Nature/Environment & Personal Posted by Oaktown Girl, 07 Sep 2007 05:01 am

Kids and Vacations and the Middle Class American Dream

By Seattle

It has occurred to me several times in the last few years that I’m living in the wrong decade, if not the wrong century. I’ve got the wrong attitude when it comes to vacations. Around me are adults who, when they think of taking a vacation, they think of taking vacations AWAY from their children. To escape the grind is to escape the grind of parenthood. The concept of the shared family vacation as part of the education of the child by the parent by exposing them to new places, history, natural beauty and time spent outside the home seems a bit old fashioned. An example: a father called and left a phone message for his son from his vacation in a tropical location: “Hey, just came back from snorkling-you would have loved it. I love ya -….” Personally I find that kind of message disturbing. How is a child supposed to feel when a parent calls to let them know what a great time they’re having-without you?

So I took my sons on two vacations in the last two weekends. First we went to Kalaloch Beach in the Olympic National Park coastline. Here is the gazebo at the trail head down to the beach:


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And more of the beach proper:


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What I learned on this part of the vacation was that if you put 3 boys in a van and drive for almost 4 hours, let them loose on a beach, they will happily step 5 feet off the path to the nearest driftwood fort and proceed to “improve” it for the rest of the time you’re there. So I was the one who walked up the beach looking for interesting sights and flora and fauna and the kids never moved from their fort. Not a big surprise as driftwood is really Kalaloch’s big attraction. I haven’t been to a whole bunch of beaches around the country/world, but I do know that here in the North West we are big on driftwood. And rocks. Personally, I wasn’t too thrilled with Kalalock. Flat sandy beach I don’t find too interesting. I never was a lay around on the beach and tan person - I get hot and bored. Plus there aren’t a whole lot of warm beaches up here to lay around on. Brrr-somebody pass me a sweater. With a hood.

After a reasonable night in the tiny burg of Forks, Washington, I fended off the boy’s efforts to drive directly back to the same fort and spend the second day “improving” it some more. Instead we headed for the Hoh Rainforest. For those of you who haven’t been wowed by the statistics, this is the temperate rain forest that gets an average of 140 inches of rain a year and another 30 inches in condensation. And it rained…. ; ) How many shades of green can you count?
seattle_vaca4.jpg

What I learned at the Hoh Rainforest: ADD boys and throwing rocks in the Hoh River go together like cookies and milk. Oh, and disposable cameras suck.

From the Hoh we went to Ruby Beach, which I liked a lot more than Kalaloch. I grew up down in the Portland OR area and we usually went to Oregon beaches which tend to be rocky with lots of tidepools. I find these much more interesting to explore. More beach forts were discovered and two out of three boys actually ventured into the water, which was numbingly cold. Welcome to the Northern Pacific! There was lots of surf fishing for perch and one of the boys said he could feel crabs pinching at his toes. Also, someone got a great deal of joy out of piling flat round rocks on each other to form little pillars. Others had left their mark by scratching their names in the rocks and piling them around driftwood forts. The tide pools were a disappointment though - discovery total: one green sea anemene.

Here is an excellent slide show by nwexposers.com of most of these beaches:
[MOJ’s note: slide show is lovely and definitely worth a look - but turn your speakers down if you’re at the office - there’s background music.]

So we left Ruby Beach and survived the ride home despite regular reminders of boredom in the van. Did the boys have a good time? Yes. Were they glad we went? Yes. Even though at times they had to be dragged from the van, they were glad they went.

Next Week: Part II

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Responses to “Kids and Vacations and the Middle Class American Dream”

  1. on 07 Sep 2007 at 10:43 am 1. Oaktown Girl said …

    [Just a quick note from work, more later hopefully]

    It’s funny how parents have one idea of what’s fun/educational for kids (beach/tide pool exploration), and kids have a different idea (The fort! The fort!!). Good fun! And thanks for sharing all these cool places with us.

    It’s healthy for parents to have “away time” from their kids. It’s also healthy for the kids. But it sounds like what you’re hearing from your colleagues is not exactly a healthy balance. Hmmm…maybe the nannies will do a better job raising those kids than the parents would anyway, in that case.

