Dress Them In Neon

E111: Safeguarding and Protecting Our Children In Public Spaces; AI; Let There Be Love

PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN IN PUBLIC SPACES

I could feel that electric current running down my spine. My pupils dilated to scan the space. My temperature was already beginning to fluctuate and the thump-Thump-THUMP grew steadily louder as my heartbeat pounded in my ear. It was that tingly-animal-like fright response every mother feels when she turns around … and her child is not by her side.

Except this was not like losing your kid in the winter coat racks at Target.
We were standing at the Cathay Pacific check-in counter at Hong Kong Airport. Gateway hub to all of Asia on my left, and across the Pacific to the Americas on my right.

Here we were, just two countries into our 16-country, 9-month journey, and already it was a case of “Honey, I’ve lost the kids!” See, this is the thing. When you are traveling with three children, four suitcases, five carry-ons, and checking into your next flight, jet-lagged from crossing the Pacific, you are not operating on all cylinders.

WE’D HAD A PLAN

When we contemplated this crazy adventure, my husband and I had planned ahead for points of risk. There were three when we would be most vulnerable with three children under the age of eight:

• When paying, unloading, and exiting the cab curbside at airports¹

• At the check-in counter of hub airports like Hong Kong, Cairo, and Heathrow.

• Climbing the Annapurna range in Nepal

For the check-in counter scenario, our plan was for one parent to handle the check-in process, while the other stayed glued to the kids. This was 2004, the days before online check-in so it was paper everything. Paper tickets. Flimsy cardboard boarding passes. Paper visas stapled to the pages of our passports. We carried around a top loading, blue and white plastic concertina folder² - each country, each itinerary, each set of five tickets+visas+yellow immunization certifications neatly arranged in its separate folder. All to make this specific moment in the process easier.

THE PLAN MALFUNCTIONS

When we finally got to the head of the line, I felt like a mummy octopus. With one hand, I passed my husband the folder, so he could check us in and get our boarding passes. Positioned behind our entourage, I had an eye on each child. With one foot, I shoved the four suitcases toward the weighing scale. I had one backpack on each shoulder, my other foot hooked around the rolling backpack. We couldn’t afford to misplace our carry-ons - our journey was just too tightly choreographed. Will our boys ever stop teasing each other? Then my husband’s voice broke through my thoughts:

“Hey, we seem to be missing one ticket.” I headed over to help locate the missing sheet of paper, clinging to its companion with the humidity.

It could not have been more than 30 seconds and 3 yards. I turned back. And she was gone ... 

30 seconds and a litany list of concerns:

• What if someone has snatched her? This would be my greatest [unreasonable?] fear realized.

• What if she was just bored and wandered off? Why didn’t she stay where she was told?

• What if security finds her and she is unable to tell them where she lives … because she will be traveling for a year and has no ‘home’? Why hadn’t I prepped the kids?

I don’t need to tell you. If you are a parent or an elder sibling, you have done this mental sprint from just chilling to worst-case scenario many times too.

30 seconds that felt like a lifetime.

I spun around again. There she was, sunk to the floor, snuck between two big black suitcases, her little black head barely visible as she continued to seek solace in the pages of her [paper] book. 

Relief. 

This experience taught me a much-needed lesson. As robust as I thought it was, we needed to upgrade our airport plan.

Our children were the most valuable part of this travel package. It made no sense to be distracted with missing shoes and swimsuits if we had lost the kids.

But they are also the most difficult to control at pivot moments in an airport - where everyone is rushing and they are surrounded by a sea of suitcases bigger than they are. A curious four-year-old can easily get distracted by a garbage can, a pet carrier, or a fascinating set of locks. A tired eight-year-old should not be expected to be responsible for their younger siblings. The sweetest six-year-old can turn into a persistent tugging monster when hangry.

A PLAN REVISED

Children cannot be expected to act as adults. Getting kids to be wary of strangers, without losing their youthful innocence, is a balancing art. Yet protect them, we must. Over the remaining 27 flights in our journey, we would continue to refine our process. Here are three simple ideas we incorporated going forward:

• Dress them in neon. We created a set of “travel clothes” for airport days - bright neon colours so they would stand out like a set of highlighters as I scanned the area.³ 

• Only nicknames in public. Airports. Theme Parks. Outdoor markets. Any time we had to catch their attention because they were misbehaving, distracted (or wandering off), we did not scream out their real names for their protection. They’d been coached to answer to their codenames.

