is anyone having fun
but like *actual* fun, not like performative instagram fun? anyone?
Per my last memoir, this was written back in the fall. Last edit before publishing was October 6th, so that’s almost 3 months ago, when I was at what I didn’t realize yet was the end of a tough trough of toddlerhood. I said I wanted to polish things less so I’m not polishing anymore! This is it, this is raw, this was from a time of real struggle. Lest I hide behind cute travel pics! Let the truth be known. Cue dramatic intro music:
The thing about going to the zoo with kids is that it’s really dumb and annoying. You see hardly any animals, all they want to do is eat ice cream - the kids, not the animals. They scream because it’s hot and they can’t run around because there’s too many people - the kids, not the animals (though in this example kinda seems like maybe it’s true for the animals too), and they’re tired after sitting in the stroller all day.
Complaining about snacks and their variety and availability IS exhausting, I’m sure.
The thing about taking kids on trips is that it’s not that fun. And also it’s super fun?! And also it sucks so hard. And also it’s so difficult and complicated. And also traveling is such a privilege, and I feel like an asshole every time we’re out and away somewhere and I’m thinking to myself how much this sucks and that I’d rather be doing this - whatever it is and where ever we happen to be - without my kids. Because it’d be more relaxing, I’d be less anxious, I’d be maybe …not anxious at all?! It’d be EASY.
snarky memoirs is reader supported and would you believe some people pay me for the privilege of reading rants about my children!? I know right. Well, if YOU want to join us either for free or for paid, I’d love to have you, and I will think of you fondly next time one of my kids loses his mind and I’m thinking to myself well THIS is a great fucking story for snarky memoirs AIN’T IT.
We took our 4-year-old to Washington DC on Labor Day weekend to go to museums and in general have a good time and let me tell you how much of a good time it was NOT. I’ve mentioned in passing about a phase he is going through and I think it’s called “being four,” and it’s been tough. For him, for me, for MP1, for anyone who encounters me lately and says cheerfully, “HEY SARA, HOW ARE YOU!?” And my answer starts with “Have you ever had a 4 year old? Because it’s a no for me.”
I’ve had a couple gaps in my memoir publishing lately mostly because things are so hard with him right now and I’ve been struggling to get through it, work through it, deal with it, and it feels too fresh, raw, personal, to him and me, to share. I’m too close to it - all of it, right now. My journal entries are a cesspool of anger and frustration and beyond editing. So much easier to share once things are resolved or we’ve moved past whatever is happening. And this thing is lingering a bit.
do you have to let it linger?
Apparently you do. But I’m here today to memoir about traveling with kids and how much I absolutely loath and love it. Just made memoir a verb, I loath and love that as well.
A couple weeks ago we went with friends - who have 2 boys almost the exact same age as ours - to the beach for a final summer weekend. And that, too, was fun and also not fun. The dichotomy rears its head again! It’s like I’m shocked every time this happens and I think it’s because, despite my experiences and the knowledge I’ve gained in 4.5 years of parenting, I still set expectations too high, by accident. I don’t even KNOW I’m setting expectations, but then we’re there - where ever it is - and I’m disappointed and frustrated. I wonder if a lot of this disappointment and frustration could be avoided if I tell myself a different story about what’s going to happen on these trips.
Part of the issue is that we all want it to go well and tell ourselves that we’re having fun because the alternative is that we’re NOT having fun and therefore maybe should not do this anymore. And no one wants to entertain the possibility that travel with kids is too NOT FUN to do. Like, well, this wasn’t fun, guess we won’t do it anymore?!
This is, I think, why it’s important to know WHY you are traveling. WHY do we bring our kids to literally anywhere outside the house, WHY are we out here lugging strollers and a bigger-than-necessary box of toys and too many shirts and pairs of underwear to a house that we know damn well has a washing machine and the biggest bag of pouches and protein bars as if grocery stores only exist at home.
WHY.
ain’t nothin but a heartbreak
For some people, it’s because it’s fun. Diverting. “To make memories,” some people say. “To build character,” or something. To expose our kids to other people, cultures, towns, variety of life on this giant planet. To show them how to relax, how to take breaks, that we don’t work all the time, that rest is important and fun.
