The Adventure Begins

Just to give a bit of background before you start stalking us, my name is Mandy and I travel with my adopted son, Singh. I’m a flight attendant/illustrator/author and Singh is from Thailand.

As awesome as it is being a flight attendant, it can also be lonely. I know that by continuing the job I love in the skies, I will miss a lot of Singh’s milestones such as birthdays, soccer games, and plays. It’s 2016 and life isn’t traditional. I hope when my son is older he doesn’t harbor any resentment when he looks out in the audience and sees an empty chair where I was supposed to sit, or any annoyance when I arrive late to pick him up from baseball practice after a delayed flight.

If he does experience any frustration with the life I provide him, I want there to be a silver lining. If he does grow up thinking I was an MIA mom, an absentee parent, I want there to be a “but.” An asterisk at the end of his explanation of his jet-setting mom.

“Yeah, my mom was gone on trips most of my childhood…BUT…She took me on some amazing adventures.”

Personally, I imagine him saying this in a 20/20 interview in a few decades as they ask him questions about how he feels his life has shaped him to become the first Thai-born president of the United States. Not that I’m pushing him into politics or anything…

So my mission as a flight attendant mom is to take him on at least one adventure a month. An adventure I’ve dubbed “Mummy and Singh Trips.” We can fly for free (or almost free) all over the world. Why sit at home and play with Legos when we can visit Legoland in Europe? Why sit and finger paint when we can immerse ourselves in famous oil paintings in the Louvre? Why make a science fair volcano when we can climb an active one in Guatemala?

Not everyone has the opportunity we do to travel and I work hard for these benefits. I may not be able to provide my son the nuclear family atmosphere that was seen on billboards in the 1950s, but I hope that the one I do give him is one that will shape him to be a compassionate and creative citizen of the world.