The Rise and Fall of the Missing Children Milk Carton Campaign
By: Liz Jin
Tags: Children, Culture, Kids, Missing Persons, History

The Rise and Fall of the Missing Children Milk Carton Campaign

Before there were AMBER Alerts and GPS tracking, milk cartons were a popular way to create awareness of child abductions.

Examples of milk cartons featuring missing children; Photo source.

One of my favorite books growing up was The Face on the Milk Carton, a young adult novel written by Caroline B. Cooney. The book is about a 15-year-old girl named Janie Johnson, who lives with her loving parents. One day Janie is startled to see her face on a milk carton under the heading “Missing Child.” The milk carton claimed that Jennie Spring was kidnapped from a New Jersey shopping mall at age 3. The rest of the book explores Janie’s journey to find the truth as she begins having flashbacks of people and places that suggest her past isn’t what she thought.

To my surprise, I didn’t realize that this book was eerily similar to a real-life case. In the 1980s, 7-year-old Bonnie Lohman saw her face on a milk carton and set off a chain of events that would lead her to be reunited with her father.

The Milk Carton Campaign

In the late 1970s and 1980s, several high-profile missing child cases dominated the news, prompting the founding of The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 1984. The most famous of these cases included the disappearance of Etan Patz and the murder of Adam Walsh, son of “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh.

Etan Patz, who was abducted in 1979, was one of the first children featured on a milk carton; Photo source.

At the time, there was no uniform system of raising awareness for missing children. In September 1984, Anderson & Erickson Dairy printed on their milk cartons the images of two local paperboys who had been kidnapped.

The nonprofit National Child Safety Council latched onto this idea and soon created a nationwide program called the Missing Children Milk Carton Program. By March 1985, almost half of America’s independent dairies had adopted similar milk carton initiatives.

Criticism of the Campaign

On its face, the milk carton campaign seemed like a brilliant idea. After all, nearly every family bought milk. Thus, it followed that milk cartons seemed a logical vehicle for mass communication.

Unfortunately, despite the billions of milk cartons distributed under the campaign, most of the missing children featured were never found, including Etan Patz. One reason may have been that most of the children featured were “abducted” by a non-custodial divorced parent, rather than a stranger.

This statistic was reinforced by the Bonnie Lohman case described above. At the age of three, Bonnie was taken from her father by her mother and stepfather. One day, Bonnie was at the supermarket with her stepfather when she spotted herself on a milk carton. She was too young to understand the significance of her discovery, which may be why her stepfather allowed Bonnie to cut out and save her picture. He warned his young stepdaughter to keep the image a secret, but the neighbors recognized Bonnie’s face from the milk carton and called the police. Bonnie was soon reunited with her father.

Bonnie Lohman, the 7-year old child who was startled to see her face on a milk carton; Photo source.

In addition to the campaign’s overemphasis on the idea of “stranger danger,” critics pointed out that the children featured were overwhelmingly white, which was not at all representative of the demographics of missing children. Standup comedian Eddie Griffin even had a routine called “White Kids on Milk Cartons” based on this troubling statistic.

Lastly, pediatricians were concerned that normalizing the occurrence of missing children by plastering their faces on milk cartons was potentially scarring for young children. As a child of the 80s, I certainly remember the smiling faces staring back at me while I ate my cereal. I wouldn’t say that it terrified me into thinking that I, too, might be abducted. I only recall feeling sadness for the parents and hoping that they would be reunited with their child.

The aftermath of the Milk Carton Campaign

The milk carton campaign faded out in the late 1980s and was abandoned altogether when the AMBER Alert system was created in 1996. The replacement of paper milk cartons with plastic jugs also contributed to its demise.

Example of an AMBER Alert. The AMBER Alert provided a much more effective system of raising awareness for missing children; Photo source.

Most recently, in 2000, the parents of Molly Bish put their daughter on a milk carton (in addition to leveraging other resources) when their daughter disappeared from her lifeguarding job. Tragically, the milk carton tactic failed yet again. Molly’s body was found three years later, and her case remains unsolved to this day.

While the milk carton campaign may not have successfully recovered abducted children, it did raise crucial awareness about child abductions generally. One revelation for advocacy groups was that “missing” children could include everything from stranger kidnappings to non-custodial abductions to runaways.

The Milk Carton Campaign made “stranger danger” a part of the cultural conversation; Photo source.

Conclusion

When I read The Face on the Milk Carton as a young adult, I fantasized that this was how many missing children cases were resolved. Little did I know that, save from Bonnie Lohman’s incredible story, this couldn’t be farther from the truth in the 1980s.

Each year, 800,000 children are reported missing in America, including those who are lost, injured, have run away from home, or are abducted.

Thankfully, the likelihood of finding a missing child has increased tremendously in recent years due to advances in technology and faster action taken by authorities. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the recovery rate for missing children involved in dangerous situations was 97 percent in 2011, up from 62 percent in 1990. When accounting for all missing children, that number goes way up — more than 99 percent come home alive.

With those kinds of statistics, I’m happy to leave the milk carton campaign behind in favor of methods that actually help bring kids home.