Appreciating the simple things
The other morning, as Monkey skulked in my parents' sitting room, far from marauding grandparents, and Mabel vociferously demanded something or other, reasonable or otherwise, my father ventured that perhaps it wasn't the best thing for the kids to drag them around the world for short periods of time quite so often. This may have been a hint about moving home permanently - my parents don't quite understand, no matter how much we explain, that we're not staying away because we don't want to come back, we're staying away because there are no jobs for B at home - but I took it more as a criticism of my parenting. (Of course I did. I'm fourteen, remember. Flounce.)
It has crossed my mind, especially this trip, to wonder whether it's fair to the children to pluck them from their everyday routines and subject them to such chaos for a few weeks every year. But mostly, I come down on the side of yes. Maybe fair isn't the right word, but I do think it's good for them to see that the entire world isn't calibrated around their personal whims and desires, even if it looks that way at home because it's easier for us to live that way.
And I really want them to understand that, even though America seems like the centre of the universe - as home always does, wherever it is, when you're a child - it's not the only place in the world. There are other countries, with other ways of doing things, and other people, and they're all quite normal. It's not as if going from the US to Ireland is a huge cultural leap, where people speak the same language (more or less) and the cartoons on TV are often the same - but hey, they don't have all-kids, all-day channels, so sometimes you have to go and do something else. That's a shock right there.
So if there are some missed naps, some late nights, some days when all Monkey eats are chocolate biscuits purloined from first one granny and then the other, well, that's Christmas. We're all that much happier to get back to our normal lives. A change really is as good as a rest. Kind of.
posted by Maud @ 2:00 PM
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6 Comments:
I think kids are remarkably adaptable, most of them, and it is absolutely a good thing overall to expose them to travel in other places throughout their childhoods. It might be a little traumatic at the time, but isn't life in general occasionally traumatic? As long as their basic needs (food, sleep, love) are being met them they're good. :-)
Also, in your case, traveling is the only way for them to get to know their extended family!
I just clicked on your blog from the next blog button, and read just the one post. And all I can say is, I am incredibly jealous you are living in Ireland -- and I am certain, that once your kids are older, they won't care a wit about being carted here or there, or having missed naps. They will thank you for letting them have this amazing adventure that so very few people ever get to have! And, enjoy it while they are still young enough that you aren't having to factor in the issues that come with school and losing best friends quite so much. We are just now entering the stage where it really would be difficult on our oldest two to have to start a new school, make new friends, etc. and it is tricky knowing how adventurous we should make our lives now.
Hi Nancy! Thanks for reading, but you might have got the wrong end of the stick, so I just wanted to clarify. We're not living in Ireland - we're originally from there, living in the US, just went home for Christmas for 2 weeks. If we had the chance to go home permanently we'd do it, but so far it's not happening.
I have this debate with myself every time we drag H half-way round the world to see one set of family or the other or just to attend a conference or some other such parental selfishness, but I always decide (for good or bad reasons) that it is better to take them away and expose their little minds to more, then to let them grow up with closed minds thinking that where they are from is the best and only way to do things, which is the attitude that almost everyone I meet who hasn't traveled very much has, no matter where they are from. And as hard as it sometimes is when the 4-year-old suddenly has 3-year-old tantrums because he is jetlagged and the food is weird and who are all these people anyway, our trips away are what H remembers most and talks about most - he'll make references to places we went two years ago and remember things with astounding clarity and so these trips are obviously sticking with him much more than the day-to-day routine. I do wish that my parents didn't always see the somewhat-grumpy I-am-out-of-my-routine kid, instead of the sweet perfect kid he is at home, though at least they seem to make fewer annoying comments than yours do. Or I ignore them better. ;) But what can you do?
I also love how all our traveling sparks so many conversations about how people do things differently in different places and that more than one way can be just fine - the Irish aren't stupid for eating lunch punctually at 1pm and neither are the Americans for doing so at 12pm and Kiwis calling flipflops Jandals and the French giving him hot chocolate for breakfast every morning are just normal fine things to do in those places. This is such an important lesson that it seems most people never get.
If it makes you feel better, H had his fair share of shyness in New Zealand over Christmas and there were at least two people he still wasn't making eye contact with or answering questions from by the time we left. As we arrived on Christmas Eve, he opened his presents Christmas morning from the safety of under the kitchen table where no one could see him and only came out thanks to an ingenious game invented by his fantastic aunt. I found that the people he became comfortable with were the ones who made a real effort (my Dad and his aunt and uncle) - the ones who went outside with a ball and bat and then called him to join them, things like that. The people who just expected him to talk to them like an adult without making any effort were the ones he ignored. So you could always (a) blame your parents for not engaging Monkey on his level or (b) kindly point out to them that if they suggested activities to him that he likes and persisted, by the end of the trip he might interact with them a bit more.
Miranda, that does make me feel better, thank you.
Unfortunately, some of the people Monkey was most shy of were the ones who tried hardest to engage with him. He just wanted to be ignored and allowed to emerge on his own terms, I think. But he was scared of my Dad because his eyes look a bit red-rimmed from a recent operation, so he was never prepared to give him a chance.
Oh dear, that is unfortunate. Luckily, H is so unobservant that my Dad would have to have two heads before he would notice anything odd.
I hope/assume that as they get older these things will become easier. I look forward to the day when H understands what being polite is and how sometimes you do things because you ought to rather than because you want to or because your mother is offering you chocolate/threatening to sell all your Christmas presents if you do/don't. Such a bad mother I am. ;)
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