5 reasons to travel with young children

It is debatable on many accounts whether it is worthwhile to travel with children who are under the age of, well, under the age of being able to carry their own luggage. In fact, two of our three children are in the stage where they often still become the luggage.

One of the biggest reasons NOT to travel with young children has to be the sheer number of germs they pick up and ruthlessly spread throughout the family. In our first week as nomads after leaving Basel, we all ended up with a respiratory cold, a case of conjunctivitis that spread its goopy mess with slow proficiency from eye to eye, a stomach virus, and our family's very first case of lice. Which subsequently turned into our second, third, and fourth case of lice. We seemed to be breeding a variety of insecticide-resistant bugs and I was clearly a novice at getting rid of it. I’ll be happy if I never see another louse in my lifetime.

The moment of true test came while stuck in traffic on our way to the airport. We thought the little guy had recovered from his stomach virus, but I had to make a mad dive into the back seat to catch his projectile vomit in a handy plastic bag. It was a moment that does not need to be described in detail. When he was once again settled, and wiped down with someone's discarded sweater, I sat back anxiously wondering if we were actually going to catch our airplane on time as our car crawled forward in morning city traffic. It takes an awful lot of courage to face some of our travel days.

Traveling with little children (ages 3, 5, and 8 to be exact) is hard on so many levels, even without all of the contagious bugs. Should we have waited until our children were old enough to, say, catch their own vomit in a bag?

Despite some logistical headaches, this adventure has been TOTALLY WORTH TAKING with young children. Outside of the germs, here are 5 reasons why we have loved our travel time with little kids and I highly recommend that you seize your own opportunity rather than waiting until they are older.

1. Seeing Less, Experiencing More
“Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don’t pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home.”

– from "The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg.

Experiencing a new culture is largely about the art of being present in the moment, something young children are already better at than adults. Kids take it all in, more naturally letting the moment permeate who they are.

Admittedly, having young children does not work with every travel style. Children don’t allow the hike-20-miles-around-town-seeing-sights kind of trip. Or the sit-quietly-in-a-restaurant-enjoying-fine-cuisine kind of trip. Or the stay-out-late-enjoying-night-life-then-sleep-in-the-next-morning kind of trip. Or even the see-a-new-city-every-day kind of trip.

We adapt. Days with lots of walking have to be sandwiched between days of playing at the park. The difference is that the park might be at the foot of the Swiss Alps or on the coast of the Mediterranean. And the park is an amazing place to simply be present while munching on a local specialty pastry, to practice our developing language skills, and to collect stories from locals about the best places to experience authentic culture.

Wallis Valley, Switzerland

A travel style that values culture over famous monuments can be done well with small children. It will come home with us on the inside, rather than through touristy trinkets or photos.

Carnival Parade, Sion, Switzerland

2. Meeting People
I mean, would you be able to ignore this face?

Everywhere we go, we meet people because we have children. We don't blend in. We attract strangers who are social, or lonely, or talkative, or friendly, or simply curious. Also, we look like we need a lot of help.

Having children somehow breaks the ice, and relationship begins. We have collected email addresses and hotel cards and phone numbers and mailing address and websites from sincere and welcoming people located all over the globe. The interactions we have with strangers are completely different now than they were before we had children...
different, deeper, better, making our experience richer overall.


3. Family Bonding
Our kids are each other's best friends. They argue like crazy, they giggle without stopping, they hurt each other's feelings, and they always go back for more. The private jokes they share are absolutely ridiculous, but they are proof of the deep friendships forming between them.

Cuevas de Arta', Mallorca, Spain

As adults, too, we are forced to more fully engage in each new experience together, creating the deep kind of bonding I have always longed for in my family. For a reason I may not understand, when we are at home in our more routined daily life it is easier to go our separate ways without making the quality or quantity time bonding takes.

We also joke that this trip has been like “parenting boot camp” for us because we are confronted with our children’s needs and less-than-desirable responses at all times with no break. Did I mention that it is exhausting? The upside is that the kids are getting all of this positive attention coupled with consistent discipline, and the miraculous effect is beginning to bring out the best in them.

Fussen, Bavaria, Germany

Friends will come and go, but family is forever. Adventuring together cements the friendship bonds we can carry with us for the rest of our lives.


