Copyright newsweek
A working mom has relived the heart-stopping moment she went to pick her son up from daycare, only to be told he wasn’t there. Aimee Henderson, from Leicester in the UK, posted a video to her TikTok, @aimeelaura, recalling the moment an otherwise ordinary Wednesday afternoon took an unexpected twist. It started the moment Henderson arrived at her son’s daycare to pick him up. She remembers the member of staff who answered the door that day looking “a little confused” to see her. “I asked which room my son was in today and went to start removing my shoes as they’ve had a new carpet,” Henderson told Newsweek. “She looked quite taken aback and asked who I’d come to collect. I was confused as they usually know where your child is without asking who it is you’re collecting.” Henderson thought the question was “a little odd” but nevertheless told the staff member her son’s name. That’s when things took a wild turn. “She suddenly looked very concerned and told me she hadn’t seen my son today,” Henderson said. “My heart stopped for a moment and my legs turned to jelly.” Henderson suddenly had a million thoughts running through her head. Had she forgotten her partner was supposed to be collecting him? Had she made other arrangements? Then, suddenly, she had a moment of realization. “He was with my mum… at my house… like he is every Wednesday…” she said. Henderson felt a sense of relief wash over her, quickly followed by one of embarrassment as she attempted to quickly navigate her way out of the awkward encounter with the member of staff at her son’s daycare. “I suddenly blurted out how sorry I was and said ‘no you’re right he isn’t here he’s with my mum oh my god I am so so sorry!’” Henderson said. “I felt so guilty as she let out a sigh of relief. I felt so guilty for making her probably internally panic and felt silly for looking so stupid!” Henderson felt embarrassed but immediately saw the funny side. When she got outside she called her mom to explain what happened. “We did have a little laugh,” she said. “I was just so sleep deprived and going through a hard time in my personal life dealing with a loss in the family. Every second of the day and night I have been trying my best to keep things normal for my kids and trying to juggle everything that my mind was in overdrive.” Plenty of fellow parents empathized in the comments accompanying Henderson’s video. “Mom brain is a real thing ! It won’t be the last time,” one user wrote. Another said: “This happened to me as a teacher where a grandma came to collect not knowing her granddaughter hadn’t been in as she was poorly! the heart attack I had.” A third commented: “I had just had my daughter and my eldest had a birthday party. I dropped her too and then forgot to pick her up two hours later.” At the time of writing, Henderson’s TikTok video has been watched 270,000 times. Aimee Henderson shared her story. The bad news for Henderson is that there’s no end in sight to the sleep deprivation. In 2019, a study published in the journal Sleep found that new parents face an average of 6 years of sleep deprivation following the birth of a child. The findings were based on a series of annual face-to-face interviews with adults in Germany between the years 2008 and 2015. Henderson is pretty sure this won’t be the last time something like this happens. In fact, it happened again a couple of days later. “I actually dropped my son at school, then went on to take my youngest to nursery and actually drove straight past it and went straight to work,” she said. “I then went to get out of the car and get my bag for work and realised my little one was still in the car and I hadn’t even dropped him off.” In those moments, Henderson tries to be kind to herself and see the funny side in what happened. She would encourage any parents watching her video to do the same. “The mental load of being a parent can be so overwhelming. Your brain is juggling so many lists, plans, and worries all at once that sometimes it goes into overdrive and you completely blank on the simplest things,” she said. “It’s always better to laugh than cry.”
