The True Importance of a Family Vacation

          The words came through the phone so fast that I didn’t fully receive them as they blew right by me. I paused and asked my college junior to repeat himself and I heard his news come spewing forth even more excitedly the second time. “I got an internship for this summer! I won’t be coming home.” The former news was undoubtedly newsworthy, but the latter was more so a statement of change. Inevitable, normal, expected, but heart racing change. At least for this dad. For my son is at college many states away and his chosen major requires the internship necessary for future success. I am proud of him and eager for him in all the ways that have led to this moment. He is my oldest and therefore the introduction into my later stages of parenting. Heck, he has been my introduction to every stage of parenting starting with the first diaper change. “I am not coming home,” is not a permanent statement of his residence. It is not a testament to his attitude towards his parents. It is not a refrain from future visits on future breaks, but it is a break from the summer routines of the last 21 years. Life is opening doors to him and he is growing up. As it should be. This proud papa still asks the obvious, “Where did the time go?”

            Rewind three years as he and I were road tripping it twenty-one hours cross country for his first year of college. Relying on the stereotypes, one might think that much time in the car for two males equates to about one hour of spoken (grunted) words and another twenty of simple oxygen and carbon dioxide transference. Luckily, this father son duo has a pretty open and conversational relationship, so the precious moments were captured and appreciated. I was curious and excited for my son in all the predictable ways, but I wanted to really flesh out what he was thinking as he made the Grand Canyon leap of faith into a new school, new state, making new friends, and newly independent from family. I created a rough list of 21 Questions that he obliged with direct, immediate, authentic, and sincere answers. No overthinking. Just honest. I asked him to look backwards through his life, capture it in words, and express in emotions that which he looks forward to in life. I asked for an honest appraisal of my parenting the last 18 years and I made sure the good and the bad were addressed all around. He revealed all that I thought I knew and that which I had no clue. Through his answers I was given a unique prayer list. Through his answers I was given content for countless future phone calls or text messages. He gave me the gift of himself, in memories, in reflection, and in ambition. The topics covered in the 21 Questions were varied but one that stands out in my mind at this moment is vacations.

            I am not sure your definition of a vacation, as it appears a vacation can take many forms. For some, a vacation may mean burying your laptop and cell phone in the back yard as a means to not be working. For others, it equates to any obligatory trip to visit family of the “cousin, aunt, uncle, great, or grand” category. Maybe your vacation requires the presence of a spa, room service, a balcony with a view, or anything you don’t have to make, clean or cook. I know some vacations involve intense action of high adventure treks where there is some level of uncertainty of finishing alive, or at least fully intact. Many downshift from that level of intensity and simply swing a club, a racket, or ski over some form of precipitation as a less dangerous form of activity. Others treat a vacation as a means to experiencing parts of the U.S. and the world in a way that no Google Image could ever capture. I would suggest that vacations are all that and more. But my favorite reason for the vacations is the memories. And that is exactly what I was hoping to extract from my son in that car ride all those years ago.

          Through my work I have had travel benefits that have blessed my family beyond measure. I have been able to expose my kids to not only our great country, but other countries as well. I patted myself on the back for taking my kids to “educational” and “historical” locations such as Washington D.C, only to have the air let out of my balloon years later when they tell me they don’t remember much from the trip. I guess that means dragging a 9- and 12-year-old to Arlington National Cemetery is less resounding to them than to their aging, Veteran Father. I didn’t feel too alone as I have heard a dad lament the fact that after taking out a ninth mortgage to pay for a Disney trip, his kids said their favorite thing was the hotel pool. Perhaps that was precisely my point when I asked my son Question # 12, “What was your favorite vacation and why?” We parents try so hard to vacation a life somewhere between fantasy and the Griswold Family Vacation, spending somewhere between our grandchildren’s’ inheritance and what we scrounge out from under the sofa cushions. All for what? Memories, I say. For as parents we give our kids love, support, encouragement, discipline, but also the incalculable currency of quality time. Vacations may serve no other purpose than to set aside time to have time.

            For most of us time marches on far more rapidly than we would like. As parents our lives are probably overscheduled, overcommitted, and overinvolved as we follow our hearts to our jobs, spouses, friends, kids, hobbies, and pets. Vacations are simply a break from the constancy of life. A place and time to invest time in a place. If your kids are in late Middle School and High School, the focus is probably college applications and capturing all of their talents into a one-page Resume. They are attending Sports Camps, taking Summer classes, working, volunteering, and prepping for the PSAT, ACT, SAT, (and EIEIO for that matter). Add a newly acquired driver’s license and time just kicked into warp drive. For parents in that season of life I can only say, “Don’t blink, or you will miss it.” Time does not feel linear as activities and beforementioned drivers license create less time together than ever before. It moves exponentially fast until one day you hear your child say, “I got an internship for this summer! I won’t be coming home.”

            You may have just a few summers left with your children under your roof. Send them off to college with memories. Memories of laughter, memories of new experiences, or memories of traditions. May they remember that for one brief period of time, they were told, and they were shown that they mattered above all else in your world. More than work, more than school, and more than our hobbies. The GPS coordinate of your Vacation matters not. What matters is the people present. Celebrate the journey as well as the destination. You just might be surprised at your child’s answer to Question #12.