  2. on 07 Sep 2007 at 12:47 pm 2. spyder said …

    There seems to be something hugely wrong with the gazebo picture. Where are the rains and the clouds, and dreary NW typical beach landscapes???? What is with all that sunshine? It is so not right to have sunny beach days in WA.

    As someone who was forced by my parents to go on extended nationwide excursions every year of my life until i was nearly 14 (and that puts most of those in the 1950s and a few in the 1940s), and as a parent who forced my children to go on extended nationwide excursions most of their young lives (and my youngest, a 15 years old lad, simply refused to do it again this summer tour), the long-term effects of such travels seems to have left them with a fine sense of North American geography and a slight tendency for nomadic lifestyles. I notice that there is plenty of time in one’s life to vacation by oneself (and/or w/ life partner), and those years with the kids (whether they only build driftwood forts) were well worth it. Of course it took me years (okay nearly 5 decades) to admit to my own father how much i truly appreciated the effort on his (and my mother’s) part to undertake the journeys. But i am a painfully slow learner.

    Of course, in keeping with the discussion on working classes, and having just completed more than three months of touring on the road, it has gotten incredibly expensive to travel w/ families across this land. The hotels/motels that used to let “kids stay free” no longer have those plans, nor do the airlines or the trains. The costs of rental RV’s have shot up tremendously in the last three years (you can’t get a week for less than $1500 minimum), and even if you only ate from grocery stores and icechests the food/drink resources are also shocking. Even remote parks and USFS campgrounds have raised their user and camping fees. This is all tragically sad.

  3. on 07 Sep 2007 at 1:14 pm 3. Seattle said …

    I think the gazebo picture was modified by some organization hoping for more tourists…. : )

    As I mentioned before, without a credit card, these minimal weekend vacations wouldn’t have occurred. So I’m building my family experiences on credit.

    “It’s healthy for parents to have “away time” from their kids. It’s also healthy for the kids. But it sounds like what you’re hearing from your colleagues is not exactly a healthy balance.”

    You know Oaktown Girl, that’s why I feel I’m from the wrong era. “Away time” is an affluent parent concept which I think of as part of the ongoing distancing -emotional and physical- of the American family. I don’t believe that family members are items of convenience that you spend time with when and how you chose. But that’s my experience.

  4. on 07 Sep 2007 at 1:33 pm 4. Oaktown Girl said …

    You know Oaktown Girl, that’s why I feel I’m from the wrong era. “Away time” is an affluent parent concept…

    You misunderstand me, or perhaps I should have defined “away time”. When I say “away time”, I mean time that parents have to themselves for their own relaxation, meditation, and extremely necessary spouses-private time. This can be just locking down the bedroom for an hour or two per week and telling the kids they need to entertain themselves for a while.

    Now that’s not at all an upscale practice. In fact, I remember it was quite a common practice in several of my childhood friends’ households, and I remember me desperately wishing my parents loved each other enough to do the same thing.

    What I see as a growing problem (since at least the 80’s) is parents making their kids the center of their (the parents’) world 24-7-365. It not only takes a terrible toll on marriages (which in most cases is not good for the kids) and impedes a parent’s opportunity for continued personal development outside of being a parent (which is usually very good for the kids), it gives the children a highly skewed view of the world and overly selfish sense of entitlement. That’s what I’m talking about as “not healthy”.

  5. on 07 Sep 2007 at 2:07 pm 5. Seattle said …

    I don’t know any families like that. Work alone takes most parents away from their kids for at least 10 hours of the day. In the time remaining, kids that have already been shuffled off to daycare and school have relatively little time to share with parents. Juggling personal time, couple time, and oh, yes, family time when they are all supposed to be exclusive of each other is hard to imagine. Somebody loses out.

  6. on 07 Sep 2007 at 2:23 pm 6. Oaktown Girl said …

    Well, Seattle, I wasn’t trying to say that they all needed to be “exclusive” of each other. I was just trying to give a few examples of the benefits of parents and kids having some time apart, even just a little bit.

    A big part of the problem goes back to workers’ issues and what it takes now to financially maintain a household (even a “modest” one), compared to what it took even just a few decades ago.

