MIRAMICHI, New Brunswick — Three rounds of mini-golf, three free-for-alls at Tim Horton’s and seven ice cream shop stops. Plus jet ski and golf cart rides, pools and hot tubs, card games and way too much time on their phones.
That’s how I tried to keep my kids happy on a two-week, 2,700-mile road trip through Maine, the Canadian Maritimes and Quebec City, where they endured too many antique towns, too many lighthouses and too many hours in our Honda Pilot. The reward: days of fun with relatives they’d never before met.
My mom’s cousins live in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and my family had visited them when I was 12 and 19. I have wonderful memories of their warmth in welcoming us, and I wanted to give my kids the same experience. Plus, there were so many things I wanted to see, and appreciate, as a grown-up.
If we didn’t do this two-week family trip now, we likely never would. That’s because my kids are 12 and 14, embarking on school sports and jobs and plans with their friends.
You’ve probably seen the memes on social media, that you get only 18 summers with your kids. And there are only 10 weeks out of school in a summer.
August is impossible, with high school sports. July had camps for both kids. And so it was June, even though my son had to miss high school preseason practices for soccer and hockey and loops of golf caddying. My daughter skipped three swim meets.
But we’ll never have this time again.
With only a few more years to build the pedestal they’ll launch their lives from, I want to connect them with their extended family, expand their perspectives, give them a wide base of cultural understanding. I want them to be kind. I want them to feel like they belong.
And I want to spend time with them while they’re still here.
So my husband and I took two weeks off work. I didn’t check my email. I basically used my phone only for photo taking, itinerary planning and mapping. And I focused on sharing an adventure with my family.
Research has shown that knowing family history – especially learning about the challenges older generations have overcome – helps kids develop identity, self-esteem and resilience.
Plus, it’s just cool.
In Shortts Lake, Nova Scotia, my kids met my mom’s cousin, Frank, who looks remarkably like their Uncle Frank. (In our Dutch clan, there are a lot of repeated names.) Their branch of the family couldn’t get over how much my daughter resembled her second cousin-once-removed.
Related: Cousin crews are the best — but they’re shrinking
And we all laughed when Frank ran out of gas in his boat, right when I was waterskiing.
Nearby, in Halifax, we toured the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, where my Opa landed in 1951. We looked up his ship and saw the cursive records that marked his name and final destination of Wyoming, Ontario, where he and my Oma raised my mom and six siblings.
In Metepenagiag Heritage Park in Red Bank, New Brunswick, we learned about the lives of the Mi’kmaq people before European settlers arrived. Then, as the sun sunk behind the Miramichi River, we jetskied and swam and laughed with cousins who felt instantly comfortable.
I believe these experiences can contribute the mortar of my kids’ pedestals. And that they’ll mean more to my kids’ sense of self than a few swim meets.
That doesn’t mean they’re easy. Teenagers are not shy to let you know they’re bored or annoyed or disappointed. When they’re sick of museums or they don’t like a restaurant menu or they’d rather be home with their friends.
Experts say engaging teenagers in vacation planning, including picking the destination and activities, can help smooth over sulking. So could letting your kids sleep in and go off on their own. Or planning a trip with your kids’ friends in the future.
I can tell you that not every moment of a family vacation is scrapbook-worthy. And that informing your kids that traveling is a privilege generally does not improve the situation.
But, fingers crossed, it will all be worth it — not just for the donuts.
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