Daughter Takes Mom on Flight to Europe. Mom Gets a Meaningful Surprise When She Boards (Exclusive)

Crystal surprised her mom with a first-class flight to Europe as a gesture of gratitude and love
The viral moment captured Emma's emotional reaction and highlighted the importance of breaking generational cycles
For Crystal, the experience was about showing her family they deserve joy, luxury and new legaciesCrystal always knew she wanted to give her mother, Emma, more than just gratitude — she wanted to give her a memory that would last forever.
So when it came time for their mother-daughter trip to Europe, she turned an ordinary flight into an extraordinary surprise that soon became a viral sensation.
'I just wanted to do something special for my mom because she's always put me first,' Crystal tells PEOPLE. 'She had no idea what was coming, and that made it even better.'
The now-famous TikTok clip begins with Crystal whispering to the camera, 'Guys, my mom has no idea, but we're about to fly first class. She thinks we're flying normal, which is still great, but she's gonna really be surprised about this.' The camera captures both her anticipation and the quiet satisfaction of a daughter about to deliver a dream.
When Emma realizes the surprise, joy takes over her face completely. She turns to the flight attendant and beams, 'I've got a good daughter, she made us proud, she did well in school, and we didn't have to pay a penny.'
That genuine moment became a symbol of love, sacrifice and something deeper — breaking generational cycles. 'My parents went without a lot so we could have what we needed,' Crystal says. 'Now I get to give that back and say, 'You deserve this too.' "
Emma was stunned by the gesture, overcome with gratitude and awe. 'I cannot believe it… It just overtook me with appreciation, love and joy,' she says, still marveling at the moment.
As a first-generation college graduate, Crystal sees luxury not as indulgence, but as reclamation. 'It's about showing my family that we are worthy of nice things — that our sacrifices meant something,' she explains.
The video's overlay read, 'Surprising my mom with business class to Europe,' but the caption struck a deeper chord: 'Breaking generational curses. Her reaction was priceless.' It's a message that resonated with millions, many of whom saw themselves in Crystal's act of love.
'This was never about going viral,' Crystal says. 'It was about showing the world — and my mom — that we're allowed to experience joy, too.'
Emma raised Crystal with values that shaped the woman she became: hard work, humility and a deep sense of responsibility. 'She was always on the A honor roll, always volunteering, always helping others — she's just a good child,' Emma says with pride.
Crystal didn't always plan to film the surprise. But something in her felt compelled to capture the moment, both for herself and for others who might need to see it. 'It was organic,' she recalls. 'As we were walking to the gate, I thought — this is bigger than us, this is about changing what our family believes is possible.'
Growing up, Crystal's family didn't have access to luxury, but they had each other. 'We had what we needed, but not the extra,' she says. 'Now, I want my parents to see the other side of life too.'
Emma's gratitude for that experience runs deep. 'My parents never got to live like this,' she says. 'So to see Crystal giving that to me — it brought tears to my eyes.'
For Crystal, it's also about being a model for her nieces and future generations. 'They're watching everything we do, and I want them to know we can create new legacies,' she says.
The trip itself marked a turning point in their relationship. 'This was the first time we traveled alone together, just the two of us, and it was healing,' Crystal shares. Emma agrees, noting how meaningful their time together felt. 'We laughed, we talked — it felt like we were girlfriends, not just mother and daughter,' she says.
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Crystal says that their family values were the foundation of this moment. 'My mom always taught me to save — if you get 50 cents, you save 25,' she says. 'Those lessons helped me manage money well enough to make something like this possible.'
But more than financial lessons, it was the emotional resilience that carried her through. 'She taught me to be confident in who I am, to know my worth, even when I was bullied growing up,' Crystal adds.
Emma's advice to other parents is just as heartfelt. 'Be patient, be kind and give your time,' she says. 'That's what children remember — not money, but love.'
She also emphasizes the importance of presence over possessions. 'We didn't have 10 TVs, but we had fun and we had each other,' Emma says. 'That's what mattered.'
When asked what she hopes others take away from the viral video, Crystal's message is simple but powerful. 'You don't have to fly first class to show love — luxury looks different to everyone,' she says.
She wants others to understand that it's the gesture that counts. 'Give them their flowers while they're here,' Crystal adds. 'Whether it's a plane ticket or a card, just show them they're appreciated.'
