These days, the idea of a missing person appearing on a milk carton is something of a cliché, and it's probably better known as a sitcom trope than something that happened in real life. However, for a time in the 1980s, it was used as a method to help locate missing children, even if its usefulness was hotly debated in its day.
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00:00In 1979, six-year-old Ayton Pates disappeared while walking to catch his school bus in Manhattan,
00:06sparking national concern.
00:08His father distributed images of Ayton, hoping someone had seen the boy.
00:12This tragic event, along with other high-profile child abduction cases, such as Johnny Gosher's
00:17in 1982 and Adam Walsh's in 1981, helped prompt the creation of the Missing Children Milk
00:24Carton Program in 1984.
00:26Before this initiative, there was no national system to track missing children, making it
00:30extremely difficult to locate kids once they were taken across state lines.
00:35Three years ago, a little boy named Ayton Pates, just six years old, disappeared on
00:39his walk to school.
00:40The national headlines of his disappearance frightened an entire nation of parents.
00:44Initially, a few dairies in the Midwest printed pictures of missing children on their milk
00:48cartons, but the program quickly expanded across the United States.
00:51By 1985, 700 independent dairies were displaying missing children's faces on cartons, bringing
00:58the issue of child abductions into everyday households.
01:01The media attention and advocacy from organizations like the National Child Safety Council helped
01:06spread the message.
01:08However, despite the raised awareness, the milk carton campaign's effectiveness was controversial.
01:13While it did capture public attention, there's little evidence to show that it led to a significant
01:17increase in reuniting families.
01:19There was one notable success story, Bonnie Lohman.
01:22At just three years old, Bonnie was kidnapped by her mother and stepfather.
01:26After her father contacted the National Child Safety Council, Bonnie's face was included
01:31in the milk carton program.
01:32Four years later, while shopping in Colorado, Bonnie saw her own image on a milk carton.
01:37Her stepfather purchased the carton for her to keep, and when Bonnie left the cut-out
01:41image at a neighbor's house, the authorities were contacted, and she was rescued.
01:45The milk carton program began to fade by the late 1980s for various reasons.
01:50Pediatricians like Dr. Benjamin Spock argued that seeing the images of missing children
01:54daily could emotionally harm kids by increasing fears of abduction.
01:58The campaign's emphasis on stranger danger was also criticized, as most kidnappings were
02:03not committed by strangers.
02:05Furthermore, the images disproportionately featured white children, even though children
02:09of color were more likely to be abducted.
02:12Practical challenges also played a role in the program's decline.
02:15As dairies transitioned from cardboard to plastic cartons, there was less space for
02:20printing missing children's photos.
02:21Over time, the public became desensitized to the images, and people stopped paying attention
02:26to the faces on the cartons.
02:28Technological advancements provided more effective methods for locating missing children.
02:32The introduction of the Amber Alert system in 1996 rendered the milk carton program obsolete.
02:39While the milk carton campaign's long-term impact is debated, it undeniably raised public
02:44awareness about child abductions and laid the groundwork for modern methods of tracking
02:48missing children.