to all you kids traveling the globe while your mom and dad sit at home waiting to hear the next word
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Ok, I think the hardest thing that I have had to do so far as a mom is say yes to my kids wanting, no, needing to travel before (in my mind) they had enough money or experience to do so. Well, as an after thought, I am the one with the inexperience and lack of faith in myself and the world around me and people that I might run into, to take care of my needs. I have watched my two girls, seperately take on the full bodied richness of the world with what seemed like reckless abandon. As it turns out their brave faith in the world has proven to be positive even when things were hard and very unfamiliar. They have tackled lost luggage, long layovers, dingy's in Vietnam, illness' in Thailand and Switzerland, worked in Austria and New Zealand. They have met wonderful people around the world and shared travel stories with other brave travelers. And all of us, back home, who love them, wait for their next blog entry because their experiences, their love for this world, not only helps them grow but makes us all better people. |
I concur--great post. I only got lucky because my mother dealt with my two older brothers' military deployments before my comparatively benign travels.
I'm terrified to have my daughter leave my wife's uterus, much less imagine her traveling the world.
I think the lesson for everyone here is "Call mom...regularly". :)
Thanks for this post - I always tell my parents that I could never travel so far if I didn't have their support and a place to go home to. I hope that when I have kids I'll remember to let them find their own paths in the world.
-Tim
I can relate. But I had a son who started his world travels before I was ready. I was a single mom, he was in college and took a year off for third world countries. There were no travel blogs or cell phones. It was nail biting most of the time for me. But he opened my eyes as well as his own. It has helped him make life changing decisions all through his life. He is now raising a world traveler of his own. It is amazing to me to watch his 6 year old go through security at an airport like the seasoned traveler he is, while I fumble with my shoes and laptop. Letting go is hard, but oh so right.
"There were no travel blogs or cell phones."
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You raise an important point here (though I acknowledge parents still worry, no matter what). When I worked as an educational tour director, one of the things that drove me crazy was the fact that kids were attached to their cell phones. As soon as they hit the ground in Puerto Rico, they were on the phone. If there was a roach in the hotel, they were on the phone. If their food was cold, they were on the phone. What was bothersome to me was not that kids wanted to be in touch with their parents, but that their attachment to the cell phone and their immediate impulse to call home never let them develop what I think is one of the greatest benefits, skills, and gifts of travel: the ability to learn how to assess and solve problems on their own. A girl once thrust her cell phone at me and said "Call for you." Her mother then launched into a monologue in which she told she'd take me to court if her daughter was bitten by the mosquito that was buzzing around her room. I could only reply by saying: (1) Where do you think you sent your daughter? This is a Caribbean country. There are mosquitos, and (2) I told all the kids to close their doors to minimize mosquitos, and her door has been open for the past two hours.
Oh so very true! One benefit of being around the world is that you have to figure out how to navigate those things that take us out of our comfort zone. And when we do, when we learn to go with what comes our way, we are liberated, finally ready to really see and feel life. I say bring on the mosquitoes.
This is a great post! Thank you so much for sharing it.
At 15, I won a scholarship to study Spanish anywhere in the world, and I chose Costa Rica. My parents later told me that they wanted to do nothing more than stand in front of the airplane and shout "Stop!", but to their great credit, they didn't. I lived through a series of earthquakes, a fire in my shower, and countless other challenges and excitements, and I learned a great deal about myself and the world. That single travel experience set me on the path I'm still on 15 years later. It's thanks to my parents, who were willing to let go even when they didn't want to, that travel remains so important to me today.
I am a mom with a tendency to worry so I will gratefully carry with me your 15 years of successfully hurdling those travel challenges. I know the incredible experiences make it all worth while.