Emma hopes their story encourages other families to break old cycles and build something new. 'Communication is so important,' she says. 'We don't know it all as parents, and sometimes we need to listen and grow too.'
For Crystal, breaking generational curses starts with intention. 'Every step I take is a chance to change our family's direction,' she says. 'It's not about rushing — it's about doing the work.'
And part of that work, she says, is emotional healing. 'You've got to be vulnerable, maybe even go to therapy, and understand where these cycles come from,' Crystal adds. 'Only then can you move forward.'
As they recall the moment that touched millions, both women carry it with them in a deeper way. 'I'll never forget her face when she found out,' Crystal says. 'It was everything I hoped it would be.'
Emma, with a soft smile, echoes the sentiment that started it all. 'I've got a good daughter,' she says. 'She made us proud.'
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The bride had to do just one last thing before she walked down the aisle. 'I currently am in the bathroom in my wedding dress I asked everyone for just a few mins alone so that I could message you this.' Was she writing to an estranged friend? An old lover—the one that got away? At the beginning of her 'journey,' the bride weighed 134 pounds. 'My goal was to just lose 5lbs,' she wrote, but she had somehow dropped down to 110. 'I'm crying writing this because I have never felt so healthy and confident. THANK YOU!!!' The message was accompanied by two photos—a before and an after. The first shows a thin woman who looks to be a size 2 or 4. In the second, the woman's bones are visible beneath her skin, and her leggings sag. She owed all of this to Liv Schmidt, a 23-year-old influencer known for her harsh, no-bullshit approach to staying thin. 'You feel like a best friend and sister to me,' the bride wrote to Schmidt, who shared the message on Instagram. Schmidt is the queen of SkinnyTok—a corner of the internet where thin, mostly white women try to make America skinny again. Her 'what I eat in a day to stay skinny' videos thrust her into virality about a year ago. There she is with her mint tea—which she always drinks before eating anything, to check if she's really hungry or just bored—or a mile-high ice-cream sundae that she'll take three bites of before tossing. She's very clear: She stays skinny by not eating much. Many find this refreshingly honest. Others think she's promoting eating disorders. Influencers have condemned her; magazines have published scathing critiques. Last month, Meta removed her ability to sell subscriptions ($20 a month for access to private content and a group chat called the 'Skinni Société') on Instagram, and this month, TikTok banned the SkinnyTok hashtag worldwide, saying it was 'linked to unhealthy weight loss content.' And in response, the right has championed Schmidt. She has been canceled, and she may be more powerful than ever. I didn't mean to join the legions of young women on SkinnyTok. It happened fast. I liked an Instagram reel about an 'Easy High Protein, Low Calorie Breakfast.' What I got next, I didn't ask for. Within hours, my Instagram 'explore' page was flooded with videos of conventionally pretty, thin women preaching one message: Stop eating. Phrases such as 'You're not a dog, don't treat yourself with food' and the Kate Moss classic, 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,' began to flood my feed—and my subconscious. At lunch with a friend one Saturday, I didn't finish my salad. 'Do you know Liv Schmidt?' I asked. 'The three-bite rule? Of course I do. She's kind of a genius.' I realized I wasn't down this rabbit hole alone. 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By the time I was a teenager, the body-positivity movement had arrived, promising to change the culture. Plus-size models started appearing in ad campaigns. The problem wasn't women's bodies, activists argued, but women feeling bad about their bodies. Yet when people tried to force society to embrace new body norms, society lashed out, bringing to the surface a lot of underlying hatred. 'Body positivity didn't resonate with a lot of people, because it felt like lying,' Maalvika Bhat, a 25-year-old TikTok influencer who is getting a doctorate in computer science and communication at Northwestern University, told me. Many felt that the movement was in denial about both the practical health risks of being overweight and America's willingness to put its engrained fat phobia aside. Ozempic has accelerated that backlash against body positivity. Many of the plus-size leaders of the body-positivity movement shut up and shrunk down. Their followers noticed that they were using a weight-loss drug. Apparently you didn't have to love yourself as you were—and you didn't have to suffer to change, either. You just had to have a prescription and enough money to pay for it. But what about those pesky last 10 pounds, the difference between being a size 6 and a size 2? Although some healthy-weight women with no medical reason to take GLP-1 drugs have nonetheless found work-arounds to get their hands on the medication, most aren't going to those lengths. How would they keep up now that skinny was back? For some, the answer was SkinnyTok. You don't need a prescription to be ultrathin. You just need a bad relationship with food, fueled by a skinny stranger yelling mean-girl mantras at you. In the end, the body-positivity movement's lasting effect may have been to prove the validity of the very message it was trying to combat—that thinner people are treated better. 