Editing that Bucket List

"WE NEED TO SAVE SOME EXPERIENCES FOR OUR KIDS TO HAVE ON THEIR OWN."

This completely new perspective came to me, courtesy of my girlfriend with children in their late teens. Her eldest is currently backpacking with friends in Europe. I was surprised when she told me that it's his first time in Europe. As a family, they have been on African safaris, explored all that New York City has to offer, and spent many ski seasons in Australia, Canada and US. How is it that she has never taken her kids to Europe, I wondered aloud, especially since she and her husband lived in London for a few years before they started a family.

My girlfriend explained that in the early years, the kids would have been too young to appreciate it, and in recent years, preferences and schedules of each family member resulted in other destinations taking priority. Then she added, "Besides, we need to save some things for them to experience on their own."

A lightbulb went on in my head. Yes, she's right! Until then, I had been quietly compiling a family "bucket list" of all the places to visit and things to see before my children grew up. I had become so enthused with the idea of witnessing all the "firsts" in my children's lives -- first words, first steps, first plane ride, first day of school, and on and on -- that I fully expected to selfishly grab as many more "firsts" as I could well into the distant future. I had forgotten that my role is to help my children forge their own paths, not to be holding their hands all the way down that path.

I happily recall the first trip that my husband and I took together. We had only been dating for a few months by then, and we chose Paris because I hadn't been and he thought I would love it. He was right, and the fact that it was my first visit to the City of Lights made it extra special for both of us. My husband loved playing tour guide while we visited landmark sites together; I suspect his level of enthusiasm would have been lower had I already known Paris well and went equipped with my own list of favorite restaurants and places.

Going further back in my fading memory, I remember my first time skiing. I went with my high school friends to a local mountain one wintry Saturday, and they taught me how to ski. My parents were not there to take photos nor cheer me on when I managed the bunny hill after a few attempts. In fact, I continued to go with my friends for years, progressing to night skiing after school and weekend trips to Whistler Mountain, and never once did my parents feel the need to be a part of this. My independent ski life did not diminish the closeness between my parents and me, but it did bring me so much closer to those friends who skied with me. Win-win.

No matter how wonderful any experience is, nothing ever beats the first time. And thus my mind wandered and I anxiously pictured my daughters ten, twenty years from now, with their "been there, done that" attitude when seeing a Broadway show with friends or gliding down a canal in Venice with a new romantic interest.

So I will need to edit that bucket list, and make the choice to save some travel and other experiences for my daughters to enjoy without me. My brain tells me this is a wonderful idea. My heart wants to say, "Sniff, sob."

[NB - I had wanted to finish off this entry with some book recommendations about children having adventures and first experiences without their parents, and realize that this is the premise of about 96% of all children's literature. We can start with Maurice Sendak's entire body of work, and move all the way through those great fictional characters who are recognizable by their first names: Alice, Pippi Madeline, Eloise, Huckleberry, Mowgli, Bod, and Ottoline.]

Doing Nothing

I feel like we've been on an extended summer break because my two kids have been home with various ailments for the better part of June. As soon as symptoms subsided, they started to tire of staying home. "I'm so bored," they would whine. I replied, "Boredom creates creativity," and left them to their own devices. Lo and behold, they quickly found things to keep themselves entertained, including solving a problem they were having with the lever mechanism of an old toy, and creating the lyrics to an original tune.

Every summer we return to Vancouver to visit my parents. And every June I start surfing the web to check out summer camps and other offerings. But I always manage to resist the urge to actually enrol in any of them. Perhaps I'm simply too lazy to drag my jetlagged body out of bed in order to get them to camp on time (flashback to July 2014 when we missed two out of five classes in one-week of ice-skating lessons that started at 1:00pm), although I would like to believe that I'm making a conscious decision to give them a schedule-free summer.

I spend the entire school year rushing my children through their day with military precision, and the entire household gets antsy when we're running behind schedule, especially at bedtime. It wouldn't be much of a holiday, for the kids as well as for me, if I had them on a schedule through the summer. In Vancouver, we can have breakfast whenever, and for however long, we want.

It's hard not to get caught up in the race to have my children acquire skills from an early age, and to devote hours to hone those skills. By not letting my children try new things in the summer, am I robbing them of the opportunity to discover some hidden talent they may have for Fencing or French, Cooking or Coding?

They have the rest of their lives to learn new sports and other activities. So these early years should be devoted to developing their sense of self. I want to give them time for unfettered play in the backyard (to intimately know that backyard and all its inhabitants), time to meet other kids in a public playground (even though they may never see them again), time to help with chores around the house (how can we teach by example if our kids aren't around us long enough to see the example we're setting?).

Grit, resilience, curiosity, integrity, EQ, AQ... I will do my best to nurture these soft skills in my children, and I'm pretty sure I can do a better job of it when I'm not shouting at them to "Hurry up!"

See my 2012 article recommending books about "Doing Nothing": http://ahwb-hk.blogspot.hk/2012/03/scmp-march-25-2012.html

Reminder to self: "Note every moment spent with my children needs to be educative or productive or a means toward some end." Deep breath. Ohmmmmm.

HAPPY SUMMER!