[Again, to reiterate that travel is a privilege that many don’t and can’t do for a whole slew of reasons, and I DO recognize that. To even be able to take our kids anywhere is a privilege and even this conversation I am having with myself about why and what kind of fun it is and whether it’s “worth it” or not, is a privilege, period.]
hashtag wanderlust
I really love to travel2. Before babies, we did a fair amount of it together, and with friends, and before MP, it was something I prioritized spending money on, and it’s one of the reasons I chose the job I chose out of college, because the job promised travel and office location options. So I guess that could make travel one of my / our values? We value doing it, being able to do it, prioritize spending money on it, the experiences we gain from doing it, the things we learn from being in new and different places than our own. Cool. So that’s why, I guess. Because we WANT to. It’s fun to get away, and experience the joy of the world and life outside the house, outside our city, just…outside.
So then, when we’re there - again, where ever - and we’re not having fun, and we’re tired because we’re not sleeping, and we’re not resting or having any kind of actual relaxing time, I ask myself: why are we here? Because I “value travel??” Because it’s so VALUABLE to me that I will spend money - sometimes lots - to go somewhere and NOT have a good time or rest in any sort of format? To go somewhere so my kid can have a meltdown in as many new locations as possible? So he can NOT remember shit about any of this when he’s older? To deal with expensive-location-tantrums? To drive the cost-per-tantrum up? Who are the shareholders and can I buy back tantrum stock so I have more control over where they occur?
Call the SEC, that metaphor should be illegal.
what’s the point of this
The trip to DC was …fun. Sort of. When I was asked about it afterwards, I didn’t know how to respond. I still remember - it was only a few weeks ago after all - how grumpy I was basically the entire time. How tired Charlie was, how much he didn’t seem to care about what we were doing, how he just wanted to sit in the stroller and have more snacks. He hardly cared about the zoo animals, or the space museum, or the dinosaurs at the natural science museum because we had to walk past more than a dozen ice cream trucks to get to all of it.
At the end of our first day there, Charlie was so tired and we did so much - too much? And he didn’t nap even when we tried to let it happen, and then later he was asleep on the sofa bed and we were laying in bed, trying to be as still as possible, eating the jelly beans we don’t like because the lights were off and texting each other because we were too scared to even whisper and sending each other links to things with titles like “4 year old hitting mom,” and “9 things to do when your 4 year old keeps hitting you,” and I was trying not to cry because we were supposed to be having fun but we weren’t and we were supposed to be bonding with him but I’m not sure that’s what was happening. Plus crying would make noise and maybe wake him up. So we laid there in silence, reading articles, MP watching tv on his phone, me trying to read a book but mostly just spinning out about how this was terrible and I wish we were at home and thinking through logistics of leaving early in case tomorrow became as much of a shit show as today was.
Our best time was the next day when we found the sculpture garden and the giant fountain inside, with shaded benches surrounding, and decided to park the stroller there for a bit to rest. He laid in the stroller for about 10 minutes before wanting to get out and play in the fountain, and we sat on the edge with our feet in the cool water, playing, talking, singing songs (him, mostly) for almost 2 hours. It was delightful. It was the memory I will carry with me from that trip for a long time. It made the trip, because the rest of it was flaming hot garbage, no firetrucks in sight. There were very few moments of niceness and ease on this trip. No easy bedtimes, no easy transitions, no easy meals, no passing the aforementioned ice cream trucks without a meltdown (heh, ice cream pun?). But the fountain was fun, and he’s still talking about it, and I felt content for those moments too, so it’s a win.
I have a friend who travels a ton, has a husband from the UK, and now two kids under 3, who they take on trips with them, and many of these trips have been across the ocean on long flights to a place that is 6ish time zones away from her own. She says it’s so hard, she dreads it, she’s anxious on planes, the babies don’t love the flights, their schedules get all messed up, they’re cranky. Plus it’s hard on her and her husband. All the STUFF, the stress of managing tiny humans on a journey that is already stressful on the body even without extra parasites to handle. It used to be so EASY, just the two of them, old traveling pros! And the contrast to now is tough to deal with. It’s hard to DO and it’s hard to deal with how hard it is to do. But they still do it! Because if they didn’t, they’d not get as many chances to see his family and friends who don’t live here, and they value that, and the act of traveling, too.