    But outside of that, I think it’s sad that so much of kids’ activity time is structured and parent/adult organized. I know a lot of this is that parents don’t feel safe letting their kids just run around and play outside anymore, which is very sad. Just plain having the kids play outside is healthy “away time”, and I like kids having space to learn social skills on their own outside of school and outside of formally adult-structured activities. But alas, those days are mostly gone.

  7. on 07 Sep 2007 at 2:29 pm 7. Seattle said …

    LOL This reminds me of when I walked off down Kalaloch Beach while the kids were playing in the fort. I was probably gone for over an hour. When I got back I hit a barrage of “Where were you?”s as if I’d abandoned them. So I’m standing there slighly amazed and I said, “Well, I walked that way for a while, then I turned around and… walked back. There aren’t a whole lot of options along here to do anything else….

    I actually got a lot of “away time” on these trips just because I walk slower and the boys left me behind. So I could enjoy the scenery in peace. And they’d race past everything and then be back playing with gameboys in the van when I got back.

  8. on 07 Sep 2007 at 3:54 pm 8. Oaktown Girl said …

    Yeah, your vacation seems like the perfect balance. Space for the kids to run around without the tethers on, and for you to take your own sweet time.

    When they asked where you were, it would have been funny had you made up some incredibly elaborate story/adventure - you know, just to see the looks on their faces.

  9. on 07 Sep 2007 at 4:24 pm 9. Seattle said …

    That would have been amusing. A monster came out of the waves and we waged a terrific battle just out of site down there-it was GOJIRA!

  10. on 07 Sep 2007 at 4:57 pm 10. Seattle said …

    Heading out for the evening. You all have a good weekend. : )

  11. on 07 Sep 2007 at 8:28 pm 11. spyder said …

    But outside of that, I think it’s sad that so much of kids’ activity time is structured and parent/adult organized.

    Yes indeed. Not the vacation time and touring, but the constant control of the day-to-day moment to moment kids jumping through hoops and parents racing around like mad to hold up all the hoops: athletics, arts, crafts, social and school based activities, etc. While it is great to have all that in one’s life, it also denies the kids the access to just play (literally goof around), and the parents the free time for themselves; time that may very well make the difference between a successful relationship, and one that deteriorates out of lack of any real connecting simply from being on the move all the time.

  12. on 08 Sep 2007 at 10:23 pm 12. James Killus said …

    I believe that a substantial part of America has become very afraid of its children, which it then translates into being very afraid “for” the children, with the resultant attempt to overcontrol and map out every moment, present and future. There’s also the part about seeing phantom monsters on every street corner, and child molesters in every stranger’s smile.

    Previous generations wanted a “better” life for their kids, and often got it, at the price of having children who were so different from them that we have an entire pop culture phenomenon of “mutant children stories.” I think that the lesson has been learned, and now many parents are fearful of the differences that accrue, with the implications of their own mortality that this implies.

    The future always murders the present; I consider that to be part of its charm, but I sense that many of my fellows disagree. Perhaps this is because I have no children of my own, but I suspect that’s not really the reason. My accolades to all who raise their children well, and, despite everything, it looks to me like the new generations are better than mine, and they inherit the world with my blessings and apologies for those screwups that I’ve had any part in creating.

  13. on 09 Sep 2007 at 4:42 pm 13. christian h. said …

    I believe that a substantial part of America has become very afraid of its children, which it then translates into being very afraid “for” the children,

    James, I think you are making a very good point there.

    In Germany, we aren’t quite as far in keeping the children in our sight at all times, yet. They still get to play in the woods on their own (well, maybe not alone, but with friends) as I did when I was a child, walk to school pretty much from first grade on and such things (well, I should say that this is based on observations in mostly richer neighborhoods in medium-sized towns, similar to what would be suburban here - working class children with both, or the only, parent working are often on their own a whole lot of time, since Germany still hasen’t completely moved to full day schools).

  14. on 09 Sep 2007 at 9:00 pm 14. JP Stormcrow said …

    The greatest vacation “revolt” in our family was after having been to Monticello and Mount Vernon, we kids stood up on the second or third day at Williamsburg and refused to see one more damn old house - instead insisting that we spend the day at the motel pool, much to our Mother’s disgust and dismay.

    … and then 35 years later I had the same fight with my kids at the same place (different motel, though).

