The Bruner Family Journey: "Why Did We Have To Go On This Stupid Trip Anyway?!"

A couple of friends have asked for more posts about the personal, day-to-day aspects of our year-long journey. So here goes. And of course we'll try to add more posts as we flail along on this roller-coaster adventure.

It is indeed a roller-coaster. As we alluded to in an earlier post, children aren't always comfortable with dramatic life-altering transitions that involve leaving all of their friends, toys and favorite boardgames behind. Also, as most parents can attest to, children feel things very intensely – and experiences can veer very quickly from being the most incredible and wonderful thing in the whole wide world, to being the most horrible and tragic affliction that any child has ever been forced to suffer...and by the way you are the worst mother/father that any child could ever have and don't ever talk to me again, unless you are giving me something that I really want, like ice cream or a new toy.

Neither Eden nor I has any background in child psychology, but we have been able to discern with a scientific level of accuracy that this phenomenon is particularly prevalent in near-five-year-olds. To put it simply, traveling with someone in that age group, as wonderful and fulfilling as it is, seems at times like traveling with a mini-version of a totalitarian dictator gone completely mad. “I want potato chips and you must buy them for me at once.” [After a reminder about being polite and saying please, a bag of potato chips is bought, then opened.] “Why did you buy me potato chips?! I don't like them and I won't eat them. You are mean, terrible parents. You don't care about me. I want pretzels. You must buy them for me at once, or I shall cry and shriek at the very top of my lungs for the whole ride home.” [Paraphrasing.] All this only an hour after the same person stated explicitly on the record (well, I am a lawyer): “You are such great parents for taking us all around the world.” [That's an exact quote.]

At home in California, this type of behavior is one thing. But on the road as we are, being all together as a family at times on a 24-7 basis, the challenges are magnified and become more frequent. And it is an another thing altogether as darkness descends two miles from the Lebanese border – many hours from our apartment and exhausted, hot and sweaty – when someone who shall remain nameless lies down on the sidewalk, flailing and screaming, steadfastly refusing for some unknown reason to get into the car.

Ok, it's time to go home now

We recently did an hour-long hike (a leisurely, kid-friendly stroll) in one of Israel's many beautiful national parks. It involved wading waist-high through a cold stream (more on that in a subsequent blog post). Talia (ok, she's won't remain nameless anymore) liked it so much (“this is the most fun I've ever had in my whole life”), she demanded quite insistently that we do it again – before lunch. So, off we went, when about 20 minutes into the second pass, she stopped walking and declared, with great sadness and trouble in her face: “I'm cold, I'm tired and I'm hungry and I don't want to do this anymore. I want to go home right now! Carry me!” I tried to explain that we had to walk back through the water to our car, which apparently was not the correct answer. She then vigorously questioned my parenting skills, as I did not have a change of dry clothes and a hot, delicious meal immediately ready for her, standing there waist-high in the middle of the stream. Somehow, I should have foreseen that the second hike would not be as engaging as the first.

An older child presents different challenges, but some of these challenges seem part of the same larger phenomenon. There is, of course, the upside – when camaraderie, fun and humor are in the foreground. We have done a lot of touring (mainly because there was no school in August and a lot of vacation in September due to the Jewish holidays), and Jeremy seems genuinely to enjoy many of the sites we visit. He goes off to explore on his own with his camera in hand (he's taken some great pictures), or sometimes we go together, with him leading the way.

Daddy's tired, but Jeremy's not done touring yet

We were recently at a medieval fortress in northern Israel, when I said I was getting tired and it was time to join Eden and Talia in the shaded cafe area. Jeremy quickly retorted: “I'm the tour guide now and you have to come with me to make up for all the times you've dragged me to all those sites you wanted to see!” (Maybe he's going to be a lawyer just like his daddy.) As we went along, exploring every single nook and crevice of the fortress, Jeremy joyfully mocked me, as he imitated a PBS narrator: “The architectural details of the blah, blah, blah. Built in the year 1350 blah, blah, blah. The culture and history of the blah, blah, blah.” Touché.

But at some point in the day, the fun wears off and there's a dramatic turnabout. “Why did we have to go on this stupid trip anyway? I hate this trip and you're bad parents for taking us. And why is Israel so hot?! Let's go to England right now, where it's cooler and they speak English!” How could one so thoroughly detest what one so thoroughly enjoyed only an hour ago? Ah, the vicissitudes of traveling with young children.

The bottom line is that the kids really bring out the highs and lows of this kind of adventure. The good moments are the greatest, happiest times one could imagine, while the not-so-good moments present the ultimate challenge to positive thinking and supportive parenting. So, my advice for anyone foolhardy enough to think of following in our footsteps: Savor the good moments, be prepared for the bad ones, and know that whatever you are experiencing at any given instant, it's going to change – more quickly and dramatically than you think.