New parent exhaustion reached peak visibility when Chapman Hamborg stepped outside his Huntington Beach home looking like he’d been hit by a sleep-deprivation truck. The artist and father of four was taking his newborn for a walk—wearing mismatched clothes, sporting several days of stubble, and carrying the universal thousand-yard stare of parents in survival mode.
A neighbor saw this scene and called police, reporting what appeared to be a homeless man who had stolen a baby.
When Neighborhood Watch Goes Wrong
Police arrived expecting a kidnapping but found exhausted parenting instead.
Officers approached Hamborg at his residence, requested identification, and quickly realized their mistake. After confirming his identity, they apologized and left. The entire encounter lasted minutes, but its impact would stretch far beyond Huntington Beach…