4. World Schooling
With our oldest in 3rd grade, we are on the cusp of all the pressures that come with education... standardized testing and common core and grade point averages. Before we know it there will be all the pre-requisites for university applications to keep in mind... aaahh!

This is a sweet, and short, season when learning can be less structured. If it turns out that my children are behind in math when we return, there should still be time for them to catch up! (I hope.) It is increasingly evident that this kind of learning flexibility only gets harder the older they get.

Whether our kids return at grade level or not, the things they have learned this year cannot be measured on a standardized test. We will never be able to quantify what this experience taught our children or ourselves, but they are lessons that cannot be duplicated in a classroom.

Eiffel Tower, Paris, France

5. Making Global Citizens
I feel hesitant to make an example out of our most recent Unites States election, but it was an unforgettable experience to be overseas throughout the months of the political campaigns and election. Sadly, the overwhelming impression left upon the outside world is that Americans know very little and care very little about the rest of the globe. We value reality television, preserving our personal wealth, and jumping on any fear train the media presents. We don’t value integrity or fighting poverty or using our status as a global superpower to make the world a better place through peaceful methods.

There is a tendency to believe that our political messes are a sort of private household secret that only Americans are privy to. It might surprise the average person in the U.S. to know exactly how much the average person around the globe is watching... not just our movies and television programs, but our news, our political debates, our policies, and our election. Have you ever followed the election of another country’s leader, feeling your own nail-biting suspense at how the outcome might affect you? With great power comes great responsibility.

Identifying as a global citizen is about valuing our role on the globe rather than only the micro-community we were born into. A global community includes people who are innately different in colors and customs, in likes and languages, in traditions and tastes, in foods and festivals, in religion and relational styles.

This year of living and traveling abroad has introduced my children to the realities of being the one who is "different". And then the concept of befriending others despite differences. It it the beginning of their global citizenship.

None of us can choose which country we are born in, but all of us can choose what we do with that privilege. We are just a few human beings sharing one globe with a whole bunch of other different human beings.

Travel has to be one of the greatest classrooms for character growth. This year has transformed us as much as it has our children. Despite our own experiences, the learning ground isn't limited to a lengthy trip in a foreign country. Ultimately, the things we learn come from allowing adventures into our lives that breach our comfort zone and allowing them to penetrate into the deep place that changes us.

Sion, Switzerland

Voralberg, Austria

Schwimmbad antics

Feeding the pigeons, Notre Dame, Paris, France

Brussels, Belgium

in memoriam: einar vestbakken negaard

Today would have been the 94th birthday of my father-in-law, who passed away just under 6 weeks ago. We would like to honor and remember through this guest post written by my husband, Christian, about his father.

In Memoriam:  Einar Vestbakken Negaard

March 7^th, 1923 in Finnskogen, Hedmark, Norway - January 27^th, 2017 Santa Barbara, California, USA

On a snowy morning, high on an alp in Canton Wallis, Switzerland, I contemplate the life and soul of my father, and the lingering influences of him upon me and I dwell deeply upon the legacy one life leaves upon another.  I feel compunction to honor his memory and share this amazing life story of 93 years, full of paradox, contradiction and sometimes extremes.  Men like him just aren’t made anymore, and perhaps that’s just as it should be?  Einar is an old Norse name for warrior, and I think my dad could not live this down, his name defined him in many ways.  He was “old world” and Viking to the very core.

But I wonder why despite his vigor and energy he was always “old and traditional” in his views.  He loved music and dancing but never thought much about Elvis or the Beetles. His taste was Lawrence Welk and the polka.  Most all the anecdotes throughout his life dwelt upon his Norwegianess and the first 25 years of his life.  He was stuck in retrospection, he was a sentimentalist and not a dreamer.  He saw Norway as utopia, yet he was much too outspoken, critical and unfiltered to make a successful Norwegian, he could never really go back.  His early life was a show of sparks, his Viking character was subjected to forge and hammer.  

His humanity spanned from super human to super flawed, hence I’m finding that summarizing such a life is a difficult assignment to do justice to.  Therefore, I will consider 3 defining paradoxes of my father with some illustrations.  These 3 paradoxes are vulnerability and tenacity, frugality and generosity, and pessimism and idealism.