When we talked about this on the phone once, we agreed that kids need the practice. And so do we. If we like to travel and want to keep doing it with our children and growing family, it gets easier - like many things do! - with practice. So it’s hard, but we keep doing it because each time we learn something, and maybe it's not easier every time we try, but eventually we maybe will end up with kids who are flexible, who know how to pack a suitcase efficiently, who also value cultures and sites and sounds and locations and peoples other than their own. It will teach them their own great uniqueness and simultaneous insignificance. IT BUILDS CHARACTER, a phrase my own father never stopped using when I was growing up.
So, we practice, I guess.
And we drag coolers full of breastmilk and backup cans of formula through TSA, hoping we read the rules right and don’t get it all taken away. We hope we don’t get any stomach bugs by touching too many security luggage bins. We hope they sleep on the plane. We hope the tablet is charged for the car ride. We hope the room is dark enough for sleep but not too dark so as to scare them. We hope the weather is nice so we can play outside and go out on the boat. We hope they behave so we can also enjoy ourselves a little bit too. We hope there’s margaritas somewhere that we can have while we watch them not eat the overpriced non-dinosaur-shaped chicken tenders we got them. We hope. We try. And years later, or even just months later, but definitely years later, we will look back at pictures and maybe NOT remember so clearly how many meltdowns per day we endured to get those cute photos. The passage of time will ease the difficulty and stress, and we’ll be left with those memories we were so intent on making. Maybe?
That weekend at the beach with friends was better but still super difficult. No easy bedtime, no guaranteed grown-ups evening, no easy meal even with the help of other non-siblings who were behaving and eating their own meals. At one point I looked around at our combined chaos - two couples, two little toddlers under 2, and two 4-year-olds (and a dog!) and thought to myself: this isn't great but it’s also not terrible. It’ll get easier, won’t it? We’ll be at a place - soon, even, maybe - where we can come to the beach, these boys will play together, create more noise and more chaos than they do now, probably, but do it amongst themselves, get their own snacks, run around outside hiding in the bayberry bushes along the creek shore, and we’ll have to hope they haven’t gone wading into the reeds playing hide-and-seek or dragon battle or whatever-the-fuck and encounter a gator or snakes. And we’ll drink our margaritas on the porch and have actual adult conversations (!!!!!), and they’ll be old enough for me to ring a dinner bell I saw mounted on the porch, and yell “get the fuck inside for dinner!” and it’ll be so satisfying and so much fun and there will be no whining (lol right) and they’ll be so dirty and smelly from swimming in the creek and walking in muck looking for crabs and maybe even bloody from sticking themselves with fishing hooks because they’ll be old enough to touch worms and bait their own hooks and hopefully not take each other’s eyes out while casting.
And I’ll compare pictures to the ones I took that weekend and say something inane like “remember when they were tiny and took naps and wanted to hold our hands in the water and were desperate to play with us and just wanted to snuggle? SOB.” And I’ll be one of those moms who has jettisoned tough kid weekends from her memory, because of their stupid sweet cherubic faces in the pictures, the cheeks, the smiles, the giggles that hide the irrational psychopathic monsters inside. LOL way harsh, but idk sorta accurate.
