PASTÉIS AND PARENTING IN PORTUGAL

MY BABY WAS stolen in a Portuguese airport.

- LIZ WOLFE

The culprit was a granny who worked in the bakery there, crafting pastéis de nata. While I was sorting out the rental car booking, my husband had taken our then-9-month-old son to fetch pastries. Our son quickly disappeared—taken behind the counter by an insistent old lady who wanted to show him around and, presumably, feed him spoonfuls of custard. Who am I to object to local custom?

Portuguese culture grants special privileges to children and families, and those privileges really do make a big difference. We've been to Lisbon, surf towns to the west, the Azores, and even Cabo Verde, the African island nation and former colony, where many of the same norms apply. Pregnant women, the elderly, and people traveling with young kids get special lines for airport security and customs, ushered through as fast as possible. Native Portuguese will get offended if they see you in the normal line, instructing you to go to the priority line and sometimes getting the attention of the customs officer to make sure the system is adhered to—the only time Southern Europeans have ever been rule-abiding!

Though their Northern European neighbors are strict about taxi cab car seat rules and paranoid about child safety on buses (in Norway they made me use a car seat), the Portuguese are relaxed about it, allowing parents to make whatever choices they deem best. This is helpful for those of us who don't travel with car seats, preferring to use public transit wherever possible.