06:26 PM CST on Thursday, March 11, 2004

From 11 News Staff Reports

It was an emotional scene in 1998 when a mother and son were reunited at Bush Intercontinental Airport after the boy was kidnapped by his father.

Someone had recognized the child's picture on a mailing.

That mother and son, Abby Potash and Sam Fastow, were in Washington, D.C. Thursday talking about non-custodial parental abductions, in essence, parental kidnappings, which happen 500 times a day in the United States.

"The time that I was with my father and away from my mother I missed everything," said Sam Fastow. "I missed my whole life and then when I came back my life was completely different."

Fastow and his mom are lobbying for new laws proposed Thursday that would create a national database for child custody awards and dedicate federal money to help police solve parental abductions.