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Unless they’re established as adults only (I love how this hotel advertised it, don’t you?), it’s to be expected to see children in a hotel lobby.

Some of these kids will be relatively well-behaved. It could be because that’s how they typically act (lucky parents!), or they’re old enough to know better. Or it could be because their parents are savvy enough to have a “bag of tricks” ready, with toys, snacks, screens, etc., to keep their little ones happily occupied and quiet.

Other kids? Not so much. Those are the ones you’ll see running around the room, yelling, pulling flowers in the planters, walking around unsupervised in the shops, etc.

Sometimes these kids’ parents are somewhere in the lobby as well. They may be checking in, checking their emails, etc. And sometimes the parents are nowhere to be seen; they’re in a shop down the hall, they’ve sent their kid on an errand when they’re far too young to be doing such a thing, etc.

This issue isn’t new. In fact, in 2005, a hotel employee wrote to Dear Abby, imploring parents to better control their kids, simply in the name of safety.

Dear Abby was the pen name of Pauline Philips ever since she started the column in 1956. Her daughter, Jeanne Philips, began writing the column with her in 1987 and took over entirely by the early 2000s after it was revealed that her mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Dear Abby has given replies about all sorts of topics. Aging. Etiquette and ethics. Family and parenting. Friends and neighbors. Holidays and celebrations. Work and school. Loving and dating. Money. Religion. Teens. And yes, travel.

Here’s the letter from “Frustrated”:

Dear Abby: I work in a hotel where many people pass through our lobby each day. We have great guests, but we also get our share of strange or questionable people, too. It’s not uncommon for police to send us information or inquire about criminals of various sorts who stop over at hotels. And, for the record, it doesn’t matter how posh the hotel is, either.

My letter concerns parents who allow very young children to come to the front desk alone, or to hang out in the lobby. I have seen scantily clad young teens in swimsuits walk by. These girls have no clue that they’re being ogled by 40-plus businessmen in suits who make off-color comments about their bodies.

It’s also not unusual to see 4- and 5-year-olds get on and off the elevators alone because their parents don’t feel like coming to the desk to pick up items.

Why, then, do we wonder how our kids are snatched up so easily by predators?

Hotel staff are here to serve and be helpful, but we cannot serve as baby sitters. We are often multitasking, so no one should assume we have an eye on your child. How are we to know whether the 50-year-old man pulling your 12-year-old daughter aside and whispering something in her ear is her dad — or a pervert?

When children go missing, we staff members get screamed at by parents insisting that we should have seen something suspicious about the person the child was last seen with. Well, here’s the simple answer: We’re employed to conduct hotel business, not monitor children. When the telephone rings, we must answer and take a reservation. Our attention cannot be on your child when there is a lobby bustling with activity, a line of five or more guests checking in and out, someone on the inside line requesting more pillows or questioning a bill, and our outside lines are ringing off the hook. —Frustrated at the Front Desk

Our take on it

If I were Dear Abby, I would tell “Frustrated” that they are absolutely right. It’s the parents’ responsibility to keep track of their kids – to know where they are when they’re in a new situation, such as a hotel lobby where strangers come and go at all hours of the day and night. They may think the hotel employees are keeping an eye out, but they’re not – that’s not what they’re there for, and they have their jobs to do.

Dear Abby’s response

Here’s Dear Abby’s reply to “Frustrated.”

Dear Frustrated: I understand and sympathize. Part of the problem may be that the hospitality industry has been so successful in making guests feel at home away from home, that people forget they are NOT at home. An illustration would be a recent item on the television news here in California. An attractive young woman entered her upscale hotel and decided to dash into the powder room off the main lobby. She was unaware that a man followed her into the hotel through the lobby and into the bathroom. The only thing that saved her from his sexual assault was that another woman happened to enter the bathroom.

Signs posted in every hotel room warn guests to verify the identity of strangers before admitting them. In the interest of safety, travelers should never let their guard down, and parents should remain vigilant.

It’s been almost 20 years

The sad thing is that this letter was written in 2005 and the same things happen in almost every hotel, almost every day. You’ll still see kids out of eyeshot of their parents…possibly causing a ruckus, but definitely without someone supervising them when they’re at an age where someone should still be watching over them. And some of them are indeed abducted.

Scary.

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