Baby Passport

~ Clarissa

It completely slipped my mind that even a tiny baby will need a passport to travel overseas. Of course, passports are only meant for children of unemployed parents because both parents have to appear in person during regular working hours.

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Published by Clarissa

4 thoughts on “Baby Passport”

  1. Making both parents be present is to prevent parents from kidnapping their own children and going off to other countries with them. That happens fairly often and it’s extremely complicated to resolve.

    Imagine that you and N. were fighting, if he could get a passport for Klara without your knowledge, then he could get on a plane with her and go back to Russia. In Russia he could convince a judge that you were horribly abusive and get the judge to prevent you from ever seeing her as long as they stayed in Russia. The US embassy could insist on seeing her, because she is a US citizen, but they can’t do much to help a parent in the US get a kid back to the US.

    An old friend of mine has worked with cases like this. They are really ugly and drag on for years and years.

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    1. Yes, of course, it’s crucial for both parents to be present, I agree with that part. But they could accommodate working people by opening up on a Saturday / before 8 am / after 4 pm, etc.

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  2. You are going to Canada, right? When I was in college (mid-1970 s), it was very easy to cross the Canada-US border, at least when traveling between Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

    Usually the agent asked where you were going and for how long, and where you were born. I don’t remember having to show an ID, and if I did have to show one, all I would have had was the one issued by my college.

    It was a system that communicated that both countries were truly friends and allies.

    Such simpler times.

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    1. You could go into and return from Mexico without a passport in those days, too — although you sometimes had to “tip” the Mexican border guards a $1 or so. (A dollar went a long way in Mexico back then.)

      When I was stationed in Western Europe during the Cold War, I could cross any Western European border checkpoint with only my U.S. military I.D.

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