Last week I put my 13-year-old son on a plane without me. Destination: Australia.
I was proud of myself–I didn't cry.
Two years ago, when he was 11, I put him on a plane to a weeklong summer camp in Kansas, and I cried for two days. I swore he would never be airborne again without me until he was fully grown.
So much for pledges you make when you're having a nervous breakdown.
But this time, I didn't even feel like crying. This time I know he's mature enough and savvy enough to handle the ups and downs of travel without his mommy–whether it's a plane delay, jet lag, bad weather, an unpleasant roommate, icky food, getting lost or lack of clean socks.
For one thing, I've traveled a lot with him in the past two years, so by now he knows a lot of drills that he didn't know then–everything from taking off your shoes as you go through airport security, to what the front desk at the hotel can and cannot help you with, to spotting and avoiding a creepy-looking person in a crowd.
For another thing, even his week in Kansas showed me that he can handle stuff that would drive me nuts. For example, I realized after he was gone last time, he'd left all his socks home.
He had enough money to buy more socks, and a store nearby where he could have, but did he? No. He didn't care. More power to him, I say. The less you are bothered by material deprivation, the more fun your journeys will be.
And of course, he's not touring Australia alone–he's on a group tour, with kids his own age, run by the People to People organization, which was founded by President Eisenhower as a way of sending young Americans abroad as informal ambassadors–a kiddie Peace Corps, if you will. There are adult chaperones and 50 years of this organization's experience to ensure that his trip is smooth. Not to mention–he's probably safer in Australia than he is in New York where we live
Still, I learned a few things when I sent him to Kansas that are worth sharing. The biggest trauma of that trip–in addition to the lack of socks–was getting him there. He was supposed to fly as an unaccompanied minor from New York to Atlanta to catch a connecting flight to Kansas.
But his plane out of New York was delayed by mechanical trouble for so many hours that by the time he got to Atlanta, there was only one connecting flight left that day.
Airlines do not accept children flying alone if their connecting flight is the last flight of the day. That's because if the flight is cancelled in a city far from the child's home, there would be no one to take custody of him or her for the night.
I solved the problem that day by making the airline fly me to Atlanta so I could put my son on the connecting flight. But then that flight was also delayed–with the passengers in the plane, on the tarmac–for three hours, due to a storm. My son arrived in Kansas at 3 a.m. The camp program began at 8 a.m. What an awful way to start the big week away from home.
It was in contemplating the ordeal en route–the hours on the runway, the anxiety and stress–that I became a puddle of tears.
But in a brief phone call that week, it was clear my boy was having the time of his life–despite the difficult trip. My tears had been for nothing.
Last week, as I headed home after dropping him off for his trip to Australia, I encountered one of the other mothers from the group and saw that behind her hastily-donned sunglasses, she was crying.
I gave her a hug and assured her the kids would be fine, that this was an experience they'd remember forever.
"Now stop crying," I said to her, "because you're going to make me cry."
But that was a lie. Thinking about the exciting adventure ahead for my son, all I could do was smile.
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This week's advice: If you're sending children as unaccompanied minors, always book them on the first flights of the day. The earlier you travel, the fewer delays there are. And when you fly early in the day, if you miss your connection, there will be more flights left to choose from. It's also essential that both you and the person meeting your child at the destination can contact each other via cell phone to make contingency plans in the event of a delay or other problem. Finally, anecdotes about airlines putting unaccompanied minors on the wrong flight are not uncommon, so give your child an index card with flight numbers, times and destinations, and tell him or her to speak up if there's any doubt about which plane s/he is on.
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