A closer look
Children traveling across international borders with their parents frequently cause massive delays at customs simply because toddlers absolutely love to creatively deface official government documents with crayons, stickers, and markers. A shocking number of passports are legally invalidated every year because an unsupervised four-year-old decided that the austere, majestic eagle on the visa page desperately needed a hot pink unibrow and a smiling sun in the corner. Border patrol agents, who are notoriously lacking in any discernible sense of humor, strictly classify this adorable childhood expression as the willful mutilation of a federal travel document, requiring a grueling replacement process. Parents are then forced to explain to an angry immigration officer that their sophisticated international smuggling ring does not, in fact, rely on Paw Patrol stickers to evade detection. If you are planning a family vacation, treating your passport with the same level of security as an active explosive device is the only way to ensure you actually make your flight