Vulnerability:  Born into family Vestbakken in a place and time when surnames described your origins, he faced poverty and hardship his entire youth.  He was conceived out of wedlock, and had to bear the duty of the first-born son. This was the heavy burden upon his young life adding to his complicated relationship with his own father.  He could never fully reconcile and escape the pull of these immutable attributes.  He conquered the external and environmental adversity (just move to California) but always wrestled with the internal foes set into motion at a young age.  In fact, he took so much compassion upon himself that he could not recount these details without sobbing.  He never fully escaped the psychological bondage this had upon him.  Yet, at the same time I have never known someone who so readily broke into silly childhood songs.  These were always just under the surface, and when gazing upon my children something happy was illuminated within him, and therapeutically he sang to them in Norwegian, something ridiculous and light.

Tenacity:  My Farfar (father’s father) Petter was a woodcutter, which was a hard way to put food on the table. Families needed cash, crops and livestock for bartering.  This was infinitely difficult post World War I in a global depression, and food was therefore always scarce.  To grow up as the oldest of 9 children with food shortage has a profound influence upon one’s psyche.  Factor in the absence of the “basics” of electricity, refrigeration, flushing toilets etc. and you realize a child’s destiny is to start work young, and few finish school.  In fact, my dad’s formal education stopped at 8^th grade, which is almost incomprehensible?  But when you are sleeping 4 children to a bed you leave home early to support your family. 

Dear reader can you grasp the different world that this was?  Toughness is fist-fighting for shear recreation and competitive skiing and running.  Dad could climb stairs walking on his hands (all true).  He could carry a 300 lb bathtub up to the second floor by himself.  I think it is fair to say he had an ability to tap into a crazy amount of determination.  He could have lived happily one thousand years ago as a Viking.  I can picture him sitting in an open boat in the rain for days, eating half spoiled fish for three meals, and laughing about it.  I don’t recall him EVER being sick from work, none of us do?  Somehow he never really felt physical pain the way the rest of us do, no headaches, backaches and so forth.  He was so stoic he could go to the dentist and have his teeth drilled without anesthetic. It took tenacity taking a boat to America in 1950, with a small suitcase and almost no money in your pocket, working on your aunt’s house in Minnesota to cover room and board.

Frugality:  Besides farming and fishing, his early life entailed fixing what was broken.  They cobbled things together during and after the war.  This was his first job in Oslo as a young man.  Handyman was the means he supported three younger siblings and gave them the chance to develop their talents and pursue educations.  They even shared clothes and shoes.  Wasting was viewed as a mortal character flaw, and for the remainder of his life could not throw food away.  Fortunately, God gave him the best cast-iron stomach on the market.  He honestly could eat vast quantities of half spoiled food, and you would sit and marvel.  Only once this failed him at 85 as he proved he could not actually eat like a wolf. He ended up with a self-induced case of pancreatitis after consuming all the fat trimmings from a beef roast.

Generosity:  He was the neighbor who did your plumbing urgently on a Sunday and wouldn’t consider charging you.  I became the son who would clean out the gutters for a little old lady, and dad would make me take the 5 dollars back.  Neighbors don’t charge for neighborliness.  In medical school we were a house of six white collar kids and one blue.  Yet, I was the only kid that had my medical school paid in full by good ole’ dad.  I still marvel at this and don’t for a second take it for granted.  Thank you, Dad (and Mom!).

Pessimism:  In many ways he always struggled with a sense of inferiority.  And he recognized the rank that a college education gave a person.  He saw himself as an underdog, and I believe could not grasp the concept of his own manifest destiny.  This was in spite of a tremendous amount of financial comfort in the end.  But since he struggled until about 50, and worked until 70 he never felt successful in the worldly sense. His self-perception for himself and often others was pessimistic.  I think this stemmed from his own internal discontent?  In his heart he always championed the underdog, even politically, and had distaste for the elite. Yet he knew his life was not in vain, and he was truly a self-made man.