  15. on 10 Sep 2007 at 5:39 am 15. Charles said …

    This post makes me want to Google the places I visited as a child with my parents and sister and make reservations to take my kids (ages 5 and 2) there ASAP.

    That father who called his son after snorkeling is seriously ill. Please tell us you made that up.

  16. on 10 Sep 2007 at 9:59 am 16. Oaktown Girl said …

    JP – For a kid on vacation, there is nothing better than the motel swimming pool. And you were right to stage a rebellion in favor of a day in the pool instead of one more damn day in the car.

  17. on 10 Sep 2007 at 10:57 am 17. Seattle said …

    No Charles, I didn’t make it up. That particular father is busy extending his own childhood up into his 50’s I suspect. Making up for a poor job done by his parent/s. Which brings us full circle, doesn’t it?

    Kid’s in my neighborhood wander around between houses and play on the sidewalk-where there is one, which is about a block away from my place on a two block stretch. Now here is an example of cross cultural interaction at it’s best: I was at the start of the school year picnic last week and I sat down next to the mother of one of the neighborhood boys. She is from Poland. She was talking about another boy’s family-mom and 6 kids who live across the street from her. This family is both Muslim and African American. Kids from this family do wander around the neighborhood from a very early age and the Polish mother’s main complaint it that she was always worried about the kids because they might get hurt in the street. Having watched these children out on their own from as early as 2 years old, I too had ongoing fears about them getting hit by cars. Around the corner, a third family of Native American extraction with yet a 3rd son somewhere close to my youngest boy’s age also let their children wander in the streets with very little supervision. Since there is no sidewalk in front of their house, this means I often saw this child standing out in the road from about the age of 2 or so and quite frankly I’m surpised he’s still alive. Not to stop there, not quite directly across from my home lives a 4th family of hispanic origin. The kids in this family pretty much treat the street in front of their home as their front yard. Again, small children are often on the pavement and this home is maybe 20 feet from a blind curve. So in MY neighborhood, kids are getting plenty of quality time wandering with little supervision. And my son gets out there and plays with all of them on a limited basis-between cello practice, cello lessons, and aikido lessons.

  18. on 10 Sep 2007 at 1:38 pm 18. Oaktown Girl said …

    Regarding the a-hole calling his kid from his fabulous vacation – that person’s clearly an ignorant jerk, and sadly, he’s not alone. But in terms of forming opinions based on public statements of “getting away from the kids”, I’d be hesitant to take it at face value unless you know the person, and know they suck as a parent.

    The reason I say this is because almost no one is going to announce in a public setting (such as the workplace), that they are taking some time to “reconnect” with their spouse. You’re especially unlikely to hear that from a man. It’s just so much easier (and less personally revealing) to phrase it as “getting away from the kids”. I think it’s understood that it’s not about “getting away” from the kids, but about reconnecting with your spouse - taking some very important time to remind each other why you fell in love in the first place, and what you love about each other still. It’s so easy for a single person like me to hear the phrase, “Getting away from the kids” and decide that person has screwed up priorities and values. But if you’re married, and you see yourself growing ever more distant from that person in bed next to you every night and you’re now more like co-occupants in the house instead of a couple, well, I can see that keeping a marriage a “marriage” and not merely cohabitation (at best) and all-out war (at worst) would be a high priority. And let me tell you from personal experience that a happy marriage is an integral part of a happy home. And in fact, if you don’t have that, it become the only thing that makes a happy home.

    Kids know when their parents’ marriage isn’t a happy one, and no amount of “not arguing in front of the kids” prevents the atmosphere from being poisoned with stress, sadness, grief, fear, etc. The very best thing a parent can give a kid is a happy home, and happy parents are one of, if not the, biggest factor. So yes, parents taking time to keep their relationship with each other a happy one is vital. And I don’t mean long vacations away. I mean the hiring a babysitter for a few hours once a month (if it’s do-able financially), that sort of thing.

    And while today there may be more selfish well-to-do parents out there, I don’t believe for most people values about family have really change. I think because people have to work much longer hours than before, it’s harder than it once was for parents to have adult-time together. So, sadly, it has to be formally scheduled, whereas before it could just happen naturally in the course of things.