Compound all of this with how we all like to perform our little perfect lives on social media. Especially on heavily traveled weekends like Labor Day, when everyone you know is going somewhere to do something super fun and be somewhere sunny and beautiful and probably on a boat (how is it that everyone knows someone with a boat?? We know someone with a boat, so I can’t say this as if I don’t have a connection to someone who will take me out on their boat). All the pictures of adorable children in matching outfits or cute swim suits, in the sand somewhere, on a boat somewhere, eating a hotdog on an idyllic looking porch, playing in a sprinkler, having a very cute looking picnic. And in the background, the grown-ups. Drinking that margarita, cheersing with matching lemon-lime waters (so refreshing!), laughing their asses off at how much fun they’re having. On the boat, on the shore, on the beach, on the porch, in the back yard with the sprinkler going and the men standing around the grill (eye roll), white SUVs lining the street (eye roll) (to be clear, I am a white SUV owner). And the captions are always something like “best time with the best people” or something vague like that. And I think to myself, is everyone REALLY having this much fun? Does everyone REALLY enjoy road tripping to the lake, taking these tiny humans on this hot boat all day? Swimming with little ones who can’t swim? Does no one else have anxiety about little ones swimming? Does everyone REALLY have this much fun after dark? Do their kids actually go to bed? What are they doing that their kids go to bed and mine doesn’t? And I have to spend an hour plus with him in his bed before he’ll fall asleep and by the time I come out of the room, the other grownups are tired or bored and want to go to bed so I haven’t actually had any fun yet. Does everyone experience that but still find the fun in it, and so therefore it’s ME who is too grumpy, depressed, anxious, WRONG about everything and can’t find the fun and just RELAX A LITTLE BIT!??!?!?!
Why does it seem like I am the only one not having fun on these weekends during which we are supposed to be having a shit ton of fun and making those stupid memories? I want to have fun memories too! But all I have - a lot of what I have - is stress, anxiety about how bedtime was a disaster all weekend. Nary a photo taken of me with a cute bev, laughing adorably anywhere. How my kid was That Kid, and we had to make tough parenting choices and then deal with the consequences, while everyone else was doing something fun. How I didn’t get to spend much time with my partner parent at all, because of said parenting choices and consequences, and as a result, we got home from the beach, having not spoken much to each other except to discuss the next parenting choice and strategy, sigh at each other, and try not to blame the other for whatever is going on with the kid right now.
The easy thing to do would have been to cancel both of these trips. We spent next to nothing on both, it would have been a minimal monetary loss to call both off. And I contemplated it, ahead of both weekends. Thinking, things are hard right now, is it the WRONG choice to go away for the weekend? Is it WRONG to take him out of his routine and safe place, to switch things up and maybe ruin whatever momentum we had gathered? Am I DOING IT WRONG!? Am I making literally all the wrong choices? Who will tell me if what I’m doing is right or wrong? Who will tell me what I should do?
In the end, we decided that NOT going on the trips was not going to solve any of our existing struggles. It’s not like if we simply hadn’t gone on the DC trip that we’d have ironed out all those 4-year-old kinks over that 3 day period. If only we’d stayed home, everything would be better! False.
And each trip, we had a backup plan. A plan to abort. I find I am easier when I know that we can abandon whatever we’re doing at any point and go home to our safe space. And it helps when my partner agrees and supports this backup plan. We’re in agreement that if things go very extremely badly south, we simply throw all the shit and kids back into the car and go home. Contemplating bigger, further away, more expensive travel with these two right now gives me actual hives, but I know people do it successfully! Or, just do it! I know people do it, and I know I have the choice to do it too, should I want to. It’s not necessarily about can or can’t. It’s more about really evaluating how I want to spend my time. I’m the grown-up, so I get to decide. Do I WANT to take these kids to the beach, knowing the only enjoyable time I will get ON the beach is when we hire a babysitter? Do I WANT to go on this weekend trip, knowing that bedtime struggles will probably not cease, that behavior issues will continue and not automatically turn off because of a new location?
This brings me back to expectation-setting. It seems that I DID think that our current 4yo struggles would cease on the trip away, and that was flawed thinking. I expected things would go smoothly and therefore was MORE upset and disappointed when they didn’t.
