That time I forgot to pick up my child from daycare. Awkward.

“Wait, you have a child?”

I get that question a lot, which I’ve come to assume, is because either I (a) give off a totally irresponsible vibe or (b) people are impressed I’ve managed to leave the house in something other than tracksuit pants.

The truth is probably closer to scenario a, and now let me illustrate that point by telling you about the time I forgot to pick up my own child.

Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by Post-it notes. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100% authentic and written in their own words.

Before I became a mother I thought those parents in urban tales (it’s always a friend of a friend of a friend) who leave their children on a bus or at a supermarket were akin to the devil. Surely, it’s impossible to forget you have an offspring I thought. Until that parent was me.

Let me begin by saying in my defence my husband frequently travels and on the weeks he is at home he does the daycare run. And on this particular day I had forgotten he had a late meeting and that I was the one supposed to pick up my daughter.

My daycare and the staff are lovely but they do tend to call the authorities if you are not there at closing time – a fact that has always struck a deep dark fear in me, and meant I usually always arrive well ahead of 6pm.

So on this particular Wednesday afternoon when I forgot to pick up my child, I looked up at the top right hand of my screen, the 5:44 PM time displays and recollection that I was going to be really really late to pick up my daughter culminated in a moment that had me scrambling like this:

and this:

The Mamamia editorial team still hasn’t let me live this one down. I’ll often get a verbal reminder when 5pm rolls around, “Hey Nicky, you have a child remember?” or “Don’t you have to pick up your daughter now?”

It’s left me so guilt-ridden that for weeks after I would set reminders on my iPhone and plaster post-it note memos around my computer screen.

But I’m not the first mother that has forgotten to do the pick-up daycare or school run and even celebrities with all their hired help at hand are guilty of it. Even the immaculately presented Victoria Beckham.

“I got up early with Harper, sorted Harper out, got all the kids their breakfast, got them ready for school, put Harper in the car seat and said, ‘Come on kids, we have to get going or we’re going to be late,’” Beckham, who does the daily school runs with husband David, tells Vanity Fair.

“So I jump in my Range Rover, put the car seat in, put my iPod on — obviously very important — and I drive to school.”

“And then I realise: I’d left Brooklyn (who was 13 at the time) in the kitchen,” she says. “I was driving along, talking away, and all the sudden, I looked at the front seat, and I was like, ‘WAIT! I’ve forgot something!’”

“Harper was in the car, I was in the car, and we were on the way to school. But we did not have the child who needed to go to school.”

At least I’m in good company.

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Have you ever forgotten your child or a loved one anywhere?