Steady Mom

why traveling with your kids is worth the trouble

The plane touched down at London Heathrow Wednesday night, and on Thursday morning jet lag kicks in hard. 

"Why are we doing this again?!" I always wonder for the first few days in a substantially different time zone.

Throughout our travels with kids over the years--whether by train, plane, or automobile--I've had some interesting experiences:

I've been vomited on, rubbed a child's back while they vomited into a bag at the end of a long plane journey, listened to a child screaming for what felt like a very. long. time. in the back of the van on a road trip, and overheard so much bickering from the backseat that I'm pretty sure I've met my lifetime quota.

So why on earth do we keep going?

Here's why I travel with my kids, in spite of the trouble:

1. It takes us all out of our comfort zone...and that's a good thing.

As a highly sensitive introvert, I love routines that let me know what to predict from life. I like taking risks from a place of stability. But travel often yanks that peaceful rhythm out the window.

This teaches us flexibility. When your plane gets delayed, when you don't know what you're eating, when you hear a different language spoken, when you don't know your way around a city--these moments build inner resiliency. You face a challenge and conquer it. Or you face one and fail, and learn something new.

That resiliency easily transfers to other areas of life as our kids grow. 

2. Traveling increases empathy, compassion, and mission-mindedness.

As our kids have traveled they have seen people far less fortunate than ourselves. This has left an impact. Coming close to extreme poverty in the Philippines two years ago is something they still mention now and then: "Remember the kids who lived in those cardboard shacks we passed by?"

I try to take the opportunity to point out all we have to be grateful for in such moments, while also reminding the kids that God put us here on this earth to live in service of others. Traveling has more easily enabled us to raise kids with a mission.

3.  Traveling teaches us that there's more than one way to live well.

It's far too easy to dig a serious rut in our middle-class, American life. We start to think everyone more or less lives like we do, learns like we do, speaks like we do. Worse, we start to think ours is the BEST way to live, learn, or speak. 

This slow-growing arrogance benefits nobody, and leads to growing heartache between nations.

Seeing how others live points out creative solutions to our own problems. It reminds us that there's more than one "right" way to do things. It shows children that you don't have to be rich to be happy. 

4. We learn so, so much through our explorations.

When you travel, the world becomes your classroom. History comes alive. Just yesterday I stood in front of Winston Churchill's funeral train--reading and watching clips of the nation coming out to honor him after his death.

During this time in England we've walked on Roman walls, studied the Vikings, explored castles and stately homes, and seen the sites in London. 

What a privilege--one that more than makes up for the hassle.

 

There's no one way to make traveling work for a family. It's definitely possible to travel with very young kids, but when I had a five-, four-, and three-year-old I honestly wasn't up for it. We stayed close to home, and explored the world through other avenues back then. But now that everyone is in double digits there's no holding us back!

Don't assume that your voyage has to be a global extravaganza, either. Trust me, a sense of adventure thrives just as much with a one hour drive up the road and a packed lunch box on the seat beside you. I know, because that's exactly how my dad nurtured my love for travel many, many weekends over the course of my life.

So please, as the warm days stretch ahead of you this summer, go somewhere--anywhere! It will definitely be exhausting, but it will also be unforgettable--for both you and your children.

"Life is stressful and life is wonderful. There is no contradiction here."
~ Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It

postcards from de smet (Little House road trip)

Laura's family lived in the Surveyor's House in By the Shores of Silver Lake - it's the oldest building in De Smet

Steve and the kids walk in front of the Ingalls store site, where they survived The Long Winter (now the red brick building)

At the Loftus store Pa finally bought the wheat that kept the family alive that winter

The Ingalls family's burial plot (from left to right): Carrie, Mary, the infant son of Laura and Almanzo, Ma, and Pa

At the Ingalls' homestead

The size and location of the Ingalls' claim shanty (after Pa had built the final additions to it)




Attending an 1880's school session

Remembering De Smet, South Dakota - the Little Town on the Prairie:

"But there was something else here that was not anywhere else. It was an enormous stillness that made you feel still. And when you were still, you could feel great stillness coming closer." 

"Laura opened the door and peeped in. This house (The Surveyor's House) had board floors; not as comfortable to bare feet as the earth floor of the shanty, but not so much work to keep clean." 

~ By the Shores of Silver Lake

"Pa's store building was one of the best in town. It stood by itself on the east side of Main Street. Its false front was tall and square-cornered, with one upstairs window in it. Downstairs there were two windows with the front door between them."

"Now, girls!" Ma said. "A storm outdoors is no reason for gloom in the house."

“If only I had some grease I could fix some kind of a light," Ma considered. "We didn't lack for light when I was a girl before this newfangled kerosene was ever heard of."

"That's so," said Pa. "These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraph and kerosene and coal stoves--they're good things to have, but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em.”

“It can't beat us!" Pa said.
"Can't it, Pa?" Laura asked stupidly.
"No," said Pa. "It's got to quit sometime and we don't. It can't lick us. We won't give up."

Then Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because it would not give up.” ~ The Long Winter

postcards from walnut grove (Little House road trip)

at the Sod House on the Prairie






the original fireplace mantle used in the Little House television show!


Remembering Walnut Grove, Minnesota and the banks of Plum Creek:

“All around that door green vines were growing out of the grassy bank, and they were full of flowers. Red and blue and purple and rosy-pink and white and striped flowers all had their throats wide open as if they were singing glory to the morning. They were morning-glory flowers. Laura went under those singing flowers into the dugout."

"It was one room, all white. The earth walls had been smoothed and white-washed. The earth floor was smooth and hard…The ceiling was made of hay. Willow boughs had been laid across and their branches woven together, but here and there the hay that had been spread on them showed though.”

"Where they waded in the shallow water a footprint would not stay. First a swirl like smoke came up from it and wavered away in the clear water. Then the footprint slowly melted. The toes smoothed out and the heel was only a small hollow."

"We must do the best we can, Laura, and not grumble. What must be done is best done cheerfully."

"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam
Be it ever so humble, there no place like home."

postcards from pepin (Little House road trip)

collecting pebbles from Lake Pepin



setting up Trishna's Little House paper dolls inside their very own cabin!





The Ingalls paper doll family (Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura, & Baby Carrie) traveled the entire 2,200 mile journey with us in the van.

Remembering Pepin, Wisconsin and the Little House in the Big Woods:

"Once upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs."

"The house was a comfortable house. Upstairs there was a large attic, pleasant to play in when the rain drummed on the roof. Downstairs was the small bedroom, and the big room. The bedroom had a window that closed with a wooden shutter. The big room had two windows with glass in the panes, and it had two doors, a front door and a back door."

"It was seven miles to town. The town was named Pepin, and it was on the shore of Lake Pepin."

"They all sat on the warm sand near the wagon and ate bread and butter and cheese, hard-boiled eggs and cookies. The waves of Lake Pepin curled up on the shore at their feet and slid back with the smallest hissing sound."

"After dinner, Pa went back to the store to talk awhile with other men. Ma sat holding Carrie quietly until she went to sleep. But Laura and Mary ran along the lake shore, picking up pretty pebbles that had been rolled back and forth by the waves until they were polished smooth."