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Eviane Leidig, the author of The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization, sees a connection between SkinnyTok and tradwives in their 'very strong visual representation of femininity.' Whether they mean to be or not, they have become part of the same pipeline. Algorithms grab your attention with lighter, relatable content while exposing you to more extremist viewpoints. The alt-right, she said, is great at making aspirational and seemingly apolitical content that viewers relate to. 'This is a deliberate strategy that the conservative space has been employing over the last several years to capitalize on cultural issues as a gateway to radicalize audiences into more extreme viewpoints.' Two months ago, Evie Magazine, a right-wing publication that promotes traditional femininity, ran a profile of Schmidt: 'Banned for Being Honest? Meet Liv Schmidt, the Girl Who Made 'Skinny' Go Viral.' The magazine had one of the biggest tradwife influencers, Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm, on its cover back in November. The article about Schmidt focused on her being canceled and banned on a number of platforms for promoting thinness. 'I don't owe the internet a version of me that's palatable,' Schmidt told the magazine. 'If a girl bigger than me posted what I eat in a day, no one would care. But when I do, it becomes controversial. Why? Because I'm blonde, thin, young, and unapologetic.' Last year, Evie profiled Amanda Dobler, another SkinnyTok figurehead, whom it described as 'TikTok's skinny queen'—'both brutally honest and surprisingly sweet.' The more the left has attacked Schmidt, the more the right has celebrated her. Bhat, who describes herself as progressive, said, 'I think the left is deeply, deeply exclusive.' On the right, 'you're allowed to make dozens of mistakes and not be shunned. They say, 'If the left doesn't welcome you, we will.' And they always do.' You can't deduce a political manifesto from someone's Instagram followers, but it seems worth noting that Schmidt follows conservative figureheads including RFK Jr., Candace Owens, and Brett Cooper. When she posted about losing the paid-subscription feature on her Instagram, through which she had been making nearly $130,000 a month, according to AirMail, she tagged Joe Rogan. 'She's clearly trying to get her foot in the door with the alternatives,' Ali Ambrose, an influencer who critiques SkinnyTok, told me. (Ambrose struggled with an eating disorder for years, and says Schmidt's content pushed her back into unhealthy habits.) Schmidt's appeal does cross party lines, though. When I polled a politically diverse group of my own friends, my most conservative friends loved SkinnyTok. A number of my progressive friends did too; they just felt like they shouldn't say so out loud. Schmidt has written that the Skinni Société is not 'a starvation or extreme diet community.' 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Right before our call, I scrolled through her TikTok profile: 'You are killing yourself with the shit you eat. It's disgusting. And you should feel shameful.' I briefly wondered if she'd be able to detect my own insecurities through the phone. But the Dobler I spoke with was approachable and friendly. I instantly liked her. I even opened up to her about the things I wish I could change about my body. 'There's nothing wrong with wanting to look a little better,' she said. Unlike a number of SkinnyTok influencers who only just entered the field, Dobler has been a fat-loss and mindset coach for six years. She talks about the importance of getting your nutrients instead of exclusively practicing restraint. She also pushes for a consistent workout routine, while others focus exclusively on their step count to burn calories and avoid bulking at the gym (SkinnyTok is a spectrum). I brought up the criticism that SkinnyTok content encourages young people to adopt disordered-eating habits. 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It's Time We Acknowledge That Older Sisters Are The Backbone Of Society

Younger children everywhere, you've been put on notice: Your oldest sister is tired of doing it all. On Reductress, a jokey headline declared, ''Eldest Daughter' Finally Added as Official Diagnosis in DSM-V' because of all the mental duress oldest sisters are under. (Though not an actual psychological diagnosis, the pop psychology phrase 'oldest daughter syndrome' has hit a nerve with many oldest daughters.) On TikTok, youngest brothers ― those diametrically opposed to oldest daughters in responsibilities ― jokingly apologize for doing the bare minimum in life and skirting the emotional labor that's second nature to women. Elsewhere on social media, big sisters joke about how it's time we acknowledge that older sisters are the backbone of society. (It's true: Big sisters tend to be overrepresented in powerful women lists. What do Eleanor Roosevelt,Taylor Swift, Hillary Clinton and Beyoncé all have in common? They're all high-performing older sisters.) Eldest daughters see what needs to be done and do it ― but it comes at a cost, said Lisette Schuitemaker, the author of 'The Eldest Daughter Effect: How Firstborn Women Harness Their Strengths.' 