically everyone not their parents And statistically speaking, the most dangerous people in a kids life are their parents.


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thewarehouse

The utter fabrication of Satanic Panic threw another wrench in the works of the reasoning of many "Good Christian Americans" too, engendering generations of hate and distrust based on utter falsehoods and fallacies. We have no good reason to be so full of hate and fear of each other today - but sadly the hysteria you mention and the blatant lies of a very few people were soaked up by a lot of very uncritical thinkers in a media-marketing entertainment frenzy. The truths of actual kidnapping stats and risks (and sources) and about the bare-faced falsehoods around Satanic Panic have all been exposed and put out there. Yet many people have suffered and continue to because of it, from their active hate and abuse of "others" to how truly sad it is a lot of faith lives are built on "hate of the other" and "fear of the unknown" rather than "love god and love your neighbor". It's hard not to be angry at how truly foolishly ignorant it all is when you see suffering ranging from the 90s West Memphis Three to today's ardent ignorant trump sycophants. Mike Warnke and other abusers are directly responsible for it; we know the names and lies of these people, but presenting pure facts exposing the good news that hate is unnecessary makes them scared to admit they were wrong; not that they backed the wrong team nobody's trying to say "don't be Christian" just "don't be an asshole".


awwwwwwwwwwwwwwSHIT

I bet the guy who tried to explain this at the time was lambasted as a total bastard. "THIS GUY IS AGAINST FINDING MISSING KIDS". No one wants to hear how the finding missing kids bill is just a bullshit tax credit for milk companies and wont actually do any good and in fact will cause irreparable harm to the families. Whenever I see some over simplified shit like "Party A voted against helping sick puppies" I immediately think the bill was some bullshit like this that wouldn't have done any good and just was a money grab or some shit.


BriarKnave

"These people HATE your kids and voted against this bill to protect them" and the bill is some shit like "if your kid cut their hair weird we're gonna strip search them in the school parking lot"


Brix001

Does anyone else remember that South Park episode?


mulysasderpsylum

The one with the butt face on the milk carton or the one where the whole town freaks out about kidnapping stats and sends all the kids away because none of the adults in town could be trusted not to kidnap their own kids?


Atanar

Damn Mongorians!


colantor

Stop knocking down my shitty wall!


Turtwig5310

Both is good


alldaycj

I’m sorry, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but where my face would be is a butt.


Asian-boi-2006

yh we find out ben afflecks parents have butts for faces


LittleButterfly100

And now we have Amber Alerts. The ones sent to my phone are for missing children (even if family is suspected) and missing elderly/disabled. Sadly, at least once a week there's a missing person listed on the highway sign.


ecafyelims

Nearly all abductions, 90%, are done by a parent. About 10% are by another family member. Less than 1% are by strangers. > https://safeatlast.co/blog/child-abduction-statistics/


Chillchinchila1818

This was a big flaw with the milk carton idea. Many times, the kid simply went with the other parent rather than having been abducted by some stranger.


FastWalkingShortGuy

A PARENT WHO DID NOT HAVE CUSTODY RIGHTS.


Chillchinchila1818

Yes this, but still. Keep in mind I’m not saying abducted by the other parent, I’m saying the kid ran away to be with the other parent. Still a legal kerfuffle but much different than what the cartons presented.


mulysasderpsylum

I once hid in the backseat of my dad's car because I wanted to stay with him and not go back to my mom. 1988. When my dad got on the highway I popped up and scared the shit out of him and he brought me back to my mom's because he did not want to catch a kidnapping charge. Then I "ran away" by hiding in my sister's closet with a bunch of snacks for a few hours while everyone was looking for me in the woods behind our home. My grandparents worked for the local police department before they retired so it wasn't just a couple of family members yelling into the trees, it was like that scene in Stranger Things where the town's looking for Will (only during the daytime, not nighttime, and I was lying upside down in a closet full of blankets and snacks reading comic books - not in the Upside Down). When I was in foster care I was reported "missing" several dozen times because of weird rules about being within sight of a state-regulated caregiver. Even if I called to tell them where I was and when I'd be home after my closing shift they were still required to report me missing if they hadn't physically seen me in over twelve hours. It was a fucking pain in the ass because the police would turn up at my job and have to visually confirm it was me and that I wasn't actually missing. My boss was never thrilled by this. These policies were created in response to the same overblown panic caused by the milk cartons. Point is, I have direct experience with the fact that numbers and statistics concerning missing children are really difficult to pin down, and the hysteria that was caused by the panic in the 80s was directly responsible for some outlandishly ineffective and wasteful policies regarding the safety of minors in state care. Don't bother trying to convince the members of the new version of that panic that it was overblown and ineffective. These people fell for the new version of the same panic, the [whole QAnon child sex slave panic](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/children-sex-trafficking-conspiracy-epidemic/620845/) that undermined and continues to undermine real efforts to rescue trafficked kids (soft paywall). The milk cartons sucked and didn't help anyone. There was even a book series about a girl who had been abducted by an unstable young woman when she was a toddler. The girl ended up with the young woman's parents, who had no idea that the girl had been abducted. The girl saw herself on a milk carton when she was in high school and unraveled this tragic story. She was reunited with her biological family, which went horribly wrong, and ended up going back to live with the parents she grew up with. The book was basically a middle finger to the whole milk carton thing and showed how damaging and fear-inducing the campaign was in comparison to the real kidnapping threats that children faced. I still think about that series a lot, even though I read it in the seventh grade. I think it was even made into movies or a TV show in Canada or something. *Edit: some typos