FOMO is so real in the summer especially, too. We see all these beautiful pics on social media and our brains forget that these are highlight reels (reels, literally) not reality, and brain goes like
brain: HEY YOU NEED TO GET SOME OF THAT
me: some of what, dude?
brain: THAT! THAT FUN, OR WHATEVER! MATCHING OUTFITS! HOT DOGS IN A PARK WITH NO BATHROOM FOR YOUR KID TO POOP IN! OUTDOOR BIRTHDAY PARTIES! IN AUGUST IN NORTH CAROLINA, SOUNDS FUN!
me: um, no too hot, thanks tho.
brain: LOOKS FUN! FUNNNNNNNNNN THAT YOU ARE NOT HAVING
me: idk…
brain: WHY AREN’T YOU TAKING YOUR KID TO MORE SPLASH PADS OR SITTING ON THE BEACH
me: i dunno, time? money?
brain: BUILDING SAND CASTLES
me: i don’t love sitting in the sand? I prefer a chair
brain: WITH YOUR 4 YEAR OLD, SO MESSY
me: i leave sand fun for daddy. mama loves a chair.
brain: SO HE KNOWS YOU LOVE HIM
me: oh, well um
brain: AND HE CAN MAKE THIS - ahem - CORE MEMORY!!!
me: but what about my bank account and mental health?
brain: CORE MEMORIESSSS
me: but.
brain: SO YOU MUST NOT LIKE FUN THEN? YOU ARE A LOSER, YES? YOUR KID IS MISSING OUT AND WILL NOT LOVE YOU AS MUCH
me: yikes
brain: OR DEFINITELY HE WILL WANT KYLEIGH'S MOMMY AS HIS OWN MOMMY BECAUSE OF…
me: oh no
brain: COOOOOOOORE MEMORIESSSSSSSSSS
ugh.
I wrote most of this in the days following the beach trip and have been ruminating on it for a bit. And a couple days ago I saw a reel on instagram that really hit the point for me. I can’t find it anymore, but did transcribe the audio:
Take the kids. Even if it feels overwhelming. Take the kids, even if you have to do it alone. Your kids are too loud? Mine too. They might not act right? Mine too. I may be judged as a parent? Let them. Take the kids because you deserve to be out enjoying life. You’re a mom first but a mom needs to experience joy. So take the kids, and show them what this world has to offer.
I MEAN IT’S A YES FROM ME. It’s a yes FOR me. All of this internal conflict about should we, shouldn’t we, and this thought distilled down to the point of why we are doing it now: because WE deserve the joy that it might bring. We deserve to be out in the world. And, as my aforementioned traveling friend said when I sent the reel to her, we hope somewhere down deep they’ll benefit from it too.
And after all the time we spend practicing travel, taking them to the beach on weekends, visiting new cities and towns, flying in airplanes, playing the license plate game in the car, handling tantrums in very public places, dealing with nasty diapers in very unclean places, not sleeping, struggling to find the fun…after all of that, I’ll be glad we’ve been going on trips all this time. Won’t I? Because it’s fun. It’s a pile of burning shit when they’re little and won’t go to bed or stay asleep or take their nap, and yeah, sometimes, lots of times, lately, I look around and ask…Is this fun? Are any of us having fun?? And I think the answer is no, but still, yes.
What do you think? Am I just an anxious person who needs to chill? How do YOU make travel easier for yourself and your family? Share in the comments! And if you enjoyed this memoir, I’d love it if you forwarded it to a friend who also is wondering if anyone is having fun traveling with small kids or if it’s just her who’s struggling. Because she’s not alone and neither are you and neither am I. HUGS.
kbyeeeee
Man-Piece, aka my husband because I’m a child and struggle to use the word “husband” in sentences even though we’ve been married for 8 years.
said literally everyone ever, it’s not like a unique-to-me personality trait or something
Thank you for this hilarious description of, what’s that pre-Instagram thing called? Oh yeah: REALITY.
My kids are all in their twenties now, but yes, this has, and always will be, real life with little ones. Social media displays a fake image of life, but those of us who’ve lived it know the insider’s secret.
We need more stories like yours so young moms today don’t feel like they’re doing anything wrong or feeling wrong about anything they’re doing. We do our best with what we know or have access to at the time. Good enough.
Too true. I think the funny thing about this is that, we are also are not having that much fun at home? I feel like this weirdly calms me down. Do I want to stay home and not have that much fun, or go somewhere and see some stuff that I will find interesting, but also, inevitably, not have that much fun?