In case busy parents weren't worried enough about outsourcing daycare pick-ups, the story of a granddad picking up the wrong toddler should do the trick.

Cleveland police say a man picking up his 3-year-old grandson from day care Thursday was given the wrong child and didn't realize the mistake until he got the boy home, according to
The Associated Press.

He high-tailed it back to the daycare and all was fixed. (There's been speculation that the mistake stemmed from the fact that the children were bundled up in their winter clothes.

If you've ever seen a daycare playground in the winter, you can sympathize.)

More generalized, less heart-stopping, school pick-up angst was the topic of a
Wall Street Journal blog post this week by writer Jennifer Merritt, who laments how few times she and her husband have managed to pull off the school pick-ups for their son. In the last school year, she managed it once, she writes.

She worries about the effect this has on her son:

"But there are still those days where he comes home and says, 'All the other mommies where there at 2:35 but you were not there and I was missing you.' Of course, I know it's not entirely true-some of those 'mommies' were actually babysitters. But that doesn't make it feel any better for me."

She speculates that her absence also takes her kid out of the play date pool. So, she's aiming to shift her schedule so she can be there a few times a month, at least. Her husband is aiming for once a month.

"This might only ease my own angst-but that's a start," she writes.

How important is daycare or school pick-up? Does it have to be mom or dad?

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