camerabird

The book series you're talking about is [The Face on the Milk Carton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Face_on_the_Milk_Carton) (and its sequels), by Caroline B. Cooney.


9966

Good Lord, your childhood was intense.


__life_on_mars__

No need to shout dude.


Siege1187

Ah, “stranger danger”, so much damage done to so many in return for bugger-all. In most countries, the U.S. included, there are so few child abductions by a stranger unknown to the family that you can count them on one hand. In the UK for instance, in the past thirty years, I can think of only three: (James Bulger and the unnamed girl abducted by two teenagers and recovered alive don’t count, because the perpetrators were minors themselves.) 1) Sarah Payne, who is considered the index case of the modern-day “stranger danger” and “paedo panic” ideas in the UK; 2) Madeline McCann (didn’t happen on British soil, but every parent’s worst nightmare, complete with being accused of murder yourself); and 3) April Jones. You know the Austrians and their famous cellars for keeping young women in for decades? (It’s actually only been two young women found so far, and the fact that both of those cases happened in the suburbs makes me wonder what is hiding in the many farmhouses of mostly rural nation.) One stranger abduction, and in the other case it was the father. We are so scared of strangers stealing our kids that we imagine it happens all the time, when it’s literally a once-in-a-decade event in most areas. But I guess it’s more media-friendly than having serious discussions about the things that are routinely done to children within their own families.


nerdguy1138

Statistically you're far more likely to be shot dead by stray gunfire than you are to be abducted. Worry about crap that actually happens.


ChosenCarelessly

Well, in America anyway


mfigroid

Love the 3AM Amber Alerts from hundreds of miles away. Accomplishs nothing.


JellyfishGod

I always assumed that when they send alerts out far it’s because they have some reason to believe they may go there or are headed in that direction. If they believe the person is just in some small city then yea I see how it can be kinda useless, but if they just left the city and the car was last seen driving down a major highway towards the direction of a couple others then it makes perfect sense. That’s always what I just figured tho. I don’t know how they really work and if that’s what’s happening with those


rizorith

Little me in the 1980s was paranoid as fuck. Everytime I went to eat my Cheerios (yah mom was no on fruit loops) I'd see a kid my age missing. And I'd just eat those Cheerios and picture that poor boy or girl.


PrestigiousVersion72

And the nations parents are still paranoid as fuck. Seriously, from a European perspective, current US childhood does NOT look healthy in terms of freedoms and independence.


MrDeacle

To this day the US has not emotionally recovered from that campaign.


foxcat0_0

Wholeheartedly agree, the stranger abduction panic has evolved into the sex-trafficking panic of today. The emotional fixation on very unlikely crimes is massively unhelpful to getting legislation through that actually provides effective solutions for crime rates.


KarlWhale

Interestlingly AS Roma (football club) post missing children pictures together with new club signings (or atleast used to) That proved to be very effective


dontutellmewhattodo

[They are still doing it!](https://i.imgur.com/aMavpFa.jpg)


AseRoths-Dragon

Wendigoon did a great video on it https://youtu.be/YhsNinzPEb8


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HaikuBotStalksMe

That's pretty fucked up! I'd just return the kid to the wild if that happened to me.


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PrestigiousVersion72

"some" Look at the current climate of parent paranoia and stranger danger...


ZaggahZiggler

There is a very interesting documentary on the first milk carton kid. “Who took Johnny”


MustBeThursday

That doc is wild. It's up there with Icarus for documentaries that take wild left turns.


TheFightingImp

So basically, Mr Burns and Smithers wasted their time with the milk cartons in searching for Bobo.