'Our particular life path makes us into responsible, dutiful, hands-on, thoughtful and caring women,' she said. 'You will often find us in positions of leadership because we have been trained to take the lead from a young age.' The flip side of that 'is we can get bogged down by the many tasks on our to-do lists because we feel responsible for all and need to save the planet,' she said. Oldest brothers deal with a lot, no doubt, but it's different for girls; a 2016 UNICEF study found that girls between ages 5 and 14 spend 40% more time on domestic work than boys. 'There are usually different gender expectations placed on boys vs. girls,' said Leeor Gal, a marriage and family therapist in Pennsylvania. 'Girls are oftentimes raised to be 'caring,' and boys are raised to be 'tough.'' 'Caring' entails a lot: 'What you sometimes see is oldest daughters developing people-pleasing tendencies or feeling responsible for other's well-being,' Gal said. 'A younger girl might learn to put her needs last for the sake of someone else.' Y.L. Wolfe is the oldest of everything: oldest daughter, oldest child out of four siblings, oldest grandchild and oldest niece. 'I always saw myself as my mother's assistant throughout my life ― even when I was very young,' she told HuffPost. 'I have memories going back to the age of 3 in which I was worrying about my younger sister's welfare when she was 1.' Parentification, where a child feels compelled to take on responsibility for their family's emotional, physical and/or mental well-being, was a huge part of Wolfe's childhood. Psychologists say emotional parentification can lead to difficulty in self-regulating, setting boundaries and building relationships. Growing up, Wolfe would watch her baby brother before school when she was 11 (he even started calling her 'second mom'), go grocery shopping for the family and handle any emergencies that cropped up. 'When I was in high school, and my mother had a health crisis, my father called me from the hospital, crying, telling me they didn't know if my mother was going to make it and that he needed me to take care of the kids until the doctors could figure out what was wrong,' Wolfe said. She did what she always did and stepped up, taking care of everything until her mother could come home. She recalls her dad insisting she didn't tell the other kids how bad it was. 'He wanted to protect them, but that same thought wasn't extended to me,' she said. 'I am sometimes haunted by that memory because no one thought about how young I still was and how much I needed protection, too.' In adulthood, she became the peacemaker of the family, the go-between when family members were in conflict. When her sisters had kids, she often felt like an executive assistant to them. 'I've been there through so much, helped with doctor's appointments, moving into new houses, helping take care of the kids when they were sick,' she said. Wolfe admits she sometimes wonders if her family would continue to ask for favors if she'd had a family of her own. 'If you're single and don't have children, the expectation is that we don't have any obligations or stressors in life and so we owe our families extra labor,' she said. Wolfe said it took her until her 40s to recognize how much of her identity was tied up in big sister-ness and how much it took out of her. Now, she's heartened to see younger generations put their feet down. 'To suddenly see women collectively stepping into an 'eldest daughter revolution,' as I call it, has brought me to my knees in gratitude,' she said. 'I felt like I was always trying to extract myself from this dynamic in a vacuum. It's about time we are talking about this!' As the oldest of four in an immigrant family, Parween Mander, a financial coach from Vancouver, Canada, also felt like a makeshift third parent growing up. 'I was always keenly aware of specific financial challenges my parents were going through ― translating bank statements and tax papers for them and talking with bank representatives,' she said. The biggest hurdle happened when she was 16 years old, and the family almost lost their home. Mander recalls sitting in on meetings with mortgage representatives and trying her best to help her parents secure a new mortgage. 'That taught me that not having money means a lack of power, safety and control,' she said. 'It defined my relationship with money.' New financial challenges crop up with aging parents: retirement planning and medical bills. As an older daughter, Mander said she still picks up the slack. She notices the same tendencies among her clients who are older siblings: They'll overextend themselves with younger siblings, too ― lending money they may not have, grabbing the bill when out for dinners and overspending on gifts. 'As the oldest, typically we don't want our siblings to witness or go through financial hardship and money scarcity like we did, so I find that a lot of those clients spend money each month to buy their siblings things,' she said. Mander has started to use the phrase 'good daughter trauma' to describe the innate desire to use money as a tool to people please and ensure others around you are taken care of financially. After a while, your family comes to expect that. When older siblings act differently, saying no or prioritizing their own needs, it shocks the family system. 