• I stuck an emergency contact piece of paper into each child’s pockets on travel days with our ONE family flip phone number, their grandparent’s phone number in the UK, our names, but nothing else that gave away their identity. 

Thankfully technology has evolved. Today I would probably solve some of these issues by making them wear AirTag jewelry. (I found some good designs on Etsy) Because I do think humans still need ways to keep track of a child in a busy airport.

[Want to learn more about the trip? Contours of Courageous Parenting - Tilting Towards Better Decisions]

PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN’S PRIVACY IN PUBLIC SPACES

You may have detected an undercurrent of privacy concerns around my children. I wrote a password-protected blog (yes, hard-coded HTML!) as we traveled. The internet was in its infant moments. But I was wary of sharing my children’s images.

Those fears and concerned resurfaced this week after reading the recent New York Times article “Can You Hide A Child’s Face From AI?” by Kashmir Hill debating the policing of the use of AI for children’s privacy.⁴

Protecting Our Children In An AI-World

AI advances are coming at us faster than a pack of speed cyclists at the Olympic Road Trails. You know … huge pockets of waiting, waiting, waiting, and eating through your supply of boredom snacks. Then suddenly in a blur, a dense set of wheels flashes right by you. All you see is a splash of colour, plastic helmets, and chrome. But you know that each rider in that pack is pushing themselves and others towards personal bests.

AI Facial recognition software is one of those developments in this cluster.

These new developments in AI bring opportunities for increased productivity and good. On one hand, the ability to scan a child’s face has improved the ability of law enforcement to detect and recover young children who were kidnapped early in life. But it could also be abused.

We have a responsibility to protect the children - those innocents who can’t yet speak for themselves.
We are the ones who have to come up with a pre-emptive plan that we’re constantly revising.
We have a responsibility to track and protect our children’s privacy in public spaces - real and virtual.

I wonder, in an AI world, what is the equivalent of nicknames and neon?

Does this article make you think differently about sharing images of your family online?
What is a great hack you have discovered when traveling with young children - road trips, flights, or trips to the park?

Share your thoughts with Tribe Tilt in the comments. Let’s start a discussion.

This edition is made so much richer through the insightful questions from my army of peer editors:

Jen Dyck-Sprout

who is traveling the world with her toddler - first stop Japan, now Thailand;

Ideas and progress

’s Brooke Smith,

Cris Valerio

Alexandra Allen

Emma Dorge

and Brenda Geary. Each is on a journey, navigating the world and stages of parenting.

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One new thing:

Who stole the soul from the sun
In a world come undone at the seams?
Let there be love

Yesterday I discovered these haunting lyrics in an Oasis ballad “Let There Be Love”.⁵ Where had it been hiding? How did I miss such a simple, soulful melody all these decades?

Today’s edition is dedicated to you, Lisa, “baby blue”. Just remember I’ll be by your side. This may just be my anthem for the moment.

Do you look to music for inspiration? What songs are helping you get through your day?

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How is Tribe Tilt doing as we head into the Halloween weekend of October? I’m in the middle of Write of Passage and just blown away by the range and quality of the essays being developed. (Try Steal from your Airbnb, My Best Career Move? Having Kids and more than one young writer suggesting we step away from the keyboard The Hidden Cost of Texting). If you’re exploring how to have delicate discussions about culture and race with your family, read “What beliefs will your children inherit” in

Wu Wei Parent by Anna KN

’s

It is a version of our Tribe Tilt. A group of people, supporting each other, giving generously, and exploring thoughts with respect and sensitivity. We support each other. Remember: the best idea can come from anyone, anywhere, at any time.

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See you next week. Stay healthy. From there all else becomes possible.
Karena

1. There is a whole story on the constraint I set that all five of us and all our luggage had to fit in one cab. I feared us getting split in countries where we couldn’t communicate because English was not freely spoken. The average cab trunk/boot size drove how many suitcases we packed for a family of five on the road for nine months.

2. My son asked to ‘inherit’ it and still uses it for his passport, inoculations and all immigration documents to study and work across the border.

3. Do you recognize “Dress them in Neon”? It is one of the stories in the chapter “Get The Little Things Right” in the decision strategy book I authored: Contours of Courageous Parenting - Tilting Towards Better Decisions.

4. New York Times article Oct 14, 2023: Can You Hide A Child’s Face From AI?

5. This solo cover is by Jung Kook, the youngest member of K-Pop BTS, for BBC Radio1 Live Lounge.

Visuals: T-shirts through Substack’s AI image generator. 2012 Olympic video is © Karena de Souza