Leaving the kids, or taking them with you.

My parents never traveled without us until I was in my late teens. They started when I was seven and my sister 3.

It was great. I loved it. We went overseas every other year for awhile then every year. We chose special countries for special occassions: graduations (high school and college) my dad's 60th etc. It gave me the bug, it gave me confidence, it gave me something really special.

If you can take them, do.

My boys don't get along at all at home, but when we are on the road in a new place, they are fine. So I sometimes leave one home if they really want to stay, but encourage travelling. Now one wants to go without me. What have I started? My rule is, if I'm paying, I'm going too!

When just six months old both my parents had the opportunity to live and work in Malta (I was born in UK)They had the option of leaving me with both sets of grandparents alternating responsibilities. (The grandparents, I think, were convinced that I would catch all sorts of nasty things.) My mother couldn´t bear the thought of such separation (remembering then too that you couldn´t just phone home and burble to your loved ones as easily and as cheaply as you can now)They chose to take me along. And just a few weeks ago my mother (I´m now well into my 40s) gave me a beautiful set of black and white photos taken during our year together in Malta which I had never seen before. My mother was often left on her own by my father who was gadding about with the navy in the Med. And often she had to leave me alone with a local Maltese woman and her two children. I cannot recall any real concrete detail - but every now and then I have a flash-recall of warmth, of sun. And I do know, almost subliminally, that that time was the happiest of my life. When my grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary my mum´s brother arranged for the Maltese woman who used to childmind me to fly over from Malta for the party. In the intervening years she had become a very good friend of the family, especially my grandmother. Without any question of a doubt that experience, at such an early age, gave me the travel bug. I left home at 16 and travelled and lived extensively in the UK whilst taking occasional trips to Europe and beyond. By contrast my brother and sister, who were also born in the UK, have never lived more than 7 miles from the maternity hospital where they were born. My brother is phobic of flying and my sister has only once travelled to Europe - to visit me in Barcelona, where I now live. She is a self-confessed hopeless traveller and her children didn´t get to swim in the sea until the ages of 12 and 8 when I took them to the beach for the first time.
I´m now a parent (13 & 15 years old) and the partner to a parent with a 13 year old. I first took my kids abroad when they were 3 & 2 with travel cot, carrypacks the lot - it was hot, hard work but it was a trip I recall very fondly and my daughter remembers very vividly. We all travel widely - together - separately - all over. My 15 year old daughter is currently planning her trip to Thailand next year and she´s well on the road to raising the money for it. My son, 13 years old, has always said, from the very earliest age and has never swayed, that he will be an explorer when an adult - all his education-career choices are being aimed at that goal. My partner´s 13 year old speaks Catalan, Spanish, French, English and has just started learning Japanese. He´s a frequent visitor to the USA and he´s deadset on going to live in Japan when older. By contrast my partner´s parents, who worked in the US foreign service, spent many, many months away from their four daughters in places like Yugoslavia, Japan, Hawaii, Vietnam, Alaska, Russia, Germany etc. My partner has never really forgiven her dad for not taken her with them. When 16 each of the daughters were required by their parents to go live and study in a European country - my partner chose Spain and is still here after 25 years. Her older sister, who did get to accompany her dad on some of his extended trips abroad, chose Italy then France then UK and has since returned to the US. The second oldest daughter, who also accompanied her father and/or mother on extended trips chose Russia and then moved to Venezuela, but the youngest daughter, who never got to accompany her parents, went to France for a year and went straight back to the US and has never really ventured again except for rare, brief family visits to Europe.
So, what does all this say?
a) That if you do take the kids with you then you´ll likely be the one left behind in a few years time.
b) That if you don´t take the kids they´ll likely never want to leave you again
That´s my tuppence worth anyway. Hopes it helps you decide.

Austingirl - #29 - I agree... my bestfriend is the son of a diplomat (the only poor and uncorrupt one in his country he says :p) and has traveled and lived in much of the world. He is the most solid, well-mannered, street-smart, book-smart, well rounded and logical persons I know. It's truely amazing, his reasoning is almost always exact and if I ever disagree, he looks at my arguement and if he feels I have a valid point, will adjust his view accordingly. Amazing really what a life-time of experience before the age of 16 will give you!

I still feel however, that if you and your spouse, or just you need alone time (traveling or other) that your children should learn to adapt to life without you... life is adapting. Adapting to travel at a young age and to their parents traveling without them are both important. They won't always have their parents there to help.

Hi there,

We travelled before we had our twindaughters to Africa, but travelled more after they were born. Always took them both with us and had great travel-experiences! They are now 4,5 years old.
When they were 7 months old, we took them 3,5 weeks through Greece.
When they were 18 months, we backpacked 4 weeks through Malaysia.
When they were 3 years, we backpacked 5 weeks through southern India,
When they were almost 4,5 years, we backpacked again 4 weeks through South, East and North-east India. We are just 4 days back from this last trip and enjoyed it again, very,very much. Next time we want to visit India again (so big) and then to Rajasthan, Bengal and Ladakh?

Travelling with your children is a deep love-increasing
sometimes intensive and opening-doors with local people experience.........
Do it and enjoy it!!

Anke Donicie

I was only ever away from my daughter for a weekend. I was in tears by the second day. I can't even imagine being away from my little sidekick for more than a week. She is only two and a half, so maybe that will change, but not for a while! I practically break out in hives when I think of how I'll react to her going to Ireland to visit her dad when she's old enough!

I, like many other parents, have to occassionally travel away from home for work - I hate it.

One or two week trips are bearable, but I hate being away and seeing things or having experiences that I think I wish my family were with me to see this.

But that is not the worst.

A while back I went on an extended trip to a location where travelling with my family was not an option.

When I returned I went to collect my son from school, he had been told I was collecting him.

As long as I live I will not forget my son looking around at the people picking their kids up, he looked at me and I saw in his eyes that he wasn't sure if it was me, and I saw the fear he had that it might not be me.

I'll not be away like that again, and I cannot for the life of me think why I thought to go in the first place.

When I contrast with travelling together as a family and the great experience that can be, I am even more convinced that I will not be travelling away like that again.

Maybe that's something I had to experience to understand, but I'm not up for a second dose.

My parents left my sister and I several times for a couple of weeks. We stayed with my grandparents or aunt and uncle, and always had a great time. We also took many many long trips with my parents. I think it is important for couples to take time for themselves, as well. If you have willing relatives that can give the kids thier own fun "vacation" this might be a way you and your spouse can take some time for just the two of you.

We took our son on his first trip abroad (Mexico) when he was six weeks old. W spent five weeks in Europe when he was 9 months old (he took his first steps in an Italian hotel while my wife and I would go the opera in Verona on alternating nights (no children allowed under a certain age). Two years later when he was going on three we spent three months in Europe. At age four we did the Hong Kong to Bali circiut and the South Pacific and Australia the following year.
As he got older we traveled to Europe almost annually and for his sixteenth birthday I gave he and his friend a ticket and some spending money to go to Europe on his own. My son is now a very worldly urbane young man about to finish his engineering degree wanting to head to Italy, Greece, Turkey and Egypt to examine the wonders of those countries from the perspective of his civil engineering education and past memories.

Fantastic story#38