Opinion: Family vacations can be a real trip
Published: 08-21-2024 6:01 AM |
Brian Adams of Andover, Mass., is a UNH alumnus originally from Londonderry. He was previously a sketch comedy writing instructor and staff writer at ImprovBoston and a founding contributor to satirical online newspaper Recyculus. He is a father to three girls ages 6 and under. He can be found on Instagram as @girl_dad_times_three
The family road trip is a timeless tradition when memories are forged and carried for a lifetime. A time for parents and children to bond while soaking in the beautiful scenery of the countryside.
At least that’s what I tell myself when my kids fight so loudly that I can barely hear Baby Shark blasting out of the iPad anymore.
Twice a summer, my wife Kim and I pack up the car and take our three daughters, Alexandra, Hannah, and Olivia, on a little vacation. One trip to Maine and one to upstate New York.
There are similar qualities to the two car trips: the participants, the vehicle, and the nonsense through which we all must persevere in order to reach our destination.
For the children, most of this nonsense takes on a physical form. The amount of stuffed animals, baby dolls, and completely unnecessary accessories that accompany these items is difficult to comprehend. It takes up a shocking amount of valuable real estate within our vehicle.
Wedged between two captain’s seats in the middle row are two pack-and-play cribs and two strollers for our two-year-old twins. This stack of items serves the additional function of forming a barrier to thwart Hannah and Olivia from launching dolls across the aisle and otherwise pummeling each other, though they will still find a way.
Their older sister, Alexandra, insists on bringing along a replica pack-and-play crib for her dolls and a miniature dog with its dog house. Once all of their beach toys, pillows, blankets, towels, pool floats, diapers, and swim vests have been accounted for, there’s hardly room for any passenger to do so much as turn their head.
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For my wife and I, the aforementioned nonsense has more to do with our personal shortcomings. Well, mostly mine. You see, during car trips, my wife prefers to play the role of passenger princess, scrolling on her phone and sipping on her humongous water bottle while acting as the DJ. It is a preference that is not often realized, though, due to her driver having zero sense of direction. I could easily end up driving the family to West Virginia instead of New York if both my navigator and I stop paying attention for too long a stretch.
You may think I’m exaggerating when I say I have no sense of direction, but I will tell you that I have to visit a place dozens of times before it starts to become second nature. If I’m coming from a slightly different location, it’s as if I have never been there before.
The toughest pill to swallow is that my very own Dad not only has a basic sense of direction, but a top-tier knowledge of the road, able to route his own detour on the fly on any trip he might take around any number of cities. It’s like one of Tom Brady’s sons not being able to identify a football. It only makes my missing sense of direction all the more painful.
For Kim, this means that she can never truly relax, occasionally keeping an eye on our surroundings to make sure that we’re not inadvertently heading to Timbuktu while she takes snack requests from our impatient little passengers.
With our challenges laid out before us, we retreat from the driveway, our SUV filled to the brim with necessities and frivolities alike. In many ways, for Kim and I, orchestrating these trips is just as challenging as anything we are tasked with during a typical work week. So why put forth such effort? Great question. Glad you asked.
As Maya Angelou once said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Regardless of the clarity of their memories, hopefully we will have made our daughters feel like important parts of a loving family, though it’s equally likely that they will feel like unpaid participants in a traveling circus.