Airports and Escalators

The first few times we traveled with our children, the hardest part wasn’t the flight.

It was the escalators.

We live in a small town in North Carolina where escalators simply aren’t part of everyday life. We have elevators, sidewalks, and two-story buildings. But moving staircases? Those belong to airports, shopping malls, and places we visit, not places we live.

The first time Thomas and Sophia stood in front of one, they froze.

They watched the steps appear from nowhere and disappear beneath the floor. They couldn’t quite figure out when to step on, and they certainly didn’t know how to step off. To them, it looked less like a staircase and more like a scary contraption.

For a while, things looked a little ridiculous as we tackled each escalator in the Atlanta airport.

On one trip to Texas, I had packed far more than I should have. I was wrestling three suitcases through the airport while simultaneously carrying two nervous children onto the escalator because neither one wanted to make the leap alone.

Somehow we all made it to the bottom.

Looking back, it’s one of those moments that’s much funnier in memory than it felt at the time.

Now, a few years later, they hardly think about escalators at all. They step on without hesitating, ride down while talking about completely unrelated things, and hop off the bottom without breaking stride.

That’s one of the quiet successes of childhood.

Children are constantly learning things that adults have forgotten they ever learned.

How to order at a restaurant.

How to scan a boarding pass.

How to buckle an airplane seatbelt.

How to recognize which carousel might hold your luggage.

How to ride an escalator.

As adults, it’s easy to mistake these for instinct. But they aren’t. They’re simply skills that have become invisible through repetition.

Travel has a way of reminding us.

It places our children in environments where almost everything is unfamiliar. Not because they’re extraordinary places, but because they’re ordinary places that are outside of the routine of your own day-to-day.

An airport isn’t just exciting because of the airplanes.

For a child, it’s exciting because nearly every routine is brand new.

Every trip quietly expands their understanding of how the world works. They discover that some cities have trains beneath the streets. That some beaches require ferries. That some countries drive on the opposite side of the road. And that somewhere, there are places where staircases move.

The destinations are wonderful.

But sometimes the things children bring home aren’t the things we planned.

Sometimes it’s simply the confidence that comes from stepping onto an escalator by themselves.

A small victory, perhaps. But a victory nonetheless.