Idealism:  He basically idolized his very godly mother, who was a charismatic among Lutherans, and her unconditional love for him was a sustaining force even after her passing.  Again he couldn’t talk about her without sobbing.  In my boyhood I adjusted to this, but as a man I realized there was unnatural pain in his soul.  At age 14 he left home to begin supporting his family.  He worked at a Christian retreat center, and had a powerful conversion experience.  He had a life-long love and respect for God, but tragically could never grasp God’s grace for himself.  This was a great internal battle for him, feeling unacceptable in God’s eyes. 

In the Bible it says…” from whom much is given, much is expected “(Luke 12:36).  But what do we expect from those who have been given so little?  Are not our successes really contextual to the elements we have to succeed?   Work ethic, capital, ability to save, intuition and luck, interpersonal skills, and our personality all determine our ability to achieve.  I would say my dad reached the finish line with an extraordinary amount of success.  Considering the headwinds of his nature and nurture, his internal milieu was so complex to overcome.  Nonetheless we as his family never ran out of forgiveness.  His marriage survived where nearly all would have failed. 

In his final years, he had the added luck of not just the external comforts, but the gift of sound mind and body to live independently at home (with my mom’s help) until he was nearly 94.  In his last 3 months he had “soul satisfaction” and said many times, “I have received more than I ever deserved”. This man who was so critical TO the end, was not able to see the liabilities IN the end?  He adored and loved my mom those final months, and said so.  Honestly, it was a miracle that we all covet.  The miracle of a peaceful, pain-free and satisfied finish.  Other than his failing vision he complained of just cold feet and not much appetite. 

This old Viking could finally rest in his last days.  His undaunting spirit of industry put to rest.  His incessant struggle for having everything set to his particular bias vanished.  To finally give up control, be present, rest in the moment, and express love was a gift to us.  He knew he would die soon, was waiting for it, and in his readiness fell asleep to never wake again. We are grateful for the blessing of his unique and extraordinarily complex life, for the investments he made in us, and the miraculous final moments.  In watching someone die, and let go, and transition to the next existence we are thankful for the spirituality it stirs within us.  What are the purposes to our own existence, and how does this frame our duties?   How do we answer the questions to our own inadequacies, and walk in compassion towards ourselves and others?  By observing death we are confronted by our thoughts of God and the meaning of holiness in the universe and our own brief moment of significance.  Is not a heart that bears witness to dying enriched to live better?  

Dear Dad, you always found a way to give out of poverty.  Even in your final weeks, you gave gratitude and peace, and wanted nothing.  This is a noble life.

Trivia:

1. He had an incredible memory for people, relatives, stories and song lyrics.  He could tell the same story 100 times.

2. At age 10 he broke his femur ski jumping and was in traction for 3 months.  It was an era of no antibiotics and he could have been an amputee.  His leg never fully healed right, yet he went on to be competitive in running and skiing events.  At 87 this same infection began to spontaneously drain the staph aureus in the bone had been there decades long.

3. As kids, he and another brother once saved a third from falling into a frozen lake.

4.  He bought his dad his first horse, then car.  He bought and then delivered the family’s first bicycle (after riding it 100 miles). And bought his mom her first washing machine, at about 50 (this made sense once the electricity came!)

5.  To be Vestbakken meant stingy.  He felt his grandpa was miserly, and though not uncommon then, they changed their surnames to the name of the farm (Negaard).  Family trees are complicated in Scandinavia.

6.  He was a bachelor a long time before he met my mother on vacation in Germany.  Married at 41, he secretly always wanted to be younger, and lied about his age by 3 years.  Medicare still thinks he is 91?

7.  He almost died at 80, like the stoic idiot he was he sat through the night with chest pain, waiting for the doctor’s office to open. Emergency stenting saved his life.  Despite the massive heart attack, he never had long term congestive heart failure.

8.  He was a news junky and loved McNeil Lehrer Report, he also loved watching Dancing with the Stars.

9.  He spoke “5 languages”, though this make me laugh a little because, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are awfully close.  Nonetheless it is clear he had a knack for learning language.

10.  Hugging was always a show of strength, he would squeeze you till it hurt, and you thought a rib might break.

11.  Chopping wood and building fires was his number one therapeutic activity.

12.  He loved to grow and nurture fruit trees.  My brother and I keep this legacy alive.

13.  He loved pickled herring, and rutabagas and other Norse “ethnic” food.

14.  and many other quirks….