Have you ever forgotten to pay for something?

A Cape Town mother has been arrested for theft at a major retail store. The mom in question was accompanied by her 4-month-old baby and 8-year-old daughter and had allegedly forgotten that she had popped two coffees in the baggage area of the pram to pay for when she got to the till. On discovery that she had forgotten about the items she returned to the queue to pay for the items but the store manager still had her arrested while waiting to pay.

Read more: Beware the mommy-brain

I'm sure many a mother has been in a similar situation. Shopping alone with two kids is not a walk in the park. Things can get frazzled and you can get easily distracted, which means you might make an honest mistake. Sometimes it's our kids who are the culprits and throw things into prams that we weren't aware of.

The point is every mother worth her salt, when made aware of her mistake, will make an effort to correct the mistake.

We asked our Twitter followers if they've ever been in a similar situation and so many moms have fallen victim to mommy brain!

@Parent24 LOL. Yes. Also, my kid-in-pram once got hold of a packet of chips & stuffed it behind her. Only found it when we got home.

— cathjenkin (@cathjenkin) February 17, 2016

@Parent24 yup! Took it back to very shocked shop attendants. Have even been asked why I came back to pay! ??

— Tiffany Barbuzano (@TiffanyBarb) February 17, 2016

@Parent24 I have forgotten to pay for purity at the bottom of my pram #mommybrain

— Charlotte Coetzee (@thestilettomum) February 17, 2016

@Parent24 on more than one occassion. Always go back and pay for item. Have never been treated badly because of this.

— Mrs Clarke (@EmyDiesel) February 17, 2016

Update:

Pick n Pay has responded in a note on their Facebook Page:

Our customers are always our first priority. We are very understanding of the pressures facing mothers in our shops, and indeed all customers. For reasons of confidentiality, we cannot comment on the specific details of this incident, although many of the claims made on social media are not accurate. We can assure our customers that Pick n Pay would never escalate an issue unless we believed that, having examined and considered the facts, we had strong reasons to do so.

We're discussing this on our Facebook page, let us know if shops need to have a little more compassion with moms who forget to pay for items.