'If we spend money on ourselves or prioritize ourselves first, we are labeled selfish or 'cheap,'' she said. Vidhusha Thirugnanam is another exhausted big sister from a first-generation immigrant family. Growing up in Toronto, Canada, she helped her parents understand documents and Canadian life while setting an example for her two younger sisters. The burden of being perfect was heavy. 'I sought validation from my parents and did whatever it took to maintain peace in the household,' Thirugnanam told HuffPost. 'That was always too much pressure for a child.' As she got older, she realized it wasn't her responsibility to fix her family. There are jokes online about how cataclysmic it would be if the oldest daughters went on strike, and to some extent, that's exactly what Thirugnanam did. Her family is faring fine, and her life has been a lot calmer since. 'I decided to take a step back in family duties and focus more on myself. I established boundaries and no longer seek validation,' she said. 'I found peace of mind doing this. I recommend it to all oldest daughters who feel they are being emotionally and physically drained by their family's expectations of them.' Learning to establish healthy boundaries and recognizing when your mental health is at stake are huge milestones, said Thirugnanam, who's made a number of TikToks about the oldest daughter experience. Today, she leans into the saying, 'You cannot pour into the cups of others if you yourself are empty. Learn to fill your own cup first.' 'A lot of oldest daughters will run themselves dry, putting their family's needs ahead of their own,' she said. 'I am here to normalize oldest daughters taking a step back for the sake of their own well-being.' Want to take on less as the oldest? Below are some tips on taking a step back while still being an integral, important part of your family. The goal is to feel responsible but not take responsibility all the time, Schuitemaker said. Practice letting others take the lead, even if it would be easier to address yourself rather than wait for them to do it. At 69, Schuitemaker said she still has to remind herself that her siblings and younger family members can care for themselves. 'Let others organize the family outing, or don't automatically take all the care of your elderly parents on your shoulders,' she said. 'It's not easy, but you will also be pleasantly surprised by what others are able to handle.' Setting boundaries is a great place to start, but it's not just boundaries with others that we need to work on, Gal said; it's boundaries with ourselves, too. 'It's not easy to change years of habits and actions, so we must first start with getting comfortable with saying no to ourselves before we do so with others,' she said. Try to identify your needs within the family: Do you care whether or not you're hosting the holidays or cooking a three-course dinner for someone's birthday? If you don't want to, practice identifying that within yourself first. 'Once that has been set, you are ready to suggest someone else's house for this year's gathering,' Gal said. 'You don't have to make huge leaps; simply start with something small and make your way towards the bigger boundaries.' If you've shouldered financial responsibilities in the past, recognize that it's OK to ask for help and be vulnerable yourself, Mander said. 'You don't have to do this alone,' she said. 'Depending on your situation and how old your siblings are, find a way to split and even out the financial responsibilities you carry with them.' Always make sure to put money aside into your own savings account(s) first or debt repayment before lending or spending money on others, she added. 'What I find is with my clients because they don't have financial clarity, they spend and give money away because they 'go with the flow' and don't know if they can truly afford to support others,' she said. 'Once we get them on a budget and system, they're able to make better decisions and stick up for themselves because now they can see the impact of helping someone else before themselves,' she said. It wasn't until her 40s that Wolfe started to look at her family dynamic with clear eyes and realize the support she received from her family pale in comparison to what she'd given them through the years. 'These days, I'm not interested in allowing people to burden me with non-reciprocal expectations, and frankly, despite how much I love them, I'm tired of being my family's concierge,' she said. Hoping to turn a new page, she started doing boundary work with her therapist. 'I won't lie: It's hard work,' she admitted. 'It's hard to break free from this dynamic because many of us are proud of what we do and have done for our families. We know this makes us valuable to them.' But as Wolfe has learned, that belief can derail your life path and make you forget who you are separate from your loved ones. 'I often feel that part of the reason I never had kids was because I knew it would shift my attention away from my family, and I was terrified to let them down,' she said. 'Today, though I still wrestle with that fear, I'm more terrified of letting myself down than them.' The 6 Most Common Things Oldest Siblings Bring Up In Therapy Are You 'Parentifying' Your Children? Here's What You Should Know. 30 Too-Real Tweets About Being The Eldest Daughter