Sustaining Wanderlust as a Parent
Some brief thoughts on travel in the early years of parenting.
One of my greatest fears in my twenties was having children. I confidently believed—as many adults and friends had warned me—that once you had kids, travel and adventure would come to a screeching halt or at least be put on pause for a long hiatus while you became mired in diapers, depression, and Disney tunes. And so, I was convinced that having a child would mean the death of something I held dear.
It turns out, this idea is deeply flawed. Whoever tells you that next, smile and nod politely, then get a second opinion. In general, be leery of those who advise you on “how things are going to be.” We’re all far more capable and resilient than we realize. Although it is certainly true that children will immediately sap your motivation and cripple your morale to do pretty much anything except stay home, this wanes over time. You soon build up some stout endurance for handling the unexpected—whether it is vomit all over the car, a sporadic fistful of macaroni and cheese thrown at your face, or catching your child ripping out your dog’s hair. Every day invites you into a micro world of managing mayhem.
But you endure, persevere, and become surprisingly adept at handling uncertainty, which is exactly what adventures also prime you for. So, if you can handle the crazy gauntlet of shit your child puts you through at home, you can handle them just about anywhere. It won’t always be joyful or easy planning and enacting adventures with children, but it will undoubtedly be memorable and important.
Before our son Walden was two, he was already quite the world traveler. His short tenure on earth had already taken him from the mountains to the desert to the sea—from Steamboat Springs, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, Mexico City, and the beaches of the Eastern Seaboard.
I wish I could take the credit for being the one to initiate those adventures, but I can’t. My wife Hilary has been the one to remind me, time and again, that adventures are never over, especially not because you have a child—that what sustains a person’s, and particularly a parent’s, wanderlust isn’t necessarily riches or a wealth of opportunity, but having the right attitude, imagination, and guts to make it all happen.
And—as I argue in my book—adventures need not be elaborate or exotic, distant or remote, life-threatening or foolhardy. Neither are adventures necessarily something solely entitled to the extreme risk-takers of the world or the well-to-do elites. They can simply be in the backyard, one’s hometown, the next county over, a neighboring state, or virtually anywhere that changes our perception of something. As Thoreau once said, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” Maintaining one’s wanderlust has to do with being aware of what opportunities are available to you and your willingness to be creative and receptive to those opportunities.
Adventure is normally about doing something we might be nervous or afraid to do. This is an especially challenging mindset to cultivate as a new parent because the moment your child is born, we become obsessively risk averse. We desperately want to protect and preempt any of their behaviors that could lead to harm. And so, we must find the right balance between being oppressive “helicopter” parents and aloof “free-range” parents in a seemingly chaotic and frightening world. But know that you do have it in you to venture out and face challenges.
What Hilary and I have discovered so far to work in our favor is to select environments that allow Walden to explore as independently as possible without having to constantly monitor, redirect, or abruptly tell him “No!” or “Stop!” We don’t always succeed, but we are getting better at it. Towns and cities with plenty of green spaces including established parks, forests, botanical gardens, zoos, and children’s museums naturally captivate and stimulate kids and are easy choices for parents. But we also push ourselves to take road trips to state and national parks and have learned to anticipate that things will take longer, be more stressful than we’d like, and there will always always always be vomit.
That said, there are also times in our lives when we should consider investing in grander adventures. Removing ourselves from the entire routine and familiarity of a place is unsettling but proves to be an important exercise in one’s adaptiveness and resilience. Traveling abroad or taking a backpacking trip or cross-country road trip or whatever similar adventure that suits a person and their family can be foundational not just for us, but for our children.
Taking Walden on his first flight by myself to meet Hilary in Las Vegas, where she was stationed for a work conference, filled me with incredible dread and anxiety. I had little to no idea what I was doing with a six-month-old infant as I tried to juggle flight delays, formula bottles, dirty diapers, excess luggage, a car rental, navigating the transit bus network and repeatedly securing the car seat. Finally, exhausted, I stumbled through the smoky Paris casino in the Bally’s hotel before meeting up with Hilary to eat overpriced burgers in the bathroom of our room so Walden could get some long-overdue sleep. Why inflict this sort of hell on ourselves you may ask? Because I knew what lay ahead for us on the trip. We’d be going on some exceptional hikes in Sedona, Arizona and witnessing the stunning beauty of the Grand Canyon. In the end, it was worth it because we proved to ourselves that we can make these kinds of trips happen. And so we then realized maybe we could withstand more extensive trips. And so shortly after, we decided to explore his first international destination, Mexico City.
Having children and learning how to incorporate them into your weird mix of wondering and wandering might just be the best recipe for attaining a fulfilling life. I believe the definition of adventure should not be exclusively applied to a narrow range of activities or experiences but is best thought of in terms of being a mindset, philosophy of life, or form of experiencing. I believe it is a parent’s duty to inculcate wonderment and adventure into the lives of their children as early as possible. And the sooner you start training for it, the easier it will become for you as well.
Even though it’s become a tacky quote that’s on some kitschy piece of wood in everyone’s house these days, there is something I like about the words “Every day is an adventure.” It’s simple and it reminds you daily that your mindset can powerfully determine the outcome of not just the day ahead but your entire life. Do not let the fears of others dictate your life. And never let anyone tell you that your adventures are over, for whatever reason. To throw you another cliché for the day—in a lot of ways, your adventures are always just beginning.
Thanks for being a fellow traveler with me through this read. Much more to follow.
Cheers!
-JSB