K & O Reflecting on Vacation

re·flect

to cast back;  to think, ponder, consider, or meditate; ruminate, deliberate, contemplate.

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Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.

~Lorraine Hansberry,  A Raisin in the Sun

Many people believe that traveling with young children is a “waste.” They say that elaborate vacations or substantive trips and travels are simply “lost” on younger kids. That we should “wait until they are older” so that they will “appreciate” it, or, “at least remember it.” Braydon and I know that lots of people think this,  and we have had people say these things directly to us. Braydon and I, obviously, disagree. Right from the start we have always traveled as much as possible with our children. We have conscientiously prioritized travel — both financially and in terms of our time — in a major way. We try to make our trips as often and as substantive as we possibly can. If we could, we would do even more. And while we know that our kids probably won’t remember much of the details (if any), and that they probably can’t appreciate well (if at all) how truly privileged they are to have the life experiences that they do, we are sure that their world views are being shaped by the bigness of the world to which they are being exposed.

A few years ago I asked a good friend what parenting advice she could give me. I ask this question of many people I come into contact with– it is my favorite question to ask of people– but this particular person said something that really stuck with me. She is a friend who is many years older and wiser than me; a single mom whose mothering I deeply respect; someone whose bi-racial, bi-lingual, bi-cultural, bi-continental daughter we’ve known since she was quite young and is now a young woman that I’d be proud to be the parent of. Anyway, our friend told me that her best parenting advice was this: “Travel with your kids so they grow up knowing they are part of the big world.” That’s the direct quote. I’ll never forget that. And I try to remember it in the face of naysayers who tell me (or insinuate) that “traveling with young kids is a waste.”

Since we’ve been back from the Dominican Republic, Kyle and Owen have been doing what they always do when we return from a trip: they are reflecting on it. In their own ways. Mostly we see this in their play and their questions. Every trip expands their world exponentially. And when they are grounded, safely back home again, back into the rhythm and routine of their own daily life, they explore their new-found expansion and reflect on the new that they have seen. They process it in part by talking about it, but mostly by playing it. The woods are now a tropical jungle. The pool is the Caribbean Sea. And the sandbox is now a favorite dinner spot on the beach in La Romana, Dominican Republic, on the island of Hispaniola.

I have a hard time getting K & O to draw. They resist it and always have. And they are really (relatively speaking– for their age) bad at it. I say that with all due respect (and I’d never, ever, ever tell them or imply to them that they are “bad” at it). But seriously, drawing is not their strong suit. (and even on a recent ‘IQ’-type test that they took they were in the bottom 5th percentile in the area of drawing). This is ironic because I am actually quite a crafty-artistic-type and have always encouraged them to draw (while carefully not pushing them to draw). But it is also ironic for another reason–   since long before I ever had kids, I have been intensely interested in children’s artwork as an expression of the perspectives and vantage points of youth. This is actually something with which I’ve done quite a bit of academic work, and something I’m sort of ‘known for’ in one corner my professional life. Strange how ironic life can be– that I can do all sorts of work on children’s artwork as a qualitative methodology for the sociology of children and childhood… and then, years later… my own children pretty much won’t draw! (we just have to laugh!)… anyway… despite all this… every once in a while K & O do draw. And, usually, when they do draw (if it is for real and not just scribbling for the sake of scribbling), what they do is enough food-for-thought to last me quite a while. A few days after coming home from the Dominican Republic, the boys actually sat down at the kitchen table with me to draw. Here is what Owen drew:

Owen explained it (from left to right), in his own words~~~~    The bright hot sun; a palm tree with coconuts growing on it; a flag sticking up– it is the Haiti flag and the United States flag and actually a whole Hispaniola and America flag; a map of the hotel which is actually also a dot-to-dot maze; Kyle and Papi and Owen and Mommy on vacation.

And Kyle drew this:

Kyle’s drawing in intense. He spent a lot of time working on it. It has been floating in my head since. The entire time he was talking, telling me all about what he was drawing. Kyle’s drawing, in his own words~~~~   the clinic where we [K & O] were born in Cite Soleil in the city of Port au Prince in the country of Haiti on the island of Hispaniola [on far right, the oval with lots of people inside it]; this clinic is far, far away from the United States and it is full of people– it is like a little hospital– and the people are all in the clinic and Kyle and Owen are being born in there– and we are born in our birthmother’s belly– and our birthmother is in the clinic too; [drawn under the clinic] Rock and Patrick coming to the clinic to get us; [leading off to the left] the road in Haiti; [further to the left] Mommy and Papi coming to get us and lots and lots of people all around in the streets in Haiti; [far left] the airplane that Mommy and Papi took to Haiti– with a line (the plane’s exhaust fumes) all behind it going all the way back to the United States; [center] a big huge palm tree with coconuts hanging down and also the special bark that you can climb; the sun. What is, probably, most interesting to me is that when he had finished the whole drawing he handed me the paper and said it was a drawing of “Vacation.”

About two weeks after we got home from the DR, Braydon was out with the boys running an errand. They were listening to music and quiet. Out of the blue, from the back seat, Kyle said, “Papi, did you know that I wish I was born in Mommy’s belly?” Braydon told me later that day that Kyle had said this. A couple of days later, when I found a good mundane moment alone with Kyle in the kitchen, I snuggled up to him and with him sitting up on the counter, and me standing close, with my arms wrapped around him, I whispered in his ear, “Kyle, you know what? I love you exactly just as you are, and I wish that I could have had you born from my belly.” Instantaneously he melted into my arms, his head heavy on my shoulder. He pulled away so that his face was just a couple of inches from mine, “Really?” He asked. “Yes, really,” I said, “I am so glad it all happened like it did, but still, I wish you had been born in my belly so that I could have had you and Owen with me the whole whole whole time.” “It’s ok Mommy!” he said cheerily. “I wish we were born in your belly too! But if I wasn’t born in my birthmother’s belly then I wouldn’t be brown! And you wouldn’t have been able to come to Haiti!” “I know!” I said, following his lead, “and I love your brown skin! and that was the best day of my life! So I wish you were born in my belly, but I’m also so glad it all happened the way it did.” That was the end of it, for then. But it did what I hoped for– it freed him to express something– because about every-other-day since then, at totally random times (last night, for example, it was when Kyle was sitting on the potty looking at a Red Sox magazine and I was chaperoning Meera nearby in the bathtub), Kyle says to me, totally out of the blue, “Mommy, I wish I was born in your belly.” And I just stop for a second and look at him and say, “I know baby, me too.” And this is a newfound place for us– an expression of something that has surely always been there, but it took a trip to their island of Hispaniola to bring us to this new place of reciprocal expression and understanding.

Each place is beautiful in its own way. And some trips are more elaborate, more long-distance, more involved, than others. But each of them bring us to someplace new. Not just in the actual trip, but in the reflection of it.