I’m wondering if it will be different this time.
In just over a week, my husband Jeremy and I will take a vacation.
One could argue that it’s a working-vacation. We will be driving to Virginia, where for three intensive days we’ll be training to become certified American Canoe Association (ACA) canoe instructors.
One could imagine that I’d be nervous about the course. Like most canoeists in New York, I haven’t paddled since October. There’s an expectation that I’ll come ready not only to paddle but to teach. A million little things from inclement weather to the sudden onset of my period, now making irregular cameos every couple months, could trip me up.
But I’m thinking about leaving the kids.
Since the birth of Julian, our 14-year-old son, Jeremy and I have gone away overnight together exactly once, and that was three years ago, for my cousin Jeff and Peter’s wedding in California. The wedding was incredible, an event not to be missed, and I’m thrilled that we could be there.
But leaving our kids, for the first time without either of us staying home, was not easy, and it was anxiety provoking for me and Julian, who, of all our kids, appeared the most concerned about the logistics.
Will it be different this time?
Once again our dear friends, Lisa and her 18-year-old daughter Dina will take time out of their busy schedules, move into our home, and spend a long weekend with our kids. Lisa is like an aunt to them and Dina is a surrogate big sister. Indeed, it was after Dina had gone on vacation with our family when she was nine that Jeremy and I decided that we’d try to conceive a third child! Yael, who was born in 2013, might not exist had we not had so much fun with our “three” kids back in 2012!
Over this past year as we’ve sheltered in place due to the Covid pandemic, I have not heard of any parents who took off time together to vacation without their kids. But before Covid, I sensed that Jeremy and I were in the minority among our friends and acquaintances. Most parents I knew would take an occasional long weekend away, or even week-away, from their kids or pack them off to their grandparents for the weekend.
Growing up, my parents would send me and my sister to my paternal grandparents in Florida or have them visit our home in Bethesda, Maryland, for week-long stints to watch all of us, including my younger brother, while my parents travelled to far flung destinations. This time with my grandparents was precious: there were the nonstop games of Gin Rummy, mental telepathy, and Boggle, as well as trips to the beach with the powdered Lipton iced tea and late nights spent watching miniseries and movies that my grandmother had selected like The Thornbirds, Anatomy of an Illness, and Love Story.
But having our parents take care of all our kids at the same time has never been a viable option for us. Yes, we’ve sent our daughters to Jeremy’s parents, as well as to my sister’s, by themselves, but no one, save for Lisa and Dina, has watched all three kids at the same time. And, truth be told, for some of the time, I hire a sitter as well for backup support.
Does this have to do with Julian’s diagnosis of autism?
Yes, probably. As anyone with a special needs child will tell you, there are many hidden costs to having a child with a disability, and that is why programs like New York State’s Self Direction, which offers emotional and financial support, are so vital.
Then again, I am someone who always had a tough time outsourcing childcare to someone else, even before Julian was diagnosed.
Case in point: Back when Julian was a toddler and I was six months pregnant with Tamar, I won a pair of round-trip plane tickets anywhere in the world, with the one caveat that they had to be used within the year. I checked in with my OBGYN to ask if it would be safe for me to fly when I was 35 weeks pregnant, over MLK weekend, when Jeremy would have an extra day off from work. My obstetrician cautioned against it, advising, “Why don’t you wait until you’re six-weeks postpartum and then leave the kids with your parents?” I remember her laughing, “You’ll need a vacation by then.”
I knew she was trying to be helpful, but I also knew that weaning my baby at six weeks was not for me, personally. Though I had gotten pregnant with Tamar (and later with Yael) very quickly, it had taken us five very long years to get pregnant with Julian, so the idea of leaving my baby so soon after birth did not sit well with me. If I was going on a trip, my toddler was going to come with us, so at 35 weeks, Jeremy, Julian, and I flew to Puerto Rico for a restorative getaway, one month before I gave birth.
And that has pretty much been our modus operandi over the past 14 years. If we take a trip, the kids have gone with us; if we need a break from childcare, we’ve hired sitters and, in more recent years, relied on the kindness of friends. “It takes a village,” first popularized by Hillary Clinton, will never be a cliche for me, but always an aspirational mode of raising children. Without parents or siblings nearby, we’ve had to create our own village, in New York City and now in our new town in Rockland County.
Finding the moment to tell our kids something that could potentially be greeted with displeasure is part art, part skill. No wonder Dr. Michael Breus in his intriguing book The Power of When advises to talk to your kids based on what he calls “your patience peak,” which can be understood best if you know your chronotype or “time type.” As he explains, there are certain times of the day that are better suited to connecting with a young child versus a tween or teenager, and times might also differ based on whether the parent is a “lion,” “bear,” “wolf” or “dolphin” — his spectrum of chronotypes. For someone like myself, a “lion,” he cautions against trying to talk to my kids at night. In his words, “You will hit a patience wall by 8 or 9 pm.” For my husband, a “bear,” Breus advises, “Your patience peak is 4 pm on Sunday, after you’ve had morning sex, a big lunch, and a long walk.”
Coincidentally, we opted to tell Tamar, our 12-year old, this past Sunday afternoon, and that went well enough. She was disappointed to hear that we wouldn’t be bringing her on “vacation,” but happy to learn that she gets to spend several days with Dina and Lisa, both of whom are vaccinated.
But that was the easy sell. I expect that Yael, who has known Dina and Lisa since the second day of her life, will also be thrilled. It’s Julian who will be upset. Not because he doesn’t love them, but because we’re going away. If you read my piece on how he handled getting a Covid test, you have a fairly good idea of what’s in store for us. It has always been hard for Jeremy and me to leave him behind, be it when we went out together for an IEP meeting or for one of the three annual fundraisers at his former school, which more or less constituted our “date nights” over the past decade. The crazy reality is that during the Pandemic, I’ve been more social than in recent years, partly because now I don’t necessarily need to find a sitter in order to see my friends and colleagues on Zoom.
But I cannot hone my paddling skills in my house. One could argue that I could take a class closer to home, but instructor certification classes are rare, and the instructor with whom we’ll be working is excellent. I got to paddle with her a couple years ago at an ACA conference I attended by myself while Jeremy stayed home to watch our kids, how we usually manage childcare when one of us has an engagement that entails being away from home.
In the long run, I know this class, whether or not I get certified, will make me a better paddler and teacher which, in turn, will help me better teach my kids as well as other kids and adults at the ACA Camp of which we’ve been part for the past six years. It’s in that higher service to Julian and our community that we’re going to break the news to him and Yael this weekend, on Saturday, so they have two days to process it before school on Monday.
I recently asked Leah Love, the assistant director of Summit Camp, who holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology, what is the best way to inform a child with separation anxiety that they are going to attend sleep-away camp. Her excellent advice, which is also relevant here, was three-fold. First, ask “why?” Specifically, why are they concerned? Second, empathize. “Telling your child that it will be ‘fine’ is not going to be helpful,” she advised. Instead, let them know that you hear them and it very well might be difficult. Third, empower him/her/them. “Let him feel more in control,” she counseled me. In the case of our upcoming trip, this might mean letting Julian determine how long we’re going to be gone. Indeed, although the full canoe course is five days, we’re planning to stay for only three, but we could always add an additional day or two. Perhaps I should ask Julian how many days he prefers: three or five? Talking with Leah, I myself felt empowered to have this conversation.
Perhaps Julian will respond like a typical teenager with a shrug and sigh of relief to get a break from all the intense closeness brought on by this past year of sheltering together. It’s possible. But I’m also prepared for tears and a tantrum. In either case, I’m going to start packing our bags.