Right around the time when I started to pay a little bit of attention to politics and national issues, George W. Bush was touting his “No Child Left Behind” legislation to help students achieve new levels of success by implementing a variety of sweeping changes to the education system. After a decade or so of mixed outcomes, the policy was adapted into something else that, by my estimation, continues to be lackluster. But I’m not talking about that kind of “no child left behind” today.

Recently, my family and I visited Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida for the first time. We spent the bulk of our time in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and the visit was largely a success. There were the expected meltdowns, complaints, and bickering common in theme parks- between me and my wife of course- but the trip was a good experience. There was one moment that struck me during our visit that brought to light the stark difference between my wife and me.

In any large crowd, parents are highly aware of the risk of losing a child. Like a field of moving corn stalks, the throngs of adult sized people clamoring to get a good view of a dragon statue programmed to release a burst of flame every 5 minutes can quickly obscure a child from view of their parents. On the day we visited, I believe there were more people pointing their phones at a fake dragon in a pretend magical alley than there were pointing at Old Faithful at that same moment on the other side of the country. The silliness was not lost on me. But I did get a great selfie.

All pretend magic aside, before we set about on our adventure that day, we wrote our phone number on a bandaid attached to my son and made sure my daughter’s watch that can make phone calls was fully functional. Even with that awareness of my own children’s risk of getting lost, when we came across a young boy in just shorts wandering around alone in front of us on a busy path in Jurassic Park, I did not think twice about what that child was doing, where he was going, and if he had any parents nearby. I clocked his existence, assumed his parents were somewhere in the vicinity, and kept scooting along. (I was in an electric scooter because I was temporarily mobility impaired, but that is another story.)

Fortunately for this child, my wife is not as flippant or self-centered as I am. I was rushing toward a T-Rex, planning an incredibly funny TikTok, only to have my wife ask me and the kids to wait a second while she did something. She gave no further explanation, and wondered off in the direction from which we came. As I created a mental storyboard for the T-Rex video that would lead to my viral social media fame, my wife was helping a three year old boy find his parents. She asked the boy if he knew where they were, and a frantic woman came running out of a playground area just off the main path, searching the crowd. My wife was able to reunite the mother and child, and then simply went about her day after casually saving a child and parent from a seriously traumatic experience.

I’m certain a great deal can be said about how my wife was aided by a mother’s intuition, the feminine urge to nurture and protect, etc., but there is no acceptable excuse for my complete lack of awareness when it came to the potential peril of a child that I did not consider my responsibility. I did not see the child and assume he was lost; I saw the child and assumed his parents were nearby. While this is not morally wrong, it is an oversight that I hope to avoid moving forward. And I believe this imperative to make sure no child is left behind extends beyond lost kids in a theme park.

All children are our responsibility

As our children grow older and build more meaningful relationships, we will start to encounter their friends in more significant ways, often without their parents’ supervision. Friends will come to our house to hang out, we will take small groups on outings for birthdays, and eventually our kids and their friends will be driving themselves, sometimes ending up in homes without any expressed permission from their parents. As our orbit starts to include more and more unaccompanied minors, parents must be intentional about making sure no child is left behind. If all parents will start to assume that we are partially responsible for the well being and safety of all children in our lives, I believe the world will be a better place.

We might find that the friends of our children are more honest about struggles they are facing with us than with their parents. We might overhear conversations with potentially problematic implications in the back seats of our cars. And we might even come across children in danger or immediate peril when their parents are not there to intervene. If we can take seriously the need for us to be parents for all children when a child’s actual parents are unwilling or unable to help, I imagine there will be many negative outcomes that can be avoided. And when we think about it, when we aren’t around our kids, our hope is that some parent somewhere is nearby, actively working to ensure the safety of our own kids. The least we can do is return the favor that we would expect others to extend to us. If our hope is that no one would allow our children to be left behind, we must be intentional to make sure no children in our lives are left behind- literally or figuratively.

It’s going to take some effort

For self-centered, clueless, dummies like me, we will need to work hard to be aware of the needs of any kids around us. Of course we must always walk the line of “is this my business?” If a friend of our children starts talking about how their dream is to become an influencer, it probably isn’t our place to crush their dreams. But if we catch wind of some subtle online bullying they are experiencing, we might need to ask some questions, pass some info along to their parents, and insert ourselves into something that we might typically assume is not our business. It can get messy, so we will need to tread carefully at times. But a good rule of thumb is to simply do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If the roles were reversed, and your child was casually mentioning an issue that could be problematic in the presence of another parent, what do you hope that parent would do for you and your kid? We all handle things a little bit differently, and we might step on some toes, but ultimately doing for other parents what you hope parents would do for your family is the most basic way to help kids who might be in some difficult situations. The responsibility is on all parents to ensure that no child is left behind.