Traveling with Kids

I just got back from a 5-day trip to Washington DC with my two kids (oh, my husband was there, too), and I have to say, it was quite an adventure. Traveling anywhere with my kids is an adventure by definition, but going to a place that is so full of historic, significant, important places is especially adventurous.

Even if you are not a parent, you probably have memories of going places with your family as a child. Perhaps your family was a bunch of exotic jet-setters who regularly traveled overseas; perhaps a "big adventure" in your family was a trip to Grandma's house on the other side of the state. But whoever you are, wherever and however you grew up, I'm certain that at some point you spent some time visiting a place other than your own home. When you're a kid, that's an adventure, no matter how far from or how near to home.

My kids are somewhere in the middle. At ages 7 and 9, they have already been on several cruises and they have multiple airplane trips under their belts. With various family members who live half the country away or on another coast (and, actually, in another country, although we haven't visited there yet), our family has good reason to travel regularly.

I love that my kids have already had so many opportunities to visit different places. We live in a typical east coast suburb, so I love visiting my Iowa family where there's a tree swing and a creek (pronounced "crick") in the backyard and they keep bees and have a pet bearded dragon. I also love visiting NYC where jaywalking means taking your life into your own hands and you learn to avoid the pushy characters in Times Square and the guys on the corner selling knockoff designer goods. I want my kids to understand that not everyone lives the same way that we do, and that's okay. I want them to see that some things are very different in other places and yet there are some things that are always the same. I love watching them find beauty everywhere we go, and also watching them learn how to be safe everywhere they go. For me, broadening my kids' horizons means letting them see the good and the bad of everywhere we go.

Washington DC is a particularly terrific place to take young kids, because there is such a ridiculously wide variety of things to experience. The most obvious are the museums and government buildings, but there is also the lineup of food trucks with every type of ethnic food you can imagine. There are Secret Service guys and FBI agents and motorcycle cops but there are also homeless people and beggars and visibly wounded veterans. There are cherry trees in full bloom and there are overflowing trash cans (although surprisingly few of the latter). There are festivals celebrating every ethnic holiday you can imagine, festivals celebrating every cause you can imagine, There is theatre and concerts and dance. There are protests. There are commemorations. You can watch the changing of the guard at Arlington National Cemetery or march in the LGBTQ parade. You can see a performance of Shakespeare, watch a hockey game, take a wine tasting class, attend candlelight yoga or tai chi or a bar crawl. Whatever you're into - or curious about - they've got it here.

My kids had no idea what they were getting into when they headed to DC with me and my husband. My husband is - let's be blunt - a history and government nerd, so everything turned into a civics lesson. We chatted about FDR and World War II, we talked about how Amelia Earhart and Rosie the Riveter changed the role of women, we learned about the USSR vs USA space race and the Iron Curtain and the Cold War. We enjoyed the beauty of the architecture in every building we saw - how each one was unique, yet they all had commonalities that tied them together and unified them. We discussed how that was symbolic of the USA itself, where each state had its own sense of uniqueness, yet each was still part of a unified whole. we thought about what unites us as a country, and what tears us apart.

We talked about life. We talked about big stuff. We talked about how people like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Wilbur and Orville Wright and Susan B. Anthony changed the world. We talked about how the world still needs to be changed. We talked about what their role  could be in making that change.

We had fun, but we also thought. Because, as we learned, "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."