with Britt Reints
Forget the 9 to 5; Full Time, All the Time is a blog about the mobile working life - when you have the freedom to work from anywhere and the responsibility of always having your smartphone turned on. Britt Reints works as a freelance writer while traveling fulltime in an RV with her husband and two kids. She explores balancing real-life bills with an unconventional work life, and finding time to maintain relationships with family and friends.
You can also find Britt at InPursuitOfHappiness.net.
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When my husband and I decided to move from Iowa to Florida a few years ago, we knew that meant giving our children a different growing up experience than we had. Instead of snow days and piles of leaves, they’d have beaches and possible hurricane evacuations. We considered it a fair trade. These days we’re asking our kids to give up even more, and I’m not always sure I’m comfortable with our decision.
This year would have marked my son’s first year of middle school. He would have had his first locker combination and his first school dance. Instead, he’s spent the first half of the school year traveling around the eastern half of the United States. Sure, he’s seen Niagara Falls and been to New York City, but I’m not so sure an almost-12-year-old boy appreciates tourist attractions over school yard drama. At the same time, I know exactly zero adults who would willingly relive junior high. Perhaps I’m doing him a favor by giving him an alternative lifestyle during these traditionally awkward years.
My daughter is in first grade. I don’t remember anything significant about first grade, including the name of my teacher, but that doesn’t mean I don’t agonize over what she’s missing. Would she have had a best friend? Her first crush? Is she missing out on not being able to walk home or ride her bike around the neighborhood?
My worry is that I don’t know how this turns out, where this is this unexpected version of childhood. I know what I experienced and I have always been prepared to coach my kids through something similar when the time came, but I have no idea what issues may arise from living as a mobile family at the age of 6 or 12. It’s scary enough to lead myself into unknown territory; it’s downright terrifying to push my kids down a brand new path.
Of course, I do it anyway. I guess at what I think they’ll miss and what I hope they’ll gain and weigh the two columns against each other, making nothing more than a hypothesis when it comes to decision time. I imagine it’s similar to what my mom did when she decided to go back to school with three children at home. Somehow that helps. After all, I turned out just fine.
Mostly.
There will undoubtedly be times when they will resent you for the choices you made for your family and they won’t hesitate to throw it in your face. But that would be true no matter what those choices were! I have 22 and 20 year olds who have and still resent some of the choices their father and I made. That’s the way it is. I also have 6 month old twins and no matter how perfect I imagine the future to be, and no matter what changes I make to my parenting style, I know I will doubt and maybe even regret some decisions. I have to hold on to the conviction that I make choices that I believe at that time to be in the best interest of our whole family. I hope you’ll be able to hold on to that conviction as well.
MrsJennyK | November 2nd, 2011 at 10:38 am
I hear you. There is no secret recipe for the collection of experiences that makes a well-adjusted person.
My daughter didn’t go to school in a classroom with a teacher until the very end of fourth grade. Then we moved at the end of fifth grade, and she entered middle school in a new town in a gifted program. Now she is in college - and she has really strong adaptive muscles. That’s a good thing in college.
A friend of hers also homeschooled until middle school, then moved around a bit. That girl is attending a college in LA, and is on a study abroad year now, roaming Europe at every chance. Again - really strong adaptive muscles, along with a curiousity - and comfort - with new experiences.
Despite my best efforts, my daughter is an only child. I wonder more about how growing up as a single will affect her life and future and happiness. No one else will ever know how absolutely crazy and unreasonable her parents are. But she doesn’t know any different - she has nothing to compare it to.
And that is the nature of the parenting beast: we ALL wonder if we are doing right by our kids, if we have given them the “right” experiences and traditions and memories, if they will be good, happy people as a result.
I think the best thing is to love them. And listen to them. And love them so more. And then do what you can to be happy and passionate and involved in your own life, because that is a fantastic example for your kids.
(Apparently, your post pushed my talk button.)
Jet Harrington | November 2nd, 2011 at 11:23 am
No matter what we do for our kids, we’ll always wonder about what we didn’t do, or couldn’t do. No matter what we choose, we’ll always wonder about what was missed. That’s the way of parenthood.
Megan | November 2nd, 2011 at 11:42 am