‘I Feel Like Crying’: Child Scribbles on Mother’s Passport, Forcing Her to Miss Flight

A mother from Malaysia discovered just hours before a work trip abroad that her young son had drawn a dinosaur on her passport. She contacted the immigration office, where she was told the passport was damaged and invalid, and she was forced to postpone the flight by several days at a cost of 114 pounds.

The mother said she found the scribbles before leaving home and immediately went to the local immigration office, where she was informed that the passport was indeed damaged and not valid for travel. Because it was the weekend, she could not be issued a replacement passport before Monday.

She later managed to change her Qatar Airways ticket to Monday night for a fee of 114 pounds.

She shared the story on social media along with photos of the doodles and wrote, “I hate dinosaurs!” She also wrote, “I feel like crying. My flight is tonight. I was busy packing, and my little one was busy scribbling on my passport without me noticing.”

For those asking, she added, “My child is smiling with absolutely no sense of guilt.”

This is not the first time passport problems have disrupted last-minute travel. Last August, a couple left their 10-year-old son behind at Barcelona airport after discovering that his passport had expired. The parents arranged for a relative to pick up the child and boarded the flight without him. Airport staff noticed